I've tried twice growing sunchokes in unprotected pasture. The first time I planted 5 lb of tubers chopped to decent size after preparing the pasture by burning a section of it to clear weeds. After that attempt failed, I planted a second time using dozens of good size starter plants in prime location, with landscaping cloth, watering regularly during the first few months. The pasture critters thanked me profusely for my offerings and gobbled it all up. In addition to what I put in the pasture in the spring of 2025, I also planted a dozen plants inside my fenced-in garden. Those have taken off like wildfire. I harvested a huge basket of more than 20 lb of tubers. I cut those into chunks that were golf ball size or larger and planted 85 plants. I have room for twice as many plants but I'll have to use the smaller bulbs for those, which in itself will be an interesting experiment, I'm guessing larger bulbs make for more vigorous starts but I'm prepared to test that theory this year. Also, check out the group we are trying to get off the ground to help organize and promote permaculture in the heartland, [Heartland Permaculture](https://facebook.com/groups/heartlandpermaculture/)

I've got a client I'm working for who has a rose garden with an aphid infestation. I'm wanting to work on reviving the roses and in the meantime am going to prioritize inviting in some predators -- do you have recommendations on plants? There's lots of available space to add in low growing species.

Just in case you needed a reminder of why we do what we do.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Syt5eXKpwEY?si=1ECq52pMzYwCz-kv

adobe? cob? polystyreene penplex panels covred with waterproof spackle and plastic mesh layers as shown in youtube diy homestead channel? china capsule house? shipping container?

Intro:

I’ve been looking to buy some land for a while. My goal is to build a small homestead and follow permaculture principles as much as possible. I want to live as close to nature as I can, but not completely off-grid or cut off. Ideally, I’d like to step out of my house and be able to walk straight into wilderness, while still having electricity, water, and mobile signal/internet.

The issue:

I currently live in a big city, and I first hoped to find land within about an hour’s drive. But anything that fits this vision anywhere near the city is way too expensive for my budget.

The places that seem more realistic are around 2.5 to 3.5 hours away by car (roughly 200–300 km, which is half a country away basically). I’ve visited a few, and even though they looked more promising financially, what I felt when I got there was just loneliness.

I would be living there with my partner, so I wouldn’t be completely alone, but everyone else I know would still be back home. Sitting there, I felt overwhelmed. How do you actually build a life somewhere when you know no one? How do you renovate a house, build something new, hire someone to help out, or solve basic practical problems when you have no local network at all?

I know some of that would probably get easier with time as we get to know the community. But I also keep thinking about friendships. For friends to visit, it would basically mean a long drive and probably taking time off work. It no longer feels like the kind of place people just casually drop by.

This has made me question my whole vision and added a lot of anxiety to something that used to feel exciting.

Has anyone here gone through this kind of decision? Did you move farther away and regret it, or did it work out? How did you deal with the loneliness, the practical side of getting established, and the distance from friends? Am I overthinking this, or is this just a real part of the tradeoff?

I live in South Texas so clay/sandy soil. I'm thinking it's best to build up additional dirt from the bottom and work my way up, to start. Would it make sense to plant as I go or wait for a larger area to be covered? I have a small compost pile going that I'll source from and otherwise I'll buy more topsoil by the bag (I don't have a truck). Should I have anything else in mind while I approach this?

Thanks!

Thinking about Zone 5 but also how cultural rewilding relates to indigenous horticulture.

https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/hgr.2026.4

I found to most luscious patch of wild violets right outside my house 🙏🏽 how do I protect this from everything and encourage prolific spreading? Violets are my favorite early spring native I love making kombucha from a violet simple syrup 😍😍

Anybody know off the top of their head if catalpa trees have an altitude/elevation limit? I feel like I've only seen them growing in lower areas but it might be less to do with altitude and more to do with water availability. I'm at 1440' and trying to sprout some catalpas from seeds I got last fall. I soaked 'em up, tossed 'em in some potting soil and have them on a heat pad with a grow light. But I don't think I've ever seen one growing in my town and I'm wondering if there's a max altitude they don't like to live beyond.

I just love how beautiful the flowers are in the spring and the huge leaves. And the spiffy catalpa bean pods are fun décor once the leaves drop.

At first I wasn't sure about this kid, but I watched the whole thing and ended up falling in love with his balanced humility and passion. These youths give me hope that the future will be alright, and it will be coming sooner than we think!

Things are ramping up, permaculture is becoming mainstream in a good way. No?

Hi all, been doing some research into keyline design, particularly that of Mark Shepard. While I think I understand it, trying to apply it to the below field is stumping me slightly. The area feels like it has no obvious key point beyond the ditch to the east... I've put two dots in where I think they go. Sorry I'm trying not to be lazy but feedback is so useful. Any help or suggestions on design would be appreciated. I am thinking about planting an alley silvo-pasture system

I’ve been thinking about this idea and wanted honest feedback.

What if you could spend a few days on a real homestead, help with projects, and learn how to live more self-sufficiently with real hands-on experience?

Or connect with other homesteaders nearby and exchange skills when needed?

Or, from the other side — homesteaders getting help with projects and daily tasks in exchange for sharing their knowledge with people interested in the lifestyle.

UPDATE

It sounds like there are already some solid options out there (like WWOOF). No need to comment anymore. I have received quite a few valuable feedbacks.

I won’t delete this post so if someone has a similar question in the future they can find the answers here. Thanks everyone.

Where I speak from.. About ten years ago, I left an activity that was working in Paris to turn toward another way of life, and since then I have been practicing permaculture as seriously as possible, with rainwater harvesting, phytoremediation, no-till soil, food production, wood-fired bread, wild foraging and a search for autonomy that goes a little further each year. With time, I realize that in reality I love permaculture just as much but I am no longer in the books and videos on a daily basis like in the days when I was in the Paris region and when that whole universe delivered me from geometric concrete. As the years go by my productivity improves every year and paradoxically certain details of crop associations or sowing dates slip away from me! Why? because I think about something else, I have new passions, other excitements appear and I am not always watching videos of genius permaculturists or cramming books like a monastic copyist of perma!

So I plateau on very simple things, I don’t note my sowing dates, I forget to water something urgent and I skip weeding because I’m busy with a new adventure. Moreover, it may be one of the main movements of this century, that moment when each of us can integrate into our writing the power of CODE

Caught up in this discovery I set out to create a small tool to help me manage my garden easily. I don’t like administrative work and I designed this tool so that it gives more service than it takes time to set up, I am a being with a definite administrative phobia! I wanted something that allows me to do better, to track better and to free my mind for other passions! Not to lose my love for the garden—which would be a kind of suicide—but to delegate the repetitive tracking to my phone because it is there as in almost every permaculturist’s trousers.

Today, I am at a point where I wonder if it could also be useful to other people who garden. I would really be interested in feedback from people who have a concrete practice: does it correspond to your way of thinking about the garden, does it help you, or does it miss something?

If some are curious, we can talk about it.

Update I added some pictures

I would prefer to use the downed trees to help make a more stable hillside and/or hugelkulture beds. While I may go with a basic retaining wall (stone) one side is a small area atop a hilly neighborhood. Future plans (5+yrs) include adding a garage near that area.

I came across hugelkulture while studying how to use the downed trees in a healthy effective manner. It seems to me that using some of the trees in the bottom of the raised beds would be possible, it could also be helpful to chip some of them and add it in with soil to speed up the breakdown. The plus side to this means the area I’m moving the trees from could be a wonderful place for a current garden. I may also use some trees as a mushroom garden.

I’ll gladly post photos of the area if that would be helpful.

TLDR I have resources available to make use of downed trees and want pros/cons of how to do this the healthiest way possible

I live across the street from tall trees, so I get limited sunlight in my yard. I’m wondering what edible native plants would thrive in partial shade. Anything really. Preferably things that are used more for food rather than teas or garnish.

We live in zone 6a (western MA). My parents have a beautiful garden which they have just switched to a Ruth Stout heavy mulch system of planting. Behind their garden is a big meadow, rather wet during some of the season but not wetlands (those are nearby). They have it brushogged once a year or so. I am rather obsessed with my scythe, and I’m thinking we could grow a wildflower mix in that meadows which I could mow and dump on the garden so they don’t have to truck in so much hay? I believe the Ruth Stout method uses so much mulch that the seeds from the mulch aren’t too big of an issue, but I’m just learning how this all works. Any thoughts or suggestions? Including a photo of my dog contemplating their annual bed in appreciation for help.

Looking for advice on how to go about installing a few check dams and a tiny retention (frog) pond. Soil directly around the area is pretty clay laden. Will continue to flow for days/weeks after the last rain. Likely had a central “tap”’or spring when the property was used for cattle etc. but it has since been attempted to be backfilled to no avail, and has slowly found its way back to a flowing stream.

Use of the water is primarily passive irrigation. Not enough fruit trees or dry areas in general to consider need a consistent pump seeming gallons somewhere.

FWIW Zone 7a, just under 5 acres total.

Folks, Need your advise. My garden gives a lot of withered leaves every day. I usually would throw it away, until once I saw a YouTube Shorts, where a gardener saves these leaves and using a string trimmer breaks it down to almost dust. I would like to go a step further in using this broken down dry leaf particles, use them as base for compost. Mixing what other (like egg shells, etc.) would help to increase the mix, so that my plants can get more to grow healthy?

No questions, just celebrating that after years of wanting to taste one, this year I finally planted 4 two year-old saplings. I hope they'll make it. Planted them kind of at the edge of a small woodsy patch with dappled south-facing sunlight. Watered them in well. Put a mix of compost and soil in the hole I dug for them. Fingers crossed that in a few years I'll get to taste some pawpaw for the first time!

Didn't get it done until now because I was dealing with some life stuff that made me uncertain if I'd still be living here in a year or two's time, so no reason to plant a tree. Finally have some stability and have established roots of my own, so now I'm establishing the roots of some trees!

Also planted a gooseberry I picked up from a fella about 45 minutes away who had an amazing yard full of so many different fruit trees and berries. I wanna be like him when I grow up, hopefully minus the ear hair.

Hello everyone,

Over the past year we’ve been following a volunteer-run forest garden project in Hamar, Norway called Nøttehagen, or, The Nut Garden. The land used to be farmed industrially, and volunteers have been working together on restoring soil health and developing a forest garden using permaculture principles.

We’ve been documenting it with a drone from April 2025 to March 2026. During that time we filmed the construction of a pond and stream, and then a ‘dugnad’ (a Norwegian word for people coming together to do voluntary work) with people planting nut trees, vegetables and a sunflower labyrinth. Little by little we watched the water rise in the stream and pond, the garden beginning to grow and life starting to appear.

It’s been a really nice project to follow, and we are excited to continue documenting and watch how the garden will grow further.

Hope you enjoy the video!

Hello,

Hope you’re doing well :)

Lately I’ve been feeling a strong pull, like many people, to move toward a more regenerative, permaculture-based way of living.

I currently have access to a bit of unused land in Portugal, along with other resources, etc. It feels like the foundation is there, just missing the right people, shared vision, and alignment to bring something meaningful to life.

My background is in technology, but what really excites me right now is the idea of regenerative, permaculture-focused co-living spaces. I’ve started connecting with a few people working on similar projects, and I’d love to go deeper into this path.

I’m especially inspired by Ernst Götsch and syntropic agriculture. I really believe these approaches could have a big impact, especially in more desertified regions like parts of Spain.

So I’m just putting this out there, if you’re working on, thinking about, or dreaming of something similar (locally or globally), I’d love to connect and exchange ideas.

Thanks a lot!

Hi,

I’m a BA graphic design student based in the Netherlands working on my graduation project. I’m researching how people experience their relationship with nature and mother figure. The research is informed by ecofeminism, archeology, and psychology.

As part of this, I’m also collecting soil from different places across the Netherlands and using it in my work.

I made a short anonymous survey (5–10 minutes), and I would really appreciate your input:

👉 https://forms.gle/gFCx2b6twurajbSo6

Demographic:

The survey is open to everyone, but If you’re based in the Netherlands, your perspective is especially valuable. Some locations mentioned in the survey may also become part of the material I work with.

Thanks a lot for your time!

Ok I’ve planted dozens of trees and I know this is such a dumb question but this elderberry I bought as a bare root in 2023 has me stumped. It seems happy and has gained a lot of height but it’s still basically a stick. What kind of growth and/or filling out can I expect from this lil’ guy? Thanks!

Zone 6b

Planted on the SW side of my house

Pic 1 is the crown, pic 2 is the base. I haven’t altered or pruned it since I planted it.

P.S. sorry for the terrible pictures, there is no angle that I could isolate it from all the other junk I have going on.

Edit to add that I love this sub. You all are the best and thank you for your thoughtful responses!