Planning to really up our gardening game this year. One thing will be making fruit tree guilds so I’m researching perennial herbs and edibles for them. Hoping for a mild winter so we can work on getting things built a little at a time rather than trying to get it all done come spring. #gardeningpkans #gardendreams #fruittreeguild #perrenials #seeds #herbs (at West Virginia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJkNyCljvvm/?igshid=mm4izjr5yspg

We started a fruit tree guild today! Lou Ann and the neighbor, Julie went fruit tree shopping and came back with a pomegranate, goji berry, and raspberry plants. We were thinking of maybe putting them out in the forests yard but Austin suggested putting them in an open garden bed near the house. What a great choice! So, what we did was plant the pomegranate in the center, then discovered that the goji berry plant was actually 3! So we planted them in each corner of the bed. Across the garden, we planted the raspberry plant and then covered each plant’s ground with fallen pinecones and leaves, for holding in water and mulching! Woohoo!!! . Everyday there’s something fun and exciting going on at the Positive Place Permaculture Project. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? . #permaculture #foodforest #fruittreeguild #dreamscometrue #believeinyourself #desertgarden #sedona #arizona #arizonagardening #plantfood #gardening #organic #growyourownfood #positiveplacepermacultureproject (at Oak Creek, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp6Gb5znJt2/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=12bn6apm58fxp

How do you "weed" with your mind? What's the difference between a real "guild" and traditional companion planting? This Spring, this lovely young guild has been one of my very favorite places in our garden, one of the most beautiful of our plantings, though beauty was not really part of the design here. BTW, this guild is on somewhat acidic, badly eroded Ostemo sandy loam, basically S.W. Michigan's famous sand box sand. Beyond being pretty to look at, I've had to do almost nothing to it but eat from it. Which is really the point of a "guild," a little designed planting that self-maintains like a natural plant community. Which means I shouldn't have to weed it or keep grasses out of it or use grass barriers. This is different than companion planting, which may use aromatic herbs or beneficial interactions to fend off pests and disease in a garden setting, but which may require standard garden treatment of weeding, grass removal, fertilizing, etc. Sure, some thin grasses, runnering weeds, and aggressive volunteers show up here and there, but there is the relative stability and balance of a natural plant community. With the exception of one area which needs some design tweaking to account for the soils improving, you can see that there's more a risk of this guild encroaching on the lawn than there is of the lawn encroaching on the guild. And in that one area, it's especially important not to weed! If I solve the problem by weeding, I'll work "weeding" labor into my guild. Instead, this is feedback that I need to solve the problem with design! I need to do the weeding with my mind! #Permaculture #Permacultureguild #fruittreeguild #edibleforestgarden #foodforest