Hello everyone!

I’m developing an idea for a project in Portugal and would love input from people with real-world experience in permaculture, market gardening, food forests, productive gardens, etc.

The concept is a project I’m calling “Horta das Necessidades” (“Garden of Needs”).

The idea is to obtain a piece of land - potentially family land, donated land or municipal land - and use it to grow fresh vegetables and fruit specifically for families experiencing financial hardship.

It would not be a traditional allotment where each person has their own plot.

The garden would be managed as one productive system, with a professional coordinator and volunteers. The harvest would be distributed through organisations that already work with families in need, such as churches, food banks, NGOs or local social organisations.

I'd like the growing system to use organic/permaculture principles wherever practical: building healthy soil, composting, biodiversity, efficient water use, minimal external inputs, crop diversity, perennial plants where useful, etc.

But the main goal would be food production.

I'm therefore interested in the practical side:

If you had, say, 1,000–3,000 m², and your primary objective was to produce as much useful, nutritious food as reasonably possible over the year, how would you design it?

How would you divide the space between:

• annual vegetable beds
• fruit trees
• perennial vegetables
• herbs
• flowers/pollinator areas
• composting
• nursery/propagation
• greenhouse/protected growing
• paths and infrastructure
• water storage
• other elements?

What crops would you prioritise?

Would you focus heavily on high-yield crops such as potatoes, squash, cabbage, beans, tomatoes, courgettes, etc., or would you favour a much more diverse system even if that reduced total kg of food?

How would you deal with the fact that food aid needs reliable production throughout the year, rather than having enormous quantities of tomatoes for a few weeks and very little afterwards?

I'd also like to understand the labour side.

A garden can look manageable on paper until you have to:

• prepare beds
• sow
• transplant
• weed
• water
• harvest
• wash
• sort
• pack
• maintain infrastructure
• deal with pests
• process compost
• manage volunteers

So if anyone has actually managed a productive garden on this scale, I'd love to hear what surprised you about the labour requirements.

I'm particularly interested in real-world experiences rather than theoretical maximum yields.

If you've done something similar, what would you do differently if you started again?

And if you think this is fundamentally the wrong way to approach food production for food aid, I'd also like to hear that.

I'm trying to design something that is genuinely productive rather than something that simply looks like a nice permaculture project.

Thank you all!

Hello guys, my first post here. We want to buy a smallholding in the southwest of the UK on which to establish a food forest. Several of the places I've turned up have Agricultural Occupancy Clauses (AOCs) in place. AOCs mean that only agricultural workers should live in those houses. I'm aware of how dire life can be for farmworkers (my dad was one) and have no wish to "buck the system". But I figure the local Council might consider me as a farmer of some kind, even if I'm only growing food for my own use. Anyone have experience of this one?

I have an ephemeral stream at the back of my property that despite low to no flow is severely eroded. This picture was taken last year after a few days of heavy rain.

Because it is ephemeral it is not a blue-line stream and doesn't require a permit to work on. I'd like to do some work to restore or reinforce it, but ideally in the DIY/use what I have way. The stream is far enough down grading isn't a practical option.

I have a few ideas, but what would you do? Any experts have suggestions? I don't mind a slow project or one that can be worked on bit by bit, but would like this to be more of a feature than an eyesore eventually.

We have a 35+ year cherry tree. The trunk has gashes and cracks in it that seep sap. The cherries are small and sour so we rarely eat them. I am planning to remove the tree this summer before it dies and takes out the fence so I can plant a plum tree.

The trunk is about 7 inches and is on mound with lawn growing up to the trunk. I would remove the lawn when I took the tree out so it is surrounded by mulch and strawberries or clover. Will I be able to remove enough of the roots to effectively plant a plum in the same spot or nearby? I am fine with doing a lot of labor with an axe and reciprocating saw. I just don't want to work pointlessly for hours and still end up having to rent a stump grinder or have a tree that struggles because I didn't prepare the site adequately.

Rabbits totally stripped the base of this apple tree. Just looking to confirm if it's better to cut my losses and take her down now 😔

His approach focuses on what happens to rain after it reaches the ground. Rather than allowing water to quickly run off or disappear, his farming practices aim to help the soil capture and store it.

Es posible hacer suelo vivo en macetas de 25Lt?

TLDR: My neighbour and I bought ground floor flats, both within the last year. A massive, unmonitored bamboo plant (5+ years old, 10–20m radius) on our border fence has spread across 6 gardens, including beneath my shed (and his) where it formed a dense web of rhizomes. We need advice on natural control or effective chemical methods.

In short, the previous owner of my neighbour's house grew a bunch of bamboo in the back corner of their garden. It seems to have been in a bed about 2m wide, and 1m deep. From there it has spread to the neighbours on both sides of him, opposite him, and on both sides of the neighbour opposite him too I'd say the best case neighbour probably has 10+ stalks coming up. We are now seeing new stalks popping up on 2 more neighbours fences. In total that's 6 gardens, soon to be 8, and who knows how far the rhizomes already are.

The source neighbour has hundreds of stalks, they're now ripping up through paving stones, and growing in his shed. After the first time he cut his back, we noticed that in the narrow gap between my shed in the back corner of my garden, and where the source of the bamboo is, I had about 100 stalks on my side. The root network under my shed is so dense we can barely cut through it, and bamboo is now also starting to grow up through my shed.

We've already tried cutting it back before leaves come up 3 times. We've tried to dig up as much of the rhizomes as possible. But it is just so spread out and across so many properties it feels hopeless.

Does anyone have any recommendations for options? I feel like most of the things I see or read are for less complex situations (IE in your own garden, or perhaps spreading between 2 neighbours, not 6 or 8).

We do get along with most neighbours, but one of the neighbours is old and uncooperative. Another is actively hostile, and doesn't want to do anything, so working together to cut everything back one or two times a year isn't an option.

I am even considering using chemicals IE glyphosate, but have no idea if that would even be effective at killing the whole structure (can it kill the offshoot plants?), as we can't exactly paint it on the bamboo in our neighbours gardens. I also have a dozen different food types growing in beds about 1.5 metres away from the bamboo, so I'd really rather not use glyphosate, but I am quite desperate.

Are there any natural ways to kill this monstrosity even if I can't do anything about the stalks now up in our neighbours gardens? If we do use something chemical, what is the best option? How well can it kill all the plants in a network? What are the dangers?

We plan to plant lindens for shade and bee food this year. We also have a steep slope that needs erosion control. Is planting linden on a 45 degree slope a sound idea? Thanks.

Part of my job is walking through properties that have been sitting. Overgrown, compacted, neglected yards. Every time I see one I find myself thinking about what it could become instead of just how to stage around it.

Started wondering if there's a real case for doing some quick permacultureadjacent work on a property before listing. Not full food forest stuff. More like sheet mulching a lawn area, throwing in some native ground cover, cleaning up a neglected perennial bed so it actually looks intentional.

Toured a place last week with a huge southfacing slope, totally bare and eroding. The owner wanted to reseed it with grass. I kept thinking about how a simple planted slope with deeprooted perennials would do so much more and honestly look better to the right buyer

The Vermont market is shifting toward people who want land they can actually use. Younger buyers especially. If somebody wants a property that already hints at food production or lowmaintenance resilience, they'll pay attention

Curious if anyone here has done any kind of rapid but legit regenerative work on a property, either their own before selling or land they were rehabilitating on a timeline. What actually moved the needle fast enough to matter? Sheet mulch, fastestablishing guilds, anything

When I was in school I was taught about settlers arriving to an “untouched landscape.” Native Americans were part of the story, but it was said they lived “lightly” on the land.

And then, in my 40s I take a prescribed-burn class and it’s like the world turned upside down.

It’s taken me more than two full years to wrap my head around what I learned in that class about the Indigenous people’s impact on the land. That they burned the prairies so often and for so long that entire ecosystems adapted to prefer regular burnings - to need it to stay healthy.

The shear scale of that hits me the same way as gazing at the Milky Way on a clear, dark night.

It rocks everything I thought I knew about humans’ roll in the natural world.  

Even though I first learned all this a while ago, it’s recently gotten stirred up because a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this really cool Story Map that has collected and mapped all these firsthand accounts of Native Americans burning. From the breadth of these accounts, where they regularly mention the Indians burning “every year,” I still have trouble believing that fires aren’t a bigger part of the pioneer stories.

Though maybe it was always there and I just didn’t realize? 

I went back to my Little House on the Prairie books and found a passage where Pa saves the house from a prairie fire. The neighbors speculate that Indigenous people started the fire to drive out the settlers. But Pa rejects that interpretation:

“Pa didn’t believe it. He said the Indians had always burned the prairie to make green grass grow more quickly, and traveling easier.”

I loved these books. I remember the fire, but not this interpretation of the fire. It didn’t register what this might mean. That it was stewardship, that it was intentional, that it was scaled to tens of thousands of acres of prairies. 

I’m super curious…Am I alone in this? Is this a new or recent revelation for anyone else or just me? Did it change you as much as it changed me when you learned it?

I'm trying to do a little cob demo with my fiance, to just feel it out and experiment maybe build some small Furniture project but I live in Illinois and I rent my current property. Could I buy clay and mix it with soil, could I just use raw clay with sand and straw? Any advice would be great cuz I Am brand spanking new to this and I'm trying to put together a material list.

A yet-unidentified pest is preventing any melon (and perhaps cucumber) from being viable. I'm hoping some of you permies will have a solution. Vines are cut and fruit has larvae inside.

I've already got ladybugs & crickets a-plenty. Still waiting on my lacewings, but is there anything else I can do? A salve on new growth that will deter egg-laying? Spray that deters moths & melon fly? I'm reluctant to spray garlic since we have many cats. But I'm not opposed to painting it on fruit by hand.

Hey there! I recently got into reading up on permaculture, I’ve never been much of a gardener and this is the first thing related to it that’s finally clicking.
Anyhow, I’m trying to brainstorm a garden using permaculture techniques for my dad’s backyard, but it’s mainly on a slope. The top is rather flat for a few feet and then it becomes steep.

I was thinking of putting together keyhole beds for the main steep of the slope on either sides of the stairs, but I’m not sure if these will work given the layout?

Is a terrace the only way to go for a slope? Or are there other methods any of you folks could advise me on?

I’ve included some pictures so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about!

Thanks everyone!!!

EDIT!! I added some day time photos!!
Also, some updates for his desires for the slope’s potential: he has a dog that loves to run all around the slope and catch the ball. So keeping it with no terrace will work just fine.

So, I’m Curious if anyone has advice for good ground covering plants that can root strongly into dry/clay heavy soil? And ones that can take a lot of ground traffic abuse at that!

Thanks again for everyone’s comments you folks are AMAZING !!!! I’m so excited how much traction I have gotten from you all in the comments :)))

I own 70 acres of old field and forest land and for the last 20 years I have been managing most of the land to maximize wildlife habitat. I have some food forest and some fenced garden plots, but mostly I have been cutting invasive species and planting native species. I've planted many thousands of saplings of around 20 native species but am not always happy with the viability/appropriateness of nursery stock.

Recently I have shifted from buying and planting new trees to just seeking out and protecting the saplings of native trees (mostly fruit/nut bearing trees like juneberry, wild cherry, mountain ash, oak, etc. But also some key wildlife species that are lacking like white pine, cedar and birch).

I live in a place where the deer population is artificially high for various reasons and they will kill the saplings of their preferred browse if they are not prevented with solid fences or tree shelters. It means that only a handful of less desired species will grow without help.

I'm just curious if anyone else is doing this and how it works for you. If there is a better sub where I can ask this question, please let me know.

Everything was fine after an hour of this.

I have a lot of saltbush growing in and around the garden with native grasses. These help support more fragile plants and diffuse the wind and blowing sand.

This is the reason desert plants often grow in clumps. I try to emulate that.

My goal is to make my food forest as much like the native desert ecosystem it is within. Lots of native desert plants in clumpy guilds with the occasional apricot, pomegranate or jujube. I like to think that 50% or more of the plants would naturalize if the food forest was abandoned.

"Where do you get water?". Water is from a big arroyo that is diverted to the plants and stored in sand dams. A greywater trench and mulch pits line the edge of the area and keep that side consistently a little moist. I also have a well. I'm so tired.

I am posting a home hugelkultur garden I started (late) this year and wanted to see if anyone else was using this method and if so might have any suggestions or tips. I am in Colorado growing in zone 5 and we are having great success, especially in cucumber and tomato so far. This year we are leaving the amaranth and trying it as a grain, maybe as cereal or a flour. Any resources/tips greatly appreciated, and good luck to everyone growing!

Hello everyone i hope youre having a great day,
so as the title says i graduated from Agriculture engineering a week ago and i have been researching what courses to do and its been like a maze and i dont really know what to do so any help would be appreciated.
i also thought about going for a masters degree but it seems weird getting it without expirence.

My annoyance with the search engines are on another level, for i just cant find what im looking for no matter how i word it.

I have plum and peace trees in my garden, they beside plums and peaches produce a lot of resin. If anyone knows how to prepare them for an edible dish in any way Im BEGGING you to tell me.

Salty, savoury, sweet, dessert, soup, main course, drink whatever I just need a way to consume them.

Thank you in advance <3

The latest scientific research says that it works. This is an article from Science Direct giving a summary of some of the research. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0929139323001531

It says it makes plants healthier, stronger and helps to kill off bad pathogens. I've tried it a handful of times, using it on ½ of a crop here and there and I've not seen any difference. I also add it to my compost but don't really expect to see a difference there. My compost is always great.

I do practice KNF (Korean Natural Farming) which is really amazing and LAB is one ingredient in it but just a small part of it.

Anybody tried it? What was the outcome for you?

I live in the PNW, zone 8b. I’m wanting to plant some small dwarf trees here as part of a guild or two. It’s 10’ by 38’ from back of hydrant). I’d like to grow a dwarf nectarine, dwarf apple, and maybe one other but not sure if I have space. I’m Im willing to heavily prune if needed. I’m trying to figure out where I should place everything. The sun kinda follows the curved yellow line (it’s actually like tilted a bit so rising more toward the bottom right and then setting toward the top left but it’s essentially in the sun from sunrise until almost sunset).

How many dwarf trees could I fit here?
How should the trees be placed? (All along the property line on the left with shrubs in front and groundcover/walking paths near driveway? Staggered?)
How far do I likely need to plant away from the hydrant?

The need for a soil resilient in a changing climate has never felt more urgent. 🌍
This year, Europe has once again experienced the growing impact of extreme weather: heatwaves, droughts and wildfires.
So how can we help soils withstand, adapt to and recover from these extreme events?
🌱 The joint EU Missions call on building soil resilience to extreme weather events is looking for innovative solutions that can make a real difference on the ground.