Thereās a lot of hate for lawns within the permaculture, gardening, and eco-action communities, and some of it is warranted, but everything has its place.
A lawn wonāt work everywhere. A lawn shouldnāt work everywhere. If you live in a semi-arid climate, you probably shouldnāt have a lawn. It would be irresonsible of you to waste water on it. Here in Southern Quebec, however, itās an ideal scenario. It just grows. I never fertilize, I never water, yet itās lush and green. The topsoil around here (my immediate area) is dark and heavy, filled with worms, and about 20-30cm deep. Underneath the topsoil is a ~15cm layer of pure, dark gray clay, then a hard-packed mix of clay chunks, shale, and sand.
Additionally, if you live in a biome that can easily support a low/no-maintenance lawn, you might find a lot of value in it. Such biomes ā like mixed plains or grasslands, might be able to easily support all the dynamic beings and resources that make up a low/no-maintenance lawn.
I let some it it grow wild in certain patches, for a yield of flowers and fruit, and for insect habitat, and the rest I mow once every 2 weeks. I rake some the clippings from the lushest spots, and use it as a rich, green, nitrogenous mulch around the perennial plantings of young trees, asparagus, and berry shrubs.
The next evolutionary stage of the lawn is as a patchwork of perennial gardens and usable spaces. Islands of beauty and bounty.
My lawn is comprised of more than 16 species (and countingā¦) of native and introduced plants. It produces flowers, herbs, medicine, and fruit; Dandelions, self-heal, sorrels, violets, clovers and strawberries are just a few of the characters on this vigourous green earth mat. Many grow in patches, and fade in-and-out in a seasonal succession, as the context changes throughout the year. There are a few overly enthusiastic invasives which I keep an eye on, and try to inconvenience by pulling when I get the chance, but for the most part I let it be.
Frogs love it, birds love it, bees love it, moths love it, worms love it.
Over the short time Iāve lived in this house (1 of each season!), Iāve seen a ridiculous amount of biodiversity. Aside from the hundreds of species of insects, amphibians seem to enjoy it for at least 3 seasons, with 3 species of tree frog so far, toads, and even a salamander. Weāve also had a couple garter snakes use it for sunning, and the neverending stream of butterflies and bumblebees make it feel so alive.
A colony of a species of squash bee who have made their little underground homes in a grassy corner, happily get drunk on and pollinate my squash. I donāt mow their village.
For those who donāt want or need, or arenāt in a location thatās condusive to a lawn, and are looking to replace yours, there are tons of resources on that topic, and some great organizations (like Food Not Lawns) dedicated to helping people transform their lawns into more productive landscapes.
Clover is a low-maintanence ground-cover, is generally non-invasive, and makes for great bee forage. You can walk on it just fine, and some of it tends to be lower-growing and so is said to take a lot less maintenance.
Common white clover (Trifolium repens) seems to be one of the more popular go-tos for clover lawns, but I could see Trifolium dubiumor yellow clover staying small enough to provide a decent grass alternative as well.
A meadow is a simple alternative to the classic lawn. In many cases you can just let your lawn grow, and see what happens.
This spring I decided to let a large swath of our front lawn go wild. After a month it was absolutely buzzing with life. Alongside the creatures, the space was quickly filled with Queen Anneās Lace, several species of clover (5!), pansies, bladder campion, dandelions, chives, sedges, common mugwort, dock, sorrel, and several others.
Additionally, broadcasting some native wildflower seeds could really encourage the landscape, and add some more showy plants to keep your neighbours in check.
Flock Finger Lakes has a great video about transforming a large part of their lawn into a low-growing meadow.
The food forest, or at least a food savannah, is peak anthropogenic succession. Start with designing the space, working with the natural features. Plant some fruiting shrubs, and some fruit or nut trees, throw some bulbs underneath, maybe some strawberries and chives, and through a few wildflower seeds in and around and youāre good to go.
Okay, itās not that easy, but thatās the gist of it. The idea is to mimick the natural patterns of a forestās edge ā the most diverse, and productive point.
If you want to learn more about food forests, Iāll let one of the pros take this one: The Forested Garden: What is a Food Forest? by Geoff Lawton.
Iāll probably always have a lawn, but over time, more and more of it will be filled in with perennial polycultures and annual underplantings.
The next evolutionary stage of the lawn is as a patchwork of perennial gardens and usable spaces. Islands of beauty and bounty.
Aside from all the patchwork gardens, eventually Iād like to install a pond, and a brick/stone fire circle, but Iāll always have a lawn. Just enough to mow by push mower would be ideal.
There are good lawns, there are bad lawns. There are sustainable, permaculture-aligned lawns. If the inputs are low (or non-existent!) and you obtain a yield, why not? I have a lawn and I like it.
]]>/edit 2022-03-18/ Thanks to the readers pointing out that Avocados, as apples and other stone fruit do not grow true to seed. So your fruits will probably be tasting very differently to the fruit you took the seed from. That doesnāt mean it can be a fun project to grow an Avocado tree from seed :)
I got a lot of questions about my avocado and how to grow it. Also, I am a bit proud of the results so far, it was a lot of trial and error but until now the plant looks strong and healthy. Before doing it I researched the web for setups and while everyone writes itās super easy I found it quite difficult to get started. I am by no means an avocado growing expert, after all, this is my first try, so Iāll just share what works for me and it might help you find the right direction for your project.
I think this is straightforward and most of us can buy avocados in the supermarket. We eat avocado pretty regularly in the family. So we kept eating them until we had one, we enjoyed. I washed it and scrubbed away all of the leftover avocado flesh. After this, I let it dry for some days on the window sill.
The variety you will get for us in Europe will mostly be Hass and you need to search for others if you are interested. Just today I got my hands on an Ettinger avocado and will start growing it too.
The most common technique is to put toothpicks into the sides of the avocado seed so it can stand easily in a container and submerge the bottom half of it in water. The pointy end is the top of the seed and should be pointing up and not be covered with water. I did exactly that and replaced the water every few days. Nothing happened for 2 months.
The only change I did was then to put the avocado next to my seedlings on a heating mat and then it started to sprout in a matter of a week. So make sure you keep your seed at around 25-30 degrees Celcius to make it sprout. I think avocados love the warmth in general.
You will notice that it is sprouting when small bumps are showing up at the bottom of the seed which will slowly grow into roots in the water. After this, the whole seed will split and a small seedling will start to grow out of the top between the two halves.
I repotted the seed into a standard mix of potting soil and compost when the first layer of real leaves started to form. I think this was a bit too early and it was also the wrong soil mix. The plant stopped growing for 1-2 weeks and I got worried but it caught on eventually and continued growing.
I canāt remember the second time I repotted but I did some research before the third (and currently final repotting) and settled on doing a 50:50 mix of potting soil and pure standard sand since Iāve read that avocados need it moist but very good drainage. Since then it keeps growing well.
I started growing the seed in early January 2021 and when it was a small plant and I was sure the temperatures overnight didnāt drop below 10 degrees Celcius (this happens for me mostly around mid-May), I slowly moved the plant on our terrace. First just a few hours over the day, then I left it outside overnight for the rest of the summer.
At the end of the summer, around October, I moved it inside the house again. It had a few nights and days where the temperature was as low as 5 degrees. It didnāt seem to hurt my plant, I assume because it was used to our āsummersā but the growth stopped almost completely. I think a good rule of thumb is that avocados like it warm, best above 20-25 degrees Celcius.
When I moved my plant in the house in October, I gave it a place in a south-facing window. Winters can get pretty dark here for a few months so Iāve added my growing light and a time switch to it to give the plant a couple of hours more sunlight. The ambient temperature around the plant is around 15 degrees and it has had a solid growth rate since I moved it in. I keep watering it every few days to keep the soil moist with rainwater since our tap water has too much chalk in it.
Iāll plan to move the avocado out of the terrace in mid-May 2022 again depending on the weather and keep watering it with rainwater if there is no rain for some time. Other than that Iāll try to keep the care as minimal as possible because I am lazy and I want the avocado to get used to the weather here.
In a few years, if itās in a pot that is too heavy to carry I plan to move it into some kind of greenhouse in a permanent spot in the garden, where it can survive the winters too.
And by the way, from what Iāve read it takes at a minimum of seven years before you get fruit, so bring plenty of patience.
Happy to hear your avocado experience, feel free to share it in your garden journal here (Login required).
]]>Weāre looking for a marketing and growth co-founder. This is an unpaid role as 1/3 of the co-founding team of Permapeople.
We donāt care if you donāt have specific marketing or growth experience, or if you donāt have big names on your CV. Weāre just looking for someone whoās as passionate as we are and is committed to learning and growing with the organization.
One of your most important responsibilities will be helping to manage our community: You should expect to work across social media platforms to produce relevant content and stay connected to our community through discourse, polls, questions, etc. Gather and present relevant feedback.
You should be able to write well (or willing to learn), and know how to edit. You can use tools if you want, and weāre always willing to proof-read and edit. Educational and informative blog posts are a staple for our content creation.
You can expect to work closely with us and make decisions as a team. There is no hierarchy.
You should be ready to experiment with and plan growth strategies.
You should be committed to the long-term success of Permapeople!
You should be committed to around 20 hours per month. This is flexible, but we do want to see active participation and growth in this organization!
You should be able to sustain your income from other means. Weāre not profitable. Yet.
You should be prepared to reach out and connect with other related organizations and platforms for cross-promotion and collaboration!
Weāre just two nerds who like to grow food and believe the world would be better off growing food in a descentralized and regenerative way. Weāre skilled in technology and design and we believe we can grow this organization organically and without VC funding. We believe we can use regenerative permaculture design principles to support people growing more food to support their communities and regenerate local ecologies; both social and natural.
Over the 18 months weāve been working on this project weāve had to wear a ton of hats. Weāve written code, weāve built infrastructure, designed the platform, written articles, built community on social media, attended meetings and working groups for other projects, written proposals for and participated in various food related summits and programs.
In order to succeed as an organically grown organization, we know where we need help, and we recognize the importance of commitment and passion. Weāve realized our weak points and we want to improve on them. Weāve realized our strengths and we want to embrace them. We need help with marketing, growth and community building.
Weāre offering 33% of Permapeople to someone with the motivation and skills to help us with growth and marketing. 33% of the company, equity, revenue, etc. We are not currently profitable, but we believe we could be self-sustaining in the near future. We also believe in working freedom. This is a side project; there are no designated work hours, no mandatory meetings, no mandated vacations or holiday allowances.
Reach out to us through the Feedback button in the website, DM us on Twitter, or email us at hello at permapeople dot org.
If you made it this far, we really appreciate you taking the time. If you are interested in this role, or have any questions, please message us and we can set up a call.
Thank you, Simon & Ben
]]>This is my fourth year in semi-serious vegetable gardening and food forest-style experiments. All activities are guided by practices of regenerative agriculture like Permaculture, No-dig, and others. I did a lot of experiments and had more failures than successes, but I enjoy it. In the beginning, I started to track how much stuff I am producing. I dropped that rather quickly because I never reached frequent enough amounts to make it worth the effort. The few berries we had, got distributed to the mouths of the family or myself immediately. What I enjoy is iterating on my current gardening setup and using the experiences Iāve gained along the way. This year it was very obvious that all seedlings Iāve put into containers on the balcony or terrace did much better than everything I planted directly into the soil. Because of this, I decided that I am giving up on my garden soil and go container only. Let me explain.
In the garden, we planted a couple of trees in the last years and what we found when digging holes, is basically that there is turf rolled over a 20cm layer of dead soil, and below is only debris from the construction of the building complex we are living in. This debris can be anything from pure concrete to 2 meters of deep sand. It is a nightmare. We started with only a few containers and pots on the balcony and prepared them based on the sheet mulching principle from Gaiaās Garden by Toby Hemenway (read below on exact directions on how you can do that too) and it worked pretty well. The breakthrough was when I added a 60% shade net to my south-facing balcony. Since then, whatever I put in there turns out quite good with minimal care.
Almost all space on a balcony, patio, or even windowsill is good, as long as it gets decent light and at least a few hours of direct sunlight over the day. Donāt worry too much about it in the beginning and keep experimenting.
The best containers are the ones you already have or can source for free. I started with blue big IKEA bags but figured their plastic decomposed in the sun. So I moved to cheap 90L containers for mixing cement from the hardware store. They were around 3-4ā¬ each. Ensure the containers have a good size ā and these sizes worked the best for me. Smaller containers led to the plants lacking a bit of nutrition due to root crowding.
Fill the containers with potting soil you either source from your garden, a neighbor or buy. I think you can go with the cheapest since you will amend later anyways. Fill it up until around 10-20cm below the top of the container.
I went with the following layers, (inspired by Gaiaās Garden) but get creative with the things you have.
(from bottom to top)
Containers are more sensitive to drying out than garden soil, so keep an eye on regular watering. If you have, you can add a dripping system but I recommend you start without to save money and time and get a feeling for how much water your plants need.
The biggest challenge Iāve had in the beginning was timing. So make sure to follow some simple rules
Besides adding the plants to the containers, taking care of the plants, harvesting, I am not doing anything with the containers. At the end of the season, I just cut everything left standing at the soil level (just above the roots) and put it back (āchop and dropā), leaving the soil undisturbed (āno-digā). In the fall, after everything is harvested, I add new layers to the top. There I have no rules, sometimes it is just the old plants from the season, sometimes compost. This year I want to try adding kitchen scraps directly there. I always cover with dried grass or similar in the end to create a protected environment for the critters and bacterias to do their job. You can create a good pile on the containers since it will get smaller again when it is decomposing and you have a lively pot, ready for when the new season starts.
The message I want to pass on here is: While info on regenerative practices for container-only setups is scarce, itās a valid approach, and in urban settings like mine, it can even be the superior way.
š±āļø Ben
]]>Getting better and higher yields is what most of us backyard farmers are trying to achieve with their gardens. Mostly we are constrained by the space available. We optimize how we can use it by combining plants in a space-effective way. We look at layers and rood depths to fill out every niche we have. For example, underplanting tomatoes with basil, chives and strawberries is an easy way to use one container or bed for many plants.
But there is another dimension we can optimize for: time. Most plants like annual alliums (onions, garlic, leeks) or most root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets) will leave a space after harvest. If we plan for this space and use it for other plants afterward is another way to get more out of our backyard garden.
Read on to get an idea of what succession planting is all about and some ideas about what you could grow next.
Succession planting is a method to optimize yield by replanting crops after the first crop is harvested to maximize the growing time available.
You might have heard the term āCrop rotationā. While it is somewhat related, it is not the same. Crop rotation mostly refers to planting schedules between seasons, succession planting is what you can plant in the same season.
The simplest way of doing succession planting is to do nothing with your space after harvest and I mean nothing. No tilling, no watering, not even looking at it. Nature will do its thing and eventually, something will grow there in the conditions the bed or container provides. Before planting your plants again the following year, just till very lightly or chop and drop a few weeks before the growing season starts again to provide organic matter and mulch for your annual vegetables.
The second simplest way to do succession planting is to grow green manure. As soon as you harvest your annual vegetables, you sow green manure. Most plants used for this task help improving the soil by using their taproots to break hard soil, transporting fertility out of the deep ground to the top layer, or by getting organic matter into the ground (when you leave the roots in). They should be maintenance-free (check for something native to your region) and will grow over the cold period until you plant again. Just before planting your next annuals, till them lightly into the ground or chop and drop in place when you do no-dig. This gives you a lot of organic matter and/or mulch for your vegetables, prepare the space as you would do for the āDo nothingā method.
If you look for a constant source of fresh vegetables from your backyard garden, start sowing in intervals. For example radishes, lettuces and beets are fast-growing crops, which can be resown many times in a season. Start seeding early and reseed in another bed or container after 2-4 weeks, then harvest the first batch and reseed there again. They are mostly fine with colder weather at the beginning and end of the growing season so you can do that until it gets really cold. A simpler version of this is called āharvest and seedā: This means you just have one space and as soon as you harvest you (re)seed again.
Many annual vegetables have a specific time when to grow and harvest. There are so-called cold weather crops and warm weather crops. Some plants donāt mind having a cooler climate or even grow better in it (carrots, radishes, beets, spinach) but some others need the heat to grow well (cucumbers, solanums, squash). For example, garlic needs to be harvested in temperate northern hemisphere climate around July, this gives you enough time to get some plants into that bed, which either grow all year round like radishes or need the warmth like peppers and melons. Or you can use plants that donāt mind the colder season like kale or other brassicas.
Grow early: Onions & Spring Onions, Garlic, Lettuce, Radishes, Spinach, Peas, Kohlrabi, early Cabbage
Succession plants: Eggplants, Peppers, Melons, Squash, Beets, Carrots, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, Cress, Kale, Turnips, Common bean, Swiss chard
Succession planting is only important if you harvest your plants fully. While most common vegetables are grown as annuals, there are a lot of rather unknown vegetables, which are perennial. If you are lazy like me and want to let nature do its thing while you keep eating, look into perennial vegetables.
Whatever solution you prefer and pick, make sure to start thinking about the time dimension in your garden, to leverage the full potential of your backyard farm and keep you and your community fed over a long period with as many vegetables as possible.
]]>Simply put, a polyculture is an interconnected system of living entities; each element in the system is complementary. Sometimes called a guild, these groups of plants, or patterns can be seen everywhere in nature; the way forest edges are filled with many different layers or niches of plants, creatures, and fungi.
Take temperate rainforest edge from the West Coast of Canada as an example: Sitka spruce and Western hemlock fulfil the canopy high above, red alders punch through the margins, red huckleberries and salal grow beneath them, patches of claytonia and grasses grow underneath the shrubs, and fungi and bacteria work through the mass amounts of biomass and feed the plant roots. Naturally, plants, fungi, and bacteria will compete to fill available space ā this is Natureās way.
As it applies to gardening and permaculture, a polyculture is a group of living things that share a beneficial relationship with one another. This idea plays very well into permacultureās principle of stacking functions; turning one small block of garden space into a multi-functional, efficient, beneficial biomass producing machine.
A full-scale polyculture, or guild, will be made up of a combination of several of the following niches:
An ideal polyculture will provide more benefits as a whole, than the sum of its parts. Polycultures are space-efficient, resilient, and self-improving. In a well-designed polyculture, each element covers more than 2 functions. For example, a ground-cover might provide a food crop while shading and protecting the soil from erosion; a herbaceous element should provide a crop, while fixing nitrogen in the soil, and provide additional biomass to use as a chop-and-drop green mulch.
When planning or designing a polyculture of guild, we often try to mimic natural patterns (or at least take inspiration from them). By breaking down the different niches of a natural guild ā such as the temperate rainforest edge example above āĀ we can create a template for designing polycultures of our own. Generally, you want to fulfil as many of the above niches as possible.
Additionally, youāll want to choose plants that offer multiple benefits to your polyculture. Chives (one of my personal favourites), for example, fill the rhizosphere and dissuade burrowing creatures, attract beneficial insects, provide for pollinators throughout the season, and can be harvested continuously. Theyāre incredibly resilient, and one of my go-to plants for any polyculture.
While your polyculture establishes itself, donāt feel bad about using annuals to fill the available space, and improve the growing conditions. Sow a mix of greens as a ground-cover, or throw down a few rows of radishes as a cash-crop.
One of the most common guilds youāll see in permaculture circles is the fruit tree guild.
Hereās an example of what you might see:
A common goal when designing a polyculture is longevity and resiliency. As your polyculture develops, niches will be filled, and unexpected things will happen. Surprise plants (sometimes known as weeds) may pop up and fill niches where one of your plantings failed to thrive, and thatās okay! At the very least any āweedā will at least tell you about the quality of your soil.
As things change, and the polyculture matures, itās important to observe a document the changes. What thrived? What failed? What worked as expected? What didnāt? Encourage the things that work well - in your garden and for you - and discourage and learn from the things that donāt. If one element fails to fill a desired niche, reconsider your plant choice.
Another aspect to consider is succession. Over time, once-thriving plants (even perennials) may eventually die off, due to over-crowding, shading out as the canopy matures, or plain-old lifespan. As this happens, other things will likely fill the space, but you can be there to help things along and fill the niche.
Edible Acres - Tree guilds - Understanding Patterns and Relationships
]]>So you decided to grow plants. This is a great idea. There are many reasons why you should start growing your own plants like self-reliance, resilience, food justice, your carbon footprint, your health, and your environments health. This article will help you get going from zero to food in your mouth while helping you understand how to give something back to the environment around you.
There are many things to consider and I will write a bit about the most important topics below but if there is one thing for you to keep in mind it is that the system you create should not only benefit yourself but many other things around you: your environment, the humans and animals living in your area and the future health of your land and the planet.
To achieve that you need to come up with a plan and strategy which is multi-purpose. That means, that you need to think about how to integrate existing plants and animals, improve your soil, produce yield for humans and animals alike. You also need to think about how to improve your environment to make it sustainable in the long term. While it is possible to get a good first yield with artificial fertiliser, it will deplete your soil and wallet pretty quickly. Better is to think about how to get the maximum output while minimising the inputs. Think of outputs as Human use, animal use, soil health, animal shelter, happiness, health, time saved, money saved. Think of inputs as everything you need to buy, things you need to get into the garden like bought soil and compost, containers, garden tools and water.
A resilient and well-designed system creates outputs, even if you do not constantly provide inputs.
May it be that there is no rain for a few weeks or you cannot work on your project because other things get in the way, your system should survive that.
There are many different approaches to create such system of regenerative agriculture, the most well-known is Permaculture. Itās a good start to dig into the topic but be advised there is not the one way of doing it. See what makes sense to you and mix and match whatever works. Keep your goals in mind and keep asking yourself the following questions.
The best way to start a system is to sit down and write down what you actually want to achieve with it. It might be supplementing your diet to save money on groceries, it might be regenerating your backyard lawn into a green hideout for you to relax in, it might be to help others in your community living a better and more healthy life. If you want to grow plants for food, it might be as simple as the question on what do you like to eat. I suggest you start looking at the following goals. This is not a complete list, but shows you what direction you should think in.
Possible goals for your project:
The next question to consider is about the area you live in and how your system can effect it and it affects your system. You want to come up with something which is compatible with your surroundings and circumstances so you are much more likely to succeed. Think about the following questions:
The point here is to be aware of the ecological system you are already in and make sure to add something to it instead of creating another artificial ecosystem designed only for a single purpose.
Now that you know what you want and what are the specifics to your environment, think what you personally can do to make it work. Make sure you set yourself up with possible goals. Better start small with a fewer plants and a smaller area and succeed than getting overwhelmed with too much work. In Permaculture your time is another input you should work on reducing. By designing your garden in a smart way and choosing the right plants (look for the term āguildsā!) nature can do most of the work while you can enjoy watching it grow.
Being lazy is part of the strategy.
In general it is a good advice to avoid buying plants, raw material and tools. Use what you have, borrow from your community and try to recycle things. Barter things with neighbours.
Also think about your future self and make it easy for them: Try to invest in the future by growing cover crops which might not give you a direct yield to eat this season but produce organic material you can use to sheet mulch other plants or create compost by yourself.
At any time in your project, learn to observe nature and its magical workings. See what works, where plants thrive and what does not work. Take notes and iterate on your design. Ask yourself questions like are these plants really weeds or can they maybe be eaten, help bees and other insects or are perfect animal fodder for your neighbours pigs?
Start watching your environment, garden, the plants and animals in it, and your own habits and learn from it. Share your knowledge with others and help them see what you see.
Running this once will give you a good head start on understanding and maintaining a regenerative system. See it as an experiment and use your knowledge to help others and explore more techniques and ideas in all directions.
Let me know what you think and reach out to hello at permapeople org or sign up for the newsletter.
š±āļø Ben
]]>Thank you everyone for joining our webinar. Here is the video and the slides of our webinar. All is licensed and can be reused under our creative commons license.
DOWNLOAD SLIDES HERE (PDF, ~13MB)
Feel free to reach out with any questions,
Ben
]]>In botany speak, a variety is a genetic variant of a plant species, whereas a cultivar is a cultivated-variant, or, a variety cultivated specifically by humans for its unique properties (could be colour, flavour, growth habit, etc).
A variant or variety could occur naturally in nature ā a simple spin-off from a common species; A raspberry cane that produces yellow berries. Someone clones this cane by taking cuttings and propagates several plants that now produce yellow berries. This is a cultivar. Both of these varieties are Rubus idaeus ā the common red raspberry you can find growing in the woods, or at your local shop.
A cultivar needs the help of human intervention or stewardship to guide it towards independence.
Now that weāve got that out of the way, weāll go a little deeper in the next few paragraphs. Iāāve dropped a link to some of the terms below. If you know them already, great - if not, all of us gardeners and permaculturists need to look these up sooner or later.
Horticulture terms and definitions
Eventually a variety can become so far removed from it parent, that it will no longer be able to breed with children of the common parent. At this point, youāve created a new species.
Very occasionally, itās still possible for different species of a genus (parent stock) to cross-pollinate and create a hybrid.
Sometimes the reintegration of genes from a certain variety can result in the loss of defining traits. Imagine you just planted some new fancy variety of nasturtiums (a great permaculture plant). You also have a reliable crop of self-seeding nasturtiums from seeds you got at the farmerās market many years ago. Throughout the growing season these nasturtiums promiscuously pollinate, and you collect the seeds at the end of the year. To your surprise, these seeds are true to the old reliable crop youāve been growing for year. No more fancy variety for you!
There are even projects going on right now, trying to bring back the OG tomatoes or strawberries to their hayday - back before they diverged and began being selected for portability ā not flavour.
Many landraces, and even the parent plants of many common food stapes came from the selective processes of indigenous cultures. For instance, the Inca of modern day Peru are credited with developing over 3000 varieties of potato, from what were several distinct species of toxic tubers. Another solid example are the Mayans developing what we now know as corn - or maize. About 7000 years ago, what we know as corn was the size of a dime. They developed it into a highly edible staple crop, feeding hundreds of thousands of people across their empire.
Today over 1,060,247,727 tonnes of corn are produced each year. You could say the Mayans had a pretty big influence on our food system.
Personally, I feel one of the most promising methods of improving our food systems, is developing landraces of staple crops. The idea is that these varieties are tailor-made for your growing region. Not from the other side of the planet. Theyāre grown, selected, and reseeded for extremely specific growing conditions ā sometimes specific to a town or farming community. By developing landraces, communities would be able to better ensure harvests of staple crops, while investing in food security for the future. If youāre interested in reading more about developing your own varieties or landraces - check out any and all of these articles by Joseph Lofthouse on Mother Earth News. Heās doing amazing things with landraces, and open-source seeds.
š If youāre interested in learning more about growing your own landraces, check out the Growing Modern Landraces course featuring Joseph Lofthouse, and Dr. James White, Department of Plant Biology at Rutgers. Use the code permapeople for 25% off.
Whether you plan to develop a landrace of corn that only grows 60cm high, or not ā if youāre planning to continue to garden or grow food, you should save your seeds. To get started, choose a plant or two that produced well for you, and mark that plant: tie a ribbon around it, or stake it out. Depending on the lifecycle of the plant, grab some of those seeds when theyāre mature and save them for next season. You can bag a drying flower head to catch all the seeds, or if youāre observant enough, you can catch them before the birds do, and harvest accordingly.
Even if you plan on using half, youāve now got some bargaining power to trade with your neighbours (or anyone through our open marketplace) and get some more sweet diversity in that future farm of yours.
Plant the future and feed the world!
]]>Pruning is essential for the growth, productivity and health of your fruit tree. This year, I decided to teach myself the basics of pruning in order to get Humboldt Gardenās aged apple tree back in shape. I did some research and now share with you the most important points you need to keep in mind when pruning your apple trees.
Gardeners in the Northern hemisphere can prune their fruit trees such as apple or pear trees during winter, summer or in both seasons.
You need to carefully observe the needs of your tree.
In my case, the apple tree had not been cared for in more than a year. I recognized in fall that crops were poor; some of the apples were tiny and never matured into a ripe fruit. Since no one pruned the tree in summer, it was time to take action this winter.
Pomaceous fruit trees such as apple trees can be pruned as early as January (Baum- u. Rebschule Schreiber 2021) through March. Usually there is no frost damage for temperatures up to -5Ā°C (Plantura Magazin 2021). The advantage of winter pruning is that without the leaves with you get a better idea of the structure of your tree and you can more easily determine the main branches.
You need three basic tools for pruning your fruit tree.
Make sure to sanitize your tools before starting to cut in order to avoid potential fungi, bacteria or pests from previous clippings harming your tree. Tools should be sharp to make clean cuts. When pruning with bypass tools, the cutting edge should always face towards the tree for a clean cut. You can also rework unclean cuts with a pruning knife (gardify 2020).
Always cut the branches right outside the collar and do not leave stumps (RHS 2018). When cutting, make sure there is a redirection towards another outward-facing, fertile and healthy branch.
On your final observation check whether the main branches of the tree have enough space in between them for air circulation and sunlight to reach the ripening fruits.
The more branches you prune the more you encourage your tree to grow. Pruning is not a method to keep your tree small! Beware of over-pruning as it may lead to the growth of more water shoots that will again require more thinning in the next season. You should not cut off more than 25% of the canopy in a year (RHS 2021).
Usually the treeās growth competes with its productivity. If you prune wisely, redirecting towards fertile branches and boosting yield, youāll prevent over-vigorous growth (Baum- u. Rebschule Schreiber 2021).
Keep observing the growth and development of your tree after pruning.
If you want to learn more about Humboldt Gardenās history and how I got into gardening and permaculture check out my previous blog post here.
Tina
]]>