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It’s grown out of an old compost pile and I think it’s at least 8 years old, or even older. I’m thinking nectarine or peach but it could also possibly be avocado? Abby help would be greatly appreciated!

I want to plant more fruit trees on my hillside and I plan to keep them trimmed back to be small. Currently there are avocado trees planted kinda center of the hill.

How close can I plant trees to the retaining wall without risking damaging the wall?

Also if you have any favorite fruit tree recs. Would love em. Zone 10a. Half the yard gets some winter shade, the other half is full sun year round.

Ps. Im also digging some swales now/planning on planting companion plants.

I’ll start. I’m living in the Caribbean and one of the local species I’ve come to appreciate very much is what Floridians call Hoopvine (trichostigmata octandrum). It’s so delicious! It’s probably my favorite green. It’s commonly eaten here but I don’t think almost anyone in the US eats it.

I wouldn’t really call it a vine in the traditional sense. It grows long sprawling branches that were traditionally used in basket making. It readily takes from cuttings. I have two varieties, a fully green variety and a more reddish variety. The red is better but they’re both good. In a food forest it would be in the larger ungrowth category. I’m planning shortly to propagate a bunch more of it.

We bought a house a little over a year ago and am working on slowly redoing the yard. The previous owner didn’t appear to be very fond of anything green. Most of the ‘garden’ on one side of the house was one huge patio. It is not even done pretty, it is fenced in all around and then tiled with those big ugly concrete tiles.

I am in the process of removing a strip of the tiles all along the back fence. The tiles are not cemented, but there is a layer of compacted sand beneath. At some point, I would like to use the space for a pollinator friendly flowers and some fruit shrubs. The fence faces south and it’s fairly wind protected, so it is a good spot for a garden aside from the sand.

I would really like to avoid having to dig up all the sand, which is why I need the help of the permaculture hive mind 🙏🏼.
What would be a good green manure type plant for this? My backup plan would be to add a thin layer of topsoil and then scatter wild flower seeds and clover, and chop and drop for a few seasons. This should build some organic matter over time, but I doubt their roots will do anything to loosen the sand. Usually daikon radishes are the go to to drill through dense soil, but I only read about them being useful to loosen loamy soil. Can they tolerate sand? Other ideas? I am in zone 7/8 and the site gets full sun.

I’m building a guild with sunflowers, Jerusalem artichoke and French cucumber in an isolated section of my yard. I had it all planned out, but recently I’ve decided to change it up. I want blue. Bright blue flowering edibles. I need a vine and a nitrogen setter. Any suggestions?