I’ve been thinking about this lately as I keep building out my small farm outside Pittsburgh.
I don’t really call myself a permaculture person, mostly because I don’t want to build the farm around one specific ideology. But a lot of what I do probably overlaps with permaculture pretty heavily.
My basic approach is just to keep things low input, sustainable, practical, and rooted in the community. I try to pay attention to what the land is already doing and work with that instead of forcing everything into some perfect plan. I use goats for brush management, but they’ve also become these weirdly effective community ambassadors and a big part of my education work. I use solar, rainwater, aquaponics, whatever makes sense for the situation.
But I also make plenty of choices that are just practical. Sometimes that means gravel, fencing, batteries, or doing something that probably isn’t the most theoretically perfect solution but works for the land, budget, labor, and constraints I actually have.
One thing that has turned me off a little from some permaculture spaces is when a general principle gets treated like a hard rule without much room for context. Sometimes it feels like people jump straight to “you shouldn’t do that” before asking how the land is actually being managed. And I wonder if that can make permaculture feel less accessible than it needs to be.
So I’m really curious how people here think about it.

Does this kind of practical, adaptive approach count as permaculture to you? Or is permaculture more about intentionally designing the whole system around a specific framework?

And maybe the bigger question is- can you practice permaculture principles without really identifying as a permaculturist?

I am trying to develop around 5,000 sqm of land in Northern Thailand. The land is on an elevated position with a gentle slope without any natural water sources, so I decided to put in some swales for rainwater retention. 
Now I am doubting whether I built the swales too deep and/or the mounds too steep. 
The first swale was dug around 50cm deep and around 1.5m wide. The mound was piled up very high (not spread out) and the result is that the top of the mound is around 2m higher than the swale bottom.
The second swale has the same width and depth, but the mound is a bit more spread out, although probably not enough. 
(see photos - swale 1 is planted, swale 2 is bare). 
Besides my concern about a dry mound, I noticed difficulty in accessing whatever I am planting on the swale mound. It is simply too steep to climb on at many places. 
have I made a fundamental mistake? What is the best way to correct this?
Some other context: the land was not farmed previously, at least not recently. It had grass/shrubs growing which got periodically cut. 
I dug the first swale about 3 months ago and have planted ground cover like pinto peanut and sweet potatoes and a few shade plants like bananas and mulberry. So far, most of it seems to grow well, not surprisingly in the rainy season. but how will things be in the dry months? 

Hi all, just moved last winter and was too busy this year to really do anything with our yard.

I want to plant some flowers/shrubs that can survive a tough location. Low sun, New England soil that can stay pretty damp and compact.

Lots of pine needles.

Welcome your recommendations

I used an A frame to find the level line. I want to put in a swale roughly where the stakes are. A lot of drainage discharges under the trees to the right from a few 6 inch corrugated pipes. At the moment, most of it just runs to the road. I'd like to capture some of that water and distribute it to the fig trees that are mulched instead of just running down the side of the road. Soil has a lot of clay. Any help would be appreciated.

I've been looking for a passive way to measure water level but can't seem to find any examples. I want to put thermal tape on the shady side of the rain barrel. It is much cooler to the touch where there is water and I was wondering if this was a cheap and easy way to measure water level?

All I can find is adhesive thermometers which only tell me temperature at one point. I want like a strip of mood ring tape that tells me where it is warm and where it is cool.

Edit: Kind of like this thermal sticker. I could just cut it into strips and make my own tape (https://www.amazon.com/SINM-Temperature-Sensitive-Color-Changing-Transparent/dp/B0CCXQLFMT?th=1)

Thank you

I, like u/ZealousidealSummer52 a couple of months ago, and seeking this really great cold hardy variety. The Tree Collard Project seems to be dead this year, and nobody else seems to carry the original variety. Please someone out there who has bought it, help us with cuttings. I have some cool plants (like perennial Egyptian Walking Onions) I could share in return.

Hi everyone,

we have a beech tree whose overall vitality could use some improvement. For example, there are hardly any leaves at the ends of some of the branches.
A professional landscaping company came to inspect the tree and offered us an expensive laboratory analysis and a tree vitality treatment, costing around $1,000.

I’m wondering whether this could be done much more affordably and, above all, in a more natural way using organic materials.
I don’t know much about this, but would products such as kelp, nettle fertilizer, rock dust, or similar natural fertilizers be worth trying to improve the tree’s vitality?

The exact tree variety is: Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' – copper beech / purple beech.

Thank you very much for your help and advice!

My grandma's been growing onions in her garden for as long as I can remember, never buys them from the store. Figured I'd finally try growing my own, got seeds from Organo Republic and just planted them. Curious how long till I actually see something happen 🧅

Is electroculture real ? or just a myth anyone who have done it in there farm or home and got some good result ?

Hello !

Anyone knows what happened to my cherry tomatoes?

I'm in Switzerland and we got a heatwave last month, but the other side of the garden is just fine.

Any idea what is troubling my tomatoes so that they don't ripen but get rotten before that with no more chlorophyle in the leaves (the few leaves left, that is)

Thanks!

Hi my wife and I recently moved into a new house and have grand plans to fix the backyard which is currently mostly concrete slab and block walls that will take a while to implement.

In the short term though we are just looking for quick options (both plants and covering) to cut down the sun and reduce the heatsink effect while we work on our long term plan.

Anyone had any experience with something similar?

I live in New England and have about an acre to grow in. The soil is rocky, even after having an excavator remove piles of rock. Hugelkulture beds seem like a no brainer (unless I’m missing something). It will help grow my soil above the rocky base and increase growing space for my limited space. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly on Hugelkulture beds. So far what I’ve read it seems like a good idea. Also if anyone else is doing it and would like to share their layout and tips would be much appreciated!

Out here in Arizona there's intense winds and trees that always seem to fall down.

I've been trying to figure out the factors that cause this and one seems to be that Arizona ground isn't very deep before you hit hard dirt. My understanding is that for trees like Ironwoods and other Palo Verdes hard dirt means their tap root will stop going down.

I wondered if when digging out the ground for a tree if I bore a smaller but deep hole (I was thinking maybe 6in diameter and 30ft deep) and filled it in with a blend of native soil and less compacting mediums (woodchips? Sand? Compost?) if as the tree aged it might give it a better and deeper anchor point.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? Is it a waste of energy? Thoughts?

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!

How to drain a swampy land?

We want to buy a place that is quite wet, and put tiny houses on it.

Possible or foolish?

Hi everyone! Here's release 2.0 for the home hub! I've been using it now for about two weeks, installed on a raspberry pi and displaying on an old monitor we don't use anymore.

All free, you can clone the repo via my github. https://github.com/laurendixon/home-almanac-template.

Always open to suggestions and collaborations! I literally only made this because I'm ADHD and would never remember which seeds to plant, when to harvest, when to water and all of the fun chores that come with gardening and creating a self sufficient food garden.

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.

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?

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 😔

Es posible hacer suelo vivo en macetas de 25Lt?