Billy Megillah wrote:
wrote:
Quantonium writes:

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!

Reading your whole post, I think the answers to your questions have
everything to do with what you mean by permaculture.

If you're going to grow food on your front lawn, I'd wonder why.
In most places, growing food means fences, netting, raised beds, etc.

You'll get the best advice with better questions.

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!

Sheet mulch? You mean mulch with some kind of weed barrier.

Start small, you're beginners.

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?

Snow does not compact soil.
The ground freezes the snow piles on top. The act of freezing expands
the soil and if anything loosens the soil.

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?

Don't til unless you're starting a farm.

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?

You can't take soil out of a forest in most civilized countries.
The soil on a forest floor is compost.

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 and cold compost? you're over thinking this stuff.
Put garden waste in a pile. I year later turn it over and you'll find
soil. In the winter not much will go on in the pile. No big deal.

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?

Google says you are SOL.

This is one reason why food production is best done on farms.
Google says they eat EVERYTHING. I wonder if that includes lawns?

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?

Way too much for a beginner. Ponds are a specialty onto themselves.

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?

Again, way over thinking this stuff.
Throw garden waste in a pile. Do nothing else to it
except turn it over are remove the soil after a year or 2.
All this advanced composting stuff is for people that arrange
their sock drawers by color.

Thanks for taking the time to help us in our project and therefore
helping the earth as a whole! Gardening is definately the sustainable
way forward!

I garden for beauty. Nothing wrong with growing food but we'll continue
to feed the world from farms for the indefinite future.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed the poster was looking for
answers, not attitude.

Then why did you respond, all you ever give is tude, albiet loooong
winded verbose tude but tude nevertheless... WTF happened, run out of
time to post your usual unabridged billytude megillah?