Health, Hope & Happiness
Permaculture gardening
While the main goal of a vegetable garden is obviously to grow vegetables, there are other things to grow that will benefit the garden. A variety of herbs and flowers can improve yields by attracting beneficial insects to the garden, and protecting your plants. Continue reading “Herbs and flowers: natural pest control for the garden”
Starting your first permaculture vegetable garden can feel a bit daunting. You’ve been taught by convention that to build a garden you need expensive equipment to till up the soil; and lots of stuff like fertilizers, pesticides, and other manmade garden inputs. Well, I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way. Continue reading “How to start a vegetable garden for beginners: the quick and easy way”
Sometimes there just isn’t any room to grow an in-ground garden. You might be living in an apartment, or renting where you can’t build a garden. But you can have a garden if you have space to put on some pots in a sunny area.
Container gardening is like using raised beds – they’re just very small raised beds. You can grow just about anything in a pot, but there are a few things to consider. Continue reading “Vegetable container gardening ideas”
I had the most wonderful dream the other night. I dreamt I had a beautiful piece of property, and was busy working in my gardens. I had a grape arbor, and one of those arched trellises for growing squash on.
Someone had given me eight chickens, and they followed me around like puppies. And I believe there was an actual puppy in there somewhere too. Rich had a wonderful natural swimming pool dug, and I was transplanting corn plants.
It was idyllic; and I was crazy happy. First dream I’ve remembered so vividly in a long time.
Then I woke up. Continue reading “The Survival Garden: Gardeners in a dangerous time”
The variety of vegetable seed you plant should match the climate you live in, and the conditions of your garden. Because the limiting factor in my present garden is sunlight, it was important to choose the correct varieties of veggies. Continue reading “What should I plant in my vegetable garden?”
Even if you only have a small yard, you can harvest a relatively large amount of food. Small garden designs that focus on interplanting, succession planting, overwintering, and closer spacing can take a small garden space to the next level – plus a couple of bonus tips. It just takes a little bit of know-how, observation, and planning ahead. Continue reading “How small garden designs can produce big garden harvests”
As with most things permaculture, exactly which plants you should put into or leave out of your permaculture fruit tree guilds…depends. It depends on where you live, what your climate is like, what your property aspect is, what your soil is like, what you like to eat, etc.
So instead of asking which plants to use, let’s look at what types of plants you need in a guild. This will give you an excellent foundation to work with. Continue reading “5 things to put in your permaculture fruit tree guilds”
Oddly enough, I have seen people go to the trouble of planting a garden, and then, whether they lose interest or just get too busy, the garden is left to fend for itself.
The weeds take over, plants go to seed, and perfectly lovely vegetables just rot on the vine or in the soil. This is certainly a sad waste of a lovingly planted permaculture garden. Continue reading “How to use your permaculture garden: leave no veg behind”
I have heard this argument quite often in permaculture circles, from people trying to ‘disprove’ permaculture:
“Permaculture can’t provide ALL of your food. You can’t grow coffee, bananas, etc. etc. everywhere. So how can permaculture provide all of your food? What if you live up north?”
Well, the answer seems obvious to me, but apparently it’s not to everyone. Continue reading “Thoughts on self sufficient gardening”
Composting doesn’t need to be complicated. Sometimes composting just means dropping your harvest waste and trimmings right onto the garden. In permaculture, this is known as chop-and-drop. And it is the simplest and easiest way to get organic matter into the garden. Continue reading “How to make the best compost, and why you really should”
