On Sun, 8 May 2011 12:01:56 +0000, Quantonium
wrote:


Hi!

We are two guys from the southeast of Norway (A place called Asker, not
far from Oslo) planning to convert our garden lawn into a much more
(hopefully) productive permaculture style garden! It's not a
particularly large space, around 60 m^2.

Do you mean 60 square metres or 60 metres square (3,600 sq m), your
methods will need to be more mechanised and robust if the latter, with
60 sq m you can do it all by hand and save gym fees :-)

We are complete beginners and
have no practical knowledge whatsoever. We do have a certain amount om
theoretical knowledge from reading and watching vids but we need some
support from you guys!

So here are a bunch of questions, if you have any tips to give us about
a few of them or even all of them, it would be much appreciated!



1.REMOVE LAWN OR SHEET MULCH ON TOP?

How should we deal with the lawn? Is it a good idea to dig up the lawn
cover and start a mulch bed or even just start planting straight into
the bare soil with mulch on top, OR should we rather just do a sheet
mulch on top of the lawn and let the lawn decompose underneath over
time? Is there any risk of the lawn coming through the sheet mulch and
would it in that case be better to get rid of the lawn alltogether? We
might try out both techniques but any input from you guys on this would
be great!

If you do it thoroughly the grass will not grow through (I am betting
it is too cold for kikuyu) and so this will save effort. If you
remove the grass what will you do with it? Throwing it away is a
waste. You could compost it and return it to the soil. If so why go
to the trouble of removing it in the first place? Compost in situ.


2. TOP UP WITH MULCH EACH YEAR/SOIL COMPACTION DUE TO SNOW?

In a sheet mulch layered raised bed system, do we need to "top up" with
mulch/manure/compost etc every year or does it just stay as it is once
settled and decomposed? What about winter time? Here in Norway there's A
LOT of snow during winter, and wouldnt that compact the soil beyond
whats good?


I don't know about snow compaction as it doesn't snow here, ask a
local. In general you have to top up organic mulch as it decays over
time regardless of snow.

3. TILL THE SOIL?

The soil here underneath the lawn is quite compact and with a lot of
clay especially as you go deeper. There's also a lot of big rocks. If we
plant something straight in the soil, is it advisable to till the soil
first to improve soil structure and aeration? Or would such tilling
destroy the humus/microbial layer in the topsoil? Or do we do this just
once as we start it up and then leave it? Again, what about soil
compacting due to heavy snow?

It depends on drainage. If the soil has much clay and is not on a
mound then planting in a hole that you have carefully dug and filled
with friable soil will drown your new tree/shrub. You are effectively
planting in a pond and few plants will do well. In those conditions
build the friable soil up on top of the non-draining soil and plant
into that.

If it drains well you can improve it in spots without too much bother.


4. COMPOST SOIL VS WILD FOREST SOIL

Whats the difference between composted soil and soil from the forest
floor? Do we have to buy ready compost soil, or could we just go out in
the forest behind our house and grab some soil from there to use in our
garden?


Natural soils and man-made soils both vary greatly over the world. It
isn't possible for us to say remotely how the two that you have in
mind compare. You need an experienced local to inspect them and
judge.

Regardless of which you use how exactly are you going to collect and
transport it? How much do you need? What will that cost to move?

5. COMPOST SYSTEM

We are going to start up a hot composting system, made with recycled
pallets. Do they need to have a "roof"? Should we have one warm compost
put together all at once and then another ongoing cold compost? Again,
what about winter? temperatures get down to -20 celsius quite often, how
would this affect the process, it would obviously freeze, but is that
ok?


Hot composting will be hard at low temperature. You will need to
build big compost heaps (at least 1 cubic m) and insulate them (old
carpet is good) and add a roof of some insulating material to keep the
heat in. It will be hard work to turn or to supply with air which is
necessary to keep a hot heap working.

Below 10C not much decomposition takes place. Once it freezes nearly
all activity will cease until the weather warms up to where the
microbes are happy. You may be composting only in high summer and it
may not be hot heap.

I had a friend who moved to Canada. All winter they threw their cat
litter and dog's turds on the "compost" heap, where it promptly froze.
Quite a pile grew but it seemed harmless enough and was often buried
under snow so it wasn't unsightly. However when it thawed in spring
it was a different matter, they had to bury it.

{I am not recommending carnivore feces for composting, the point was
about lack of microbial activity when it is cold}

Why do you want to do hot composting? Where will you get the
material? Collecting a cubic metre (at least) of material and
chopping it up small so that it will decompose in a hot heap is a huge
amount of work to do manually and this much would not be available
often in a small garden.

6. THE BIG BROWN IBERIA SNAIL

Norway has a big problem with the Iberia snail, the big brown one. How
should we deal with this? Killing them is not really a desirable option,
we are looking for ideas on natural, peaceful ways of distracting
them/keeping them out of the garden in the first place! Any
herbs/flowers that they hate? Can we make a barrier around the garden?
What about natural predators, which ones are they and how do we attract
them into our polycultural diverse garden?

No idea, never met a big bad brown Iberian snail.


7. A LITTLE POND

We want to start a little pond as well, should we also grab reeds/plants
from a nearby large semi natural pond and plant them in our pond to get
instant aquacultural activity, or wait for it to happen naturally? How
do we keep the water from getting stagnant?

If you have water birds that will visit your pond (to eat the fish
that you have thoughtfully provided for example) they will bring in
some water plants but that will take a while.

A pond is by definition stagnant. If you want to stop algae etc
growing in it you will have to treat and/or filter and/or circulate
it. People write books on the subject of the ways to clean such
water, there isn't a simple and universal solution. A pond newsgroup
might be more use than a gardening group.

Consider that the smaller and shallower the pond the quicker it will
freeze which may make aquaculture difficult or impossible.


8. BUY WORMS FOR WORM TOWER?

We wanna have several worm towers in our garden, should we just wait for
"normal" worms to come to our tower filled with manure and kitchen
scraps, or do we need to buy and supply composting worms? Where do we
find these worms to buy? What about the winter, will the worms die and
come back or do we need to supply new ones each year?

Once again my knowledge is limited about cold climates. One point
though, compost worms and earth worms are different and grow in
different conditions. You need to decide which (if either) will do
well in your situation. I would not be looking for any solution that
required renewing the population annually.

The point about permaculture is to adopt those practices that fit your
land and climate and then to adapt them to your specific situation,
not to import practices from elsewhere regardless of suitability and
to force them to work in a place where they don't fit.

David