News Articles

I’ve been experimenting with sugarcane as part of my backyard food forest in 10a . It’s been thriving with very little input, and I made a video walking through how I grow, harvest, and propagate it. Figured I’d share in case anyone’s considering adding sugarcane to their permaculture setup. Open to tips or feedback!

I’m about to plant 12 hazelnut bushes, 22 chestnut trees, and a few rows of mixed berries. Originally I was planning on applying bark mulch annually to suppress weeds, but I’m interested in opinions here on whether white Dutch clover would be a good cover crop to plant in the rows of the bushes and trees to keep the more unruly weeds down and help rejuvenate the soil. It seems like there are a fair number of up sides, but before I commit, I was hoping for some experienced advice from this group.

My only major concern is keeping the clover from spreading too much to the surrounding areas. I’m also curious if clover cover can take the place of mulch, or if mulch is still recommended around these plants to begin with.

I’m in zone 5b.

Hi all, posting looking for advice. My MIL insisted on hiring a lawn guy for our new place. She told him to work on removing our English ivy overgrowth and asked to avoid spraying.

Today I found the lawn guy spraying a heavy layer of some herbicide all over the property, and learned that this was second time everything’s been coated. He refuses to tell me which herbicide it was.

What remediation steps should I take? I had hoped to compost some of the fallen leaves and non-ivy invasive plants around the property, but now it’s all drenched in mystery herbicide. I had rented goats to munch on the ivy previously, and they did such a great job I was going to rent them again, but now they can’t be on the property. I’m feeling pretty lost as this seems to be a nontrivial hitch in my plans. I was hoping to slowly replace the ivy with native species.

Any advice is appreciated!

I planted this “49er” female Hardy kiwi about a month ago after it came in the mail from the nursery. It took a couple weeks for it to put on new growth but it had these big beautiful green leaves that looked amazing just a couple days ago, and now they are wilted and rotten looking. We’ve had just a touch of cold weather (32°F) but these are Hardy kiwi after all. The ground seems not too waterlogged and not too dry. Any suggestions or explanations?