Implement permaculture without overwhelm or analysis-paralysis! Join 36,000+ growers and build freedom for yourself by establishing your own self-reliant systems. Think of me like Tim Ferris for gardeners: every week, I take a complex subject and boil it down to step-by-step guides or plug-and-play tools like calculators, workflows and permaculture calendars.
The tool that solved my plant research problem
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One of the most common questions that always comes up in my consulting work is… What plants should I grow given my [CONTEXT]? For example, recently I was talking with one of our members in the Lab, Johnny, and he wanted to know what he could grow in his cold climate in Conifer, Colorado, at an elevation of 8,800 ft in Zone 4b/5a. Specifically what:
Now, over the years, I've built a solid knowledge base of plants I can recommend based on what's been proven to work in my own experience and the experience of others. However, when it comes to plants, given the sheer number of them, their features, and the site conditions they need to conform to, it's impossible to name all the best-suited ones without consulting books and other resources. For a long time, this was quite a laborious process of searching the web, reading ebooks, and cross-referencing with books. But recently, I expanded my personal knowledge base with an online tool that has proven incredibly useful. I'm going to give you a breakdown of the tool and how to use it soon, but as a quick teaser — here is a list I managed to compile for Johnny in minutes:
Ok, so here is the full video breakdown of the tool. Click the video below to watch it. Talk soon, -William P.S. If you like this kind of content and want more of it, click this link—I'll add you to a list that gets it more regularly. |
🍀 Permaculture Apprentice
Implement permaculture without overwhelm or analysis-paralysis! Join 36,000+ growers and build freedom for yourself by establishing your own self-reliant systems. Think of me like Tim Ferris for gardeners: every week, I take a complex subject and boil it down to step-by-step guides or plug-and-play tools like calculators, workflows and permaculture calendars.
Last month, I was working on a concept design for a client's 38-hectare (94-acre) property in eastern Croatia. The site was very flat - an alluvial plain near a river, in the past used as an ecological pasture. On the surface, it all looked the same. If you were to walk across it, you’d probably think, "Okay, flat land, let's be creative and figure out where to put things.” That was exactly the initial impression I got from the client as he tried to map out where the farm infrastructure...
One of our Lab members, Carolyn, has been fighting an uphill battle (literally) with her food forest in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, for years. Trees dying, ants taking over, native varieties that "everyone grows" struggling and failing - despite doing everything right: building soil, mulching, drip irrigation, composting. She's lost over a dozen fruit trees in the past few years - pomegranates, avocados, citrus - species that thrive everywhere else in the region. At one point, she told me she...
I'm working with a client right now who's starting a ‘learning orchard’ on his property. He asked me a great question: "What's the best orientation for my rows? I don't want to make a huge error that I’ll regret later." That’s smart thinking, because once trees go in the ground, you're living with that layout essentially forever. Unless you decide to cut down the whole orchard, that is… So here's the simple framework I gave him – and since it's fresh on my mind, figured I'd share it with you...