Artist trying to stay inspired#solarpunk My suburban food forest starting to flourish
O@WJGunning looks beautiful!!
@oriole Thank you, needs a lot of work but so hot at present. Planning now for autumn harvests.
@oriole Thank you, good angle but lots of work to be done. Waiting for the cooler weather to work on soil further. All about the soil.
@WJGunning how do you address the soil? Is it mostly about composting or are there other techniques you implement? & do you plant any nitrogen fixers? I’ve been reading recently about the role of nitrogen fixers in nourishing soil and as someone who prefers organic gardening it’s really interesting to me.
@oriole I started the food forest with a no dig garden, that is I put down cardboard on the existing soil and then layered it with green cuttings, paper, compost and some brought soil. I have since continually added layers of green waste, limited woodchips (they can be acidic) sugar cane mulch and daily I dig in all my vegetable scraps. In regards to nitrogen I do grow pigeon peas which are nitrogen fixers. In short like most people on limited budgets I use whatever I cut down, lawn clippings etc to continually enrich what I already have. When I was a community garden member I saw some people spend a lot on store brought additives but I think it is really about continually working it with whatever you have on hand.Also I swale all the water runoff in my garden down to the food forest and this helps greatly. I do hopes this helps. One thing I do buy is a seaweed additive. My father always used to gather kelp from the beaches in New Zealand's south and dig it into our vegetable patch. if something looks a little fragile its always gets some seaweed solution.
@WJGunning thank you for sharing this info! I don’t have a garden anymore but I will again in the future so I’m learning as much as I can now. I often dug in vegetable scraps and for boosts/healing I’d use crushed eggshells and scraps of ginger root and I kept ants away from my roses with sprigs of rosemary. Ants became a real problem so I bought some carnivorous plants too which also helped. Idk if you can use these tips but thanks for sharing yours!
@oriole Thanks for the great garden ideas. Always love to learn new organic solutions.
Idealistic Pragmatist 
@WJGunning oh wow! Glorious!
@IPEdmonton Thank you, following permaculture guidelines, but still lots of work to do. Very hot at present so looking forward to autumn and winter vegies.
@IPEdmonton Thank you. Keeps me fit.
Snu Bear@WJGunning looks wonderful! I’m quite envious of the passionfruit 😊
@Snu Got lucky with the passionfruit. Self planted from the compost and very sweet yellow ones with skin too thick for the birds. My daily treat.
@WJGunning how divine 💜
Travis Southard@WJGunning excellent! Where is this?
@WJGunning Ah nice! I’m in the us but have seen a lot of great gardens from your part of the world. (It’s especially lovely considering how much I’m missing greenery during our winter)
@tsouthard Permaculture originated in Australia and is such an inspiration for gardeners like myself.