Hey Reader,

Today, I want to show you how I maintain my food forest, specifically, how I utilize one resource that I have in abundance.

I’m talking about the grassy vegetation between the rows of my woody perennials which I strategically use as mulch and feed for the soil.

On a conventional farm, this type of vegetation is looked at as a huge liability to get rid off, sprayed into submission, or cultivated into oblivion. On my farm, it’s a biomass asset that helps to conserve moisture for my ‘productive’ plants, feeds the soil, and builds soil organic matter content.

And once I add a cover crop to the mix (more on that below) it can also help me address the nutritional deficiencies of my soil.

Here’s a quick video about what I’m talking about with a more detailed explanation below the video:

Right, so as you can see, the gist is to cut the grass between the rows and use it as mulch within the rows. It’s pretty straightforward and nothing revolutionary.

However, there are nuances and upgrades to this workflow that will make this a super efficient way to stack multiple functions and connect multiple elements - making it a permaculture supertask that’s well worth the time and effort invested.

Ideally, you should aim at growing a cover crop in between the rows instead of the native weeds. You could create mixtures that address soil deficiencies e.g. lack of organic matter, phosphorous, nitrogen…and then sow those mixtures as your winter and summer cover crops. Then as you cut it, you get supercharged mulch.

With this in mind, the yearly workflow for this would be:

1. Sow winter cover crops in fall

2. Let the cover crop grow and postpone cutting for as long as you can, through the no-mow-May into June if you can. The idea is to get as much biomass as you can.

3. Cut the cover crop/grass

4. Rake/push/move the grassy biomass around your woody plants and within the row

5. Sow summer cover crops now that you’ve got a chance after a fresh cut (unless summer is dry)

6. Rinse and repeat steps 2 - 4

And that’s how you:

(a) connect yields (grassy vegetation) of one element (rows of your food forest) to the needs (mulch, organic matter, nutrients) of another (woody perennials - fruits, nuts) to create a closed loop - so that the outputs of one component fulfill the inputs of another… so that it’s one less job and one less expense for you, and

(b) stack multiple functions (mulch, soil fertility, organic matter creation, microhabitat…) at once - so that each component of the system serves several functions instead of merely one… so that you get more value from each component you invest your time, money, and energy into building and maintaining.

I hope you found this helpful.

If you are a PIP student I’ll put my food forest mulching workflow into the PIP’s Vault section. In there, you’ll get (a) the workflow, (b) a yearly calendar that tells you the ideal time to execute each project for your specific climate, and (c) extra resources you can explore if you want to dig in further into the subject.

If you are not a student yet I strongly suggest enrolling so that you can start implementing these kinds of workflows/solutions that save you money and cut the amount of time you need to put in before you kill yourself from work 🙂

Here is the link to enroll: https://permacultureconversion.com/pip-enrolment/

Talk soon,

-William

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