Guilds

 

My brand new baby guild.

Guilds are my focus right now.  This is a baby guild, it will look vastly different in a year or so.  A guild is a group of plants that all work together to create a healthy, natural environment.  Remember that with permaculture we are trying to mimic nature and create an environment that is as self sustaining as possible.

Ok, so if we are mimicking nature there are some things we need to keep in mind.   The forest doesn't have a single tree, then 20 feet away another tree with nothing in between.  We need a ground cover on the bottom.  Just like wood chips, a ground cover helps to protect and enhance the soil, providing shade and keeping it cool so the soil stays moist longer.  Some ground covers pull double duty by protecting the soil, but also helping deter pests (creeping thyme) or by adding nitrogen (micro clover).  These suppressor plants also discourage weeds from growing. In a guild, and in permaculture really you want to pick plants that fill more than one function, at least 2, but hopefully 3 or more.  At the end I'll list some of my favorite plants to use.

More mature guild.

So, the first function is the ground cover, the second function is nitrogen fixing plants, these can be trees, bushes, small plants, flowers, or ground cover.  The purpose, of course, it to help your plants and soil be healthy, they act like living fertilizer.  Here's a pro tip, if you plant pretty scarlet clover, don't mow it down to the ground to get another crop of flowers, you will just kill it.  Ask me how I know.  Just dead head the flowers to encourage more blooms, drop it at the base of the plant and it will add nitrogen as it decomposes.  Whatever you choose to plant, it will only add to the healthy of your soil and plants if you cot off bit and drop them, that way the dropped bits are decomposing and adding nitrogen, but the roots underneath that die off also add nitrogen.

Now for one of my favorite functions, attractors.  These are flowering plants that attracts pollinators like bees and butterflies.  They add to the beauty of your garden and many also deter unwanted pests, or add nitrogen to the soil. More bees visiting flowers means more bees pollinating your fruit blossoms and that means more fruit.  Make sure to plant a few different kinds so there is always something in bloom.  You don't need something in bloom all the time around ALL of your trees but a smattering all over the yard will make sure there is always a food source and the bees will love it.

Now that we have talked about attracting friends, how do we deter...not friends?  That's where deterrent plants come in.  They smell strong and confuse or bother pesty bugs.  Think marigold in the garden, but all over.  Herbs are great for this because the strong smell can cover up the smell of your yummy fruit tree and confuse icky pests like coddle moths and aphids.

Mulchers are next.  These are plants that grow profusely and you can chop off parts to use as mulch without killing the plant.  Comfrey is probably my favorite because of it's cell regenerative properties.  The kind I have grows quickly and large, it's tripled in size in the last month, but isn't spreading.  It gets big without taking over.  Mulchers, because they often have large leaves also help shade the soil and add another drip line.

Last but not least, accumulators.  I call them miners because they pull nutrients up from deep in the soil and when they die or leaves fall off those nutrients go back into the top layer for all of the other plants.  The big deep roots also help to aerate the soil, break up compacted soil, and make title tunnels for water to travel down.  

Here is a chart I found immensely helpful, along with a link to the site I found it on.  I love the easy to read chart.  I have used this chart as a reference in the four guilds I have already made and in planning the next ones.

Real quick, here is a list of my favorite guild plants and why I love them:

• Creeping thyme-I love the smell and the flowers are so pretty.  It also spreads fast so it covers up that soil in no time.  I also would like to add creeping mint, but I haven't tested it.  I want to put it near my house where the smell will chase away hornets since I'm afraid of hornets.  Jerks!
• Hairy vetch- it grows crazy fast which is great because I just want to cut it down to add nitrogen to the soil.  It grows fast and i love the little purple flowers.
• Comfrey-as I said, it grows fast so you can chop and drop the leaves, but the cell regeneration is UNREAL.  We used it twice, once for stitches and once when my husband sliced the tip of his finger off with a mandolin slicer. ><  I feel like they both healed twice as fast using a comfrey leaf poultice.  I'll never be without it again!
• Black Eyed Susan's-this pretty flower has DEEP roots.  I love them because my berms have steep sides, I'm not entirely sure I made them right and I need something to help prevent erosion. These are the flowers for that.

I could go on, really.  Ask anyone in my family, I am pretty obsessed with plants.  What's not to love!?

What is with this yard?!

 

I borrowed this picture to help illustrate some of the differences between traditional gardening techniques and permaculture, but first, what is permaculture?!  It would take an entire book to explain well, I'll just be scratching the surface.

Permaculture is a term coined by an Australian man in 1978 defined permaculture as  “The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems."  Basically, planting your garden to mimic nature.

There are a lot of benefits of permaculture.  I'll go over a few really quick and then tell you about what's going on.  Because permaculture mimics nature the garden is more self sustaining, had more diversity and is less at risk of being destroyed by pests.  Because I am helping nature along instead of working against nature it is also less back breaking working in the garden.

Ok, now on to the question I know all my neighbors want the answer to.  What the heck is with this yard?! I know, it's not pretty, not yet.  I always tell people that my yard is in it's awkward teenage stage. It's unsightly and useless, but give it a few years and it will be beautiful and useful.  The first step in our yard was also one of the most important parts of permaculture.  We needed to catch the water and keep it.  Nope, not rain barrels. Those mounds that look like raised beds are berms, behind them are swales that are filled in with straw and wood chips.  The swales catch all the water we get, rain, melting snow, sprinklers, all of it, and they hold it in the soil, at the same time raising the water table.  It's water storage system that also helps plants grow better.  As you can see from the picture above the swale catches the water as it travels downhill and traps it in the ditch so that it was soak into the soil and be stored underground.  Swales and berms took us an entire summer, but even though it's only been one year I can already tell the difference.  My yard is on a fairly steep slope and dries out very early in the year, around mid April, but with the swales catching the snow melt and rain we have found that our soil is hydrated even in June!

Two more key points  We also needed shade in our very hot, dry yard, especially in the west facing front yard.  To shade the soil we put wood chips over the top of everything.  They don't stop the weeds, but they keep the soil protected, shaded, and hydrated, and they also build the soil.  We also planted a lovely globe willow that will grow nice and big and provide a lot of shade.  After the shade our next priority, and what I have been really working hard and focusing on this year, is perennials.  I am planting as many perennial foods as I can.  My goal is to feed my family and I love not having to worry about finding seeds.  Perennials also usually come up sooner than seeds.

This was just a quick overview.  Stay tuned and I promise to keep you posted as we transform our garden and yard into a permaculture food forest.