Permaculture and edible landscaping

[pdsavage]

Ok i have been wanting to do this for years but hubby wants to waste time and energy on huge lawns...So now im taking over and doing it my way well acually the natural way...Anyone else have a permaculture property and have tips and ideas?
I have books on the way but i have had for like 10 years the complete book of edibal landscaping,Thats how long i have been wanting to do this...

 

[freemotion]

Just pick one project per year or season and complete it. Imagine what you will have in the next ten years! I discovered that rhubarb is quite pretty, since it forms a large leafy mound that rivals any hosta. I put in a large strawberry bed and outlined a curved line with bricks and planted petunias along the edge. Quite pretty. Homemade stepping stones will be "picking stations" when they are all done and in place.

Herbs and zucchini as more foundation plantings. Intersperse a few colorful annuals each year for a flower garden look. I have been moving in this direction, too. But there will always be room for things that are simply pretty, too. Feeding your spirit is important, too!

 

[Lady Henevere]

I am SO into this idea right now. I have been reading and reading about it and I'm finally buying some plants and getting ready to put the plans into action. I'm looking into buying heirloom fruit trees over the winter, and I have already gotten some berry plants on sale. We have some fruit trees and herbs already, but I want to do a whole food forest system. Here are some great books on the subject I have checked out from my local library:

Gaia's Garden (this one is really good)
Food Not Lawns
Perennial Vegetables (I think that was the name of it...)
Edible Forest Gardens, Volume 2 (LOTS of information. Kind of overwhelming, really.)

What are you planning to do? Are you stripping back sod and planting trees, etc.? Keep us posted -- I would love to hear how it goes.

 

[delia_peterson]

Ok...newbie here, so please be patient. Basically you are making a food garden and using your lawn and also making it look nice? Actually Free I like what you are saying with the Strawberry patch and flowers..kind of blending it in, right? Is that the basic idea? Making the most of your space?

 

[freemotion]

Yup, I loved the Italian ladies' gardens in the city when visiting friends....neat beds along fences and buildings, with fruits and veggies interspersed with flowers. It was so cool. From a distance it looks like a flower bed, then up close, you realize that that exotic-looking leafy plant is a zucchini, and those red flowers are really tomatoes and peppers! I always loved those gardens. Especially since they acknowledged the need for beauty for beauty's sake, with plenty of flowers that had no food or medicinal value.

 

[Lady Henevere]

Ok...newbie here, so please be patient. Basically you are making a food garden and using your lawn and also making it look nice? Actually Free I like what you are saying with the Strawberry patch and flowers..kind of blending it in, right? Is that the basic idea? Making the most of your space?

I think different people define it differently. "Edible landscaping" is basically adding edibles to your landscaping. As freemotion mentioned, this can work really well -- people don't often seem to realize how beautiful some edibles can be when worked into a nice overall landscape plan.

As for the "permaculture" concept, the use of this term can differ. Some see permaculture as more of a closed system, meaning that you do traditional vegetable gardening but you use a lot of your own compost, for example, rather than bringing in fertilizer. Others see permaculture as more of a long-term system of mostly annuals (trees, shrubs, herbs) that are put together in layers, like a forest. Sometimes this is called a "food forest" or "forest gardening." Here's a website that explains this concept:
http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/about_gardening
Either way, you get beauty and function out of a sustainable, self-sufficient system. It's a pretty good deal.

 

[pdsavage]

I will be doing a small food forest also..My lot is almost a Acre so I have some space..I have picked out what trees and plants i will be putting in all ready and have most ordered and am waiting for the Arborday to let be order trees and shrubs wich is in the fall..
I have 50 PawPaw seeds on the way,wich will make a great edibal fence line proubly on the south side wich is where the township drainage ditch is at and i dont want trees growing tall on my warm south side...
I have some edibal trees growing now walnut and eldiberrie trees..One peach tree wich has to be moved and 2 grape vines..
i have one small swale allread wich runs to the ditch..Ill be making that a little bigger,im taking out the peonies (freecycled the peonies someone comming today to get)that runs beside it and replacing with something edibal or usefull..Ill go take pics now of that project now...

 

[Wifezilla]

I discovered that rhubarb is quite pretty, since it forms a large leafy mound that rivals any hosta.

This is how I use rhubarb

I can't get hostas to grow, but those huge rhubarb leaves look awesome

 

[Lady Henevere]

I will be doing a small food forest also..My lot is almost a Acre so I have some space..I have picked out what trees and plants i will be putting in all ready and have most ordered and am waiting for the Arborday to let be order trees and shrubs wich is in the fall..
I have 50 PawPaw seeds on the way,wich will make a great edibal fence line proubly on the south side wich is where the township drainage ditch is at and i dont want trees growing tall on my warm south side...
I have some edibal trees growing now walnut and eldiberrie trees..One peach tree wich has to be moved and 2 grape vines..
i have one small swale allread wich runs to the ditch..Ill be making that a little bigger,im taking out the peonies (freecycled the peonies someone comming today to get)that runs beside it and replacing with something edibal or usefull..Ill go take pics now of that project now...

Sounds beautiful. And it sounds like you've done a lot of work on it already! How did you do the swale -- by hand or with equipment? Does it work well? Do you get cold winters where you are?

I'm in Southern California, where we can only grow plants that don't need a winter chill and can tolerate pretty hot temperatures in the summer. We're currently in a drought that's worse than usual, so there are restrictions on how often we can water our yards. I have my laundry greywater draining out to where I'm going to put in plum, peach, and apple trees. In the drier areas, I want to put in an avocado tree that I already have growing in a pot, an olive tree, and an almond tree, since all of those are drought-tolerant. We already have two pomegranates and about six citrus trees, but some of the citrus are not doing well since they are very old and have suffered from sun scorch thanks to bad pruning (I wish I knew more about it years ago when we bought this house -- I may have been able to save them). I put in grapes last weekend (and the chickens promptly ate off a bunch of leaves, so I had to put netting around them), and I have potted blackberries, boysenberries, and blueberries that need to be transplanted. I have also included some edibles throughout the rest of the yard, like strawberries in with some pansies and creeping thyme as a ground cover under the roses. I have a vegetable garden too, but in time I'd like to work the veggies into the food forest area.

I found some really interesting varieties of fruit trees at this website:
http://www.treesofantiquity.com/index.php?main_page=index
I have ordered a catalog and I will probably order some trees from them in fall or winter. They have some interesting heritage varieties of fruits.

I was reading about rhubarb, and I read that it doesn't do well in this climate. But I remember seeing it in gardens when I was a kid so I think I'm going to try it anyway. For those of you who have it, do you harvest and eat it much? Does it preserve well? Thanks.

 

[Wifezilla]

Hubby eats it. You can freeze it or make it in to a sauce. It is very high in vitamin C.