good thread: https://x.com/Tim_4444/status/1789568053941866614
Gaia's Garden
Principles: nature hates bare soil, homogenity in plant type, height, and root depth.
Replace annuals with perennials whenever possible-- perennial kale and collards, asparagus, artichoke, rhubarb, berries fruits, nuts.
Purpose of tilling: destroys weeds, brings air to microbes that suprecharged release nutrients for fast crop growth. Long term extractive, unnatural, ruins 'soil structure' causing compaction to hardpan and erosion.
Humans clearing land create a void that nature tries desperately to fill with fast-growing pioneer plants and opportunistic plants, blends of natives and exotics that grow rapidly, 'recombinat ecologies', healing damaged land.
Gardening in Succession
First plants to colonize bare earth are annual weeds, like dandelion and crabgrass and wild lettuce. "Pioneer plants".
They serve two functions: shelter soil from 'erosive rain'? and carrying up nutrients from deep soil to top soil.
Annual weeds are naturally replaced, in a few seasons, by perennial weeds.
These weeds are taller, hardier, and denser providing shelter and shade and food for insects and birds.
After 5 to 15 years, the perennial weeds will be replaced by perennial shrubs.
After 20 years, shrubs -> trees.
Whole process depends on sufficient rain. Setbaks: fire, wind, lightning, plow.
Continual pressure on gardens (early stage, annuals, flowers, grasses) to grow into forests, catalyzed by weed growth.
Weeds do well in young clays and compost-poor sands. Do poorly in well-developed soils. Stage of soil development influences the species that can grow in it.
Our gardens basically mimic praries and savannahs, which thrive under certain environmental circumstances: heavy grazing, low rainfall, frequent fire.
North American Native Edibles
sunflowers, hops, squash, nuts and berries
Examples of Nature's signals
purple loosestrife, nature's way of saying we have contaminated water
Perennials > Annuals
perennials: less water and fertilizers, deeper root systems, dependable habitats for wildlife and insects
less work, don't have to harvest and resow seeds
Nature's Geometry
geometry of nature: spirals, branches
Nature Branching
triangular seed spacing is the optimal constraint satisfying solution to tree spacing. squares use more area. diagonal of square is greater than sides so some seeds are over spaced.
Garden Layouts
use keyhole gardens to maximize vegetable space, minimize walking paths, p. 40 guide
herb spirals for herbs, complex shapes give variable microclimates which encourages intercroppwd diversity
leaf-vein like garden.
Mark Shepard
Oak Savannah model: Trees, shrubs, bushes, vines, lots of animals
Alley cropping is the cultivation of food, forage or specialty crops between rows of trees. It is a larger version of intercropping
https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/pantagraph.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/97/5977bbee-7006-56e3-9973-fd6d55e77cc4/5995bc1ac0d46.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C759
Fagacea (tall trees): oak, chestnut, beech
Apples
Hazelnut (alleycrop with acron and squash)
Prunus: plum, cherry, peach, almond, apricot
Rasberry, grape, currents, fungi, forage, livestock
^^ All perennials
Animals do pest control and disease control according to him
Recommends chestnuts, apples, hazenut
All the crops he mentions are machine harvested
South Africa, France, Germany, all harvest with machines
Straddle harvester harvests hazlenuts
Why aren't nitrogen fixers spread out in nature? Must not be that important
He grows all the fuel he uses
Cows provide pruning, feritilizer, and weed control (eating weeds)
- Identify biome
Library
Permaculture twitter: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1587839059195461633
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual (OG book)
Permaculture One (2nd OG)
Restoration Agriculture (Mark Shepard)
Integrated Forest Gardening: The Complete Guide to Polycultures and Plant Guilds in Permaculture Systems (Wayne Weisman, Permaculture Project LLC)