Best first moves for learning to garden? How does one learn how to learn to garden?

Let my preface this... perhaps unnessicarily... But I've joined several online communities in the past for a pretty wide variety of (unrelated) hobbies and interest, some that I am a newb and others that I'm a bit more experienced in.. but either way, one really common observation I've made within these online forums or message groups is completly inexperienced folks somewhat flooding the community with questions that are sometime difficult to even answer because they might not even be on the same page yet to have a useful discussion. The classic "Where do I start?" question.. I usually try to help those people if I do have something to share but its admittedly exhausting and somewhat degrades the content of the space to have to re-explain fundementals over and over. This is not what I'm trying to ask and I have spent many hours now reading about the fundementals of permaculture but I still currently feel like I have basically zero hands-on experience with gardening or permaculture. Before this year (starting last fall when I picked up my first book on it) I've only ever had a few lack luster raised beds with garden store variety grocery store veggies taht never were never all that healthy.. Despite having a heightened awareness of invading this community with ignorant questions.. what I do have is...
1) a really intense resonance with the philosphies and ethics of permaculture
2) a bunch of books and some sheet mulch beds ready to plant (with something) in the spring
3) a million burning questions

Okay so what am I still feeling lost on???

So my first instinct was to check out a lot of books on it from my Library.. After having read some (and suplimented with some youtube series) I still have this sinking feeling that gardening is the type of thing that you can't _really_ learn in a book. For one, I think its hard for a know-nothing like me to discern fact from fads. I've observed numerous vehement contradictions from various authors and content creators. (Despite both sides of an argument seemingly having pictures or videos of healthy looking gardens) and for two, every book I've read seems to spark more question that I wish I could ask the author to clarify that I probably won't get an answer to unless I try it out.

My next natural instinct is to just dive in and just try things.. I normally have no problem what-so-ever with expirimenting and failing as a way to learn. That's my best advice for getting into arts or crafts, start easy and be okay with failures... but something about that seems not great to do with living ecosystems. I get a little bit emotionally attached to my plants and its really sad to see them fail because of a mistake I made. I'd much rather give them the best possible chance to succeed from the get go than spend years settings up a garden to fail. (Not to mention, I'm trying to buy very little but seems like it could become costly and then you must suffer a whole winter before you can try again)

And my final observation with gardening specifically is that its SO area specific! More so than any other hobby I've seen. People can genuinely swear by one technique that is a never fail, best thing they ever learned and its simply doesn't work for someone else in a different zone or ecosystem. That's kind of a huge part of the intrigue of permaculture to me is that its a style of gardening custom tailored to where I live but it also means that good solid advice might simply be wrong for me. It makes me so eager to just find a person who's done gardening right in my area and learn what they know but my neighbors are either big green lawns and box store flower beds or traditional monocrop farms.


Maybe to sum this up...
1. How does one come to learn the difference between factual gardening advice, internet influencer fads and wivestales?
2. How does one expiriment ethically without being destructive to their gardens or ecosystems?
3. How do you guys parse through guidance material online that could come from anywhere in the world? (I see that there are regional forums here on permies but even still I don't want to flood those forums with ignorant questions either)
4. Any other sage advice for questions I failed to ask?

--------

P.S. Okay so I appologize for the wall of text and see the irony in this being my preface being about not wanting to make ignorant posts (I think I might just be a little despreate to actually talk to a human about it.).. But I'm standing in front of the initial barrier to entry on gardening and its daunting... My parents did not garden. I lived in a shoebox aparentments in the city for years without any access to gardening. Its really uncharted territory for me but I've had a very intense urge toward it for many years.

P.P.S. Just a little extra info about me. I live on 17 acres in heavily forrested area at the base of the Catskill mountains, Greene County. I think its Zone 6a. I have an 1/3 acre pond and 1/2 acre lawn on a slight incline that I've been slowly working on killing grass and converting to sheet mulch beds, framed with logs I drag out of the woods then layers of cardboard, leaf compost, and wood chips (in that order). The rest of the land is thick forest that I really just want to preserve for wildlife but don't know much about land management or forrestry either.

Welcome to Permies!

Boy, where to start? Starting a new garden is such an incredibly huge thing as you plan it out inch by inch in your head but at the same time it is simple. You are encouraging plants to grow in a spot of your choice (most of the time)! It is what you make it I guess is the best way for me to plainly say it.

I like to ask myself every year that I prepare my garden "What do I like to eat?". I then look at what requirements it takes to grow those things and I start planting. Not every spot I have is perfect for all plants so that is where my experimenting begins. Once I learned how to grow things decently then I have recently have started seed saving. Some people don't care about that kind of stuff and thats fine. I'm very pro-experiment and learn.

My mind is all boggled, I'm sure someone will come along and have much more put together thoughts on the subject but I am excited for you! I hope you post about your future gardening antics.

Some great questions there, and good observations too.
First - there is no such thing as a stupid question here. Our 'be nice' rule means that you should always have a helpful response to any question. Anyone who replies - 'go and use a search engine and look it up' is breaking our publishing standards! Obviously it's best if you look to see if there is already a thread discussing what you want to know, but sometimes these are hard to find. I actually sometimes use an external search engine to find Permies threads, although it does get easier with practice.
People's situations are so different, that the gardeners who make it look easy are really doing new gardeners a disservice. There are just so many things that can go wrong between seed packet and plate, it's amazing that anything grows sometimes! The best advice I can give is to have a go. If you really haven't any experienced gardeners locally to learn regional specifics then you become the trailblazer. It's OK to fail, although if it comes to adding livestock obviously do as much research as you can before risking animal welfare.
Don't expect perfection your first season, start small, learn and make small changes until suddenly hopefully it will all start coming together. It sounds like you're afraid of failure, but don't be - that is how you learn what works for you.
Do ask questions - that is why we are here; to learn from and support each other.
I see myself in you a bit, and If you haven't already, I really recommend you find and read the one straw revolution about Masanobu Fukuoka's methods. It is not a 'how to do' book, which is what put me off reading it for years, more a 'why not to do'. It is not a long read and I guarantee you will find it liberating. It taught me that it is OK not to know things and let nature do the work!
Oh, and welcome to Permies!

Thank you for the warm welcomes, insights, and relaxing my anxieties about asking newb questions! I think perhaps joining permies is going to be a good move for the health of my future garden

I've seen Paul suggest for rank-newbies to gardening, that they check out Square Foot Gardening. I'd second that and I bet every library in the English-speaking world (at least) has a copy. My wife manages eight 16 SQFT beds full of Mel's Mix while I do the chaotic stuff further out from the house. The advice of using this technique to get started seems very solid to me.

I started by turning over some sod in the back yard, dropping some zucchini seeds on the exposed grass roots and dumping a sack of top soil or compost or something from the hardware store onto the seeds. They grew like bonkers! From there I got into more things. But the important take-away is that it just isn't that hard. Put seeds in soil and the plants will do some stuff.

My first lesson was about how to grow seeds.

I was in elementary school.  We used paper egg cartons, cotton balls, and pinto bean seeds,

When we had our homestead we had a huge garden, maybe 50 x 25 feet.

I used that lesson from elementary school for how I planted that garden.

I probably got some pamphlets from the County extension agent to help me learn the rest.

Plants need very little help to grow.  Soil contact, sunshine, and water.

Best wishes for your first moves for learning to garden.

It's possible that I might have undersold exactly where I was in terms of skill. I have done a few years of raised beds and do germinate from seed each year. I could certainly bring a plant to harvest with some effort but its usually a lot of effort and depressing harvests in the end. My gardens are just kind of terrible so I am specifically trying to learn new techniques such as guild planting and other permaculture specific philosophies. It's just been very hard (for me) to discern who's trying to sell the "one easy trick!" type content or who is legitimately dishing out widsom.

RE: sqft gardening, I've actually done this as well last year! Specifically with standing beds that are up near my house on my deck instead of out in the garden. I made 3 4'x2' tubs on waste high stands with Mel's mix and do root veggies in them. The raddishes came out decent but it was about one sittings worth of food for a month. Still it was very gratifying to take something into the kitchen so I appreciate the sage advice there.

RE: The One-Straw Revolution. Thank you so much for the book rec! I LOVE a good book rec from someone with more experience than I. Books are my favorite place to start but it very much feels random pullings things off the shelf without recommendations. I will definitely read this.

Did someone say they like books in this thread?

Not to derail the thread, but a quick plug that Permies has a review grid for books! Take a peak sometime if you want something to devour with your eyes that might help your gardening adventures!

Square foot gardening has been successful for a few of my friends and family. I like how it really presents a system and how to create the system for people to follow. It really does provide some good results. Something that limits it I have found is the soil itself that you are working in.

My personal gardening adventure has started and continues to grow in chunks. My first chunk was putting together six raised beds and filling them. I had about two years of crappy growing because I didn't appreciate what my 'soil' was made up of! I suffered for that. Don't try to garden outside in just coir and compost. It doesn't work out the best haha! I then expanded into adding trees, reamending my soil, and then adding another box along with fencing. A new year brought in chickens and this upcoming year will be bringing in a new in-ground garden along with remediating a long hillside that is eroding.

There isn't one pathway to learning to garden... there is many! I tell people to get their hands dirty, to try, and to ask. Collective knowledge is power, it is just knowing what questions to ask in my mind.

Hi Riley,
Welcome to permies!

When I read Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway, (it’s in the permies book grid mentioned above) after 50 years of gathering  wisdom education and experience gardening, my thought was that if I were ever to not be available to my children to share my gardening knowledge, I would want them to have that book.  If their lives ever depended on growing their own food, I would want them to have that book.  I wasn’t even interested in permaculture at the time.

Obviously I recommend it!  And it’s a permaculture classic!

Good luck with your garden this year and every year!

PS, it might be a mistake to dismiss the wisdom that comes through married women as on a par with nonfactual internet influencer fads.  We aim for a high level of respect for one another here.😀. Married women are as likely as anyone else to have valuable knowledge.

As for sorting out what’s reliable, here you will find that we don’t necessarily always agree with one another, so if someone posts information others find questionable, you’ll find a respectful discussion follows:  variables explored, terms defined, others’ experience reported, caveats listed.  You get to decide for yourself which advice you want to apply to your situation.  After all, the one constant in permaculture is that every situation is unique.

J Riley Harrington wrote:  --   3) a million burning questions  -  Okay so what am I still feeling lost on???
So my first instinct was to check out a lot of books on it from my Library.. After having read some (and suplimented with some youtube series) I still have this sinking feeling that gardening is the type of thing that you can't _really_ learn in a book. That's my best advice for getting into arts or crafts, start easy and be okay with failures...

Sorry I chopped up your Quotes, but I just wanted to add that I forgot to upload the lists I recommended and could not find my first entry yet, but here they are  -  in PDF format and attached, BELOW.

These are all great for people just starting into gardening. Just some of the BASICS and maybe some a couple of tips for learning some of those BASICS without making first step mistakes.

Oops. I should have probably clarified (or used more thoughtful language) that by wivestales I was using a turn of phrase and what I meant to say was oral tradition. Not specifically anything about who was saying it. 😅 But I hear your point that perhaps I shouldn’t really discount or prejudge oral traditions either. So I apologize for that. This is really my whole issue is that I don’t have the grounds to know what to what to take to heart at all.

I’m so glad to hear this endorsement of Gaia’s Garden because it’s actually already on my reading list that I got from the library earlier this week! Happy to know I randomly picked well! 😄

I don't think there are any tricks when it comes to gardening.

There might be things that work better for one person and other things that work better for someone else.

For me, I find that starting plants indoors and trying to transplant them outdoors does not work.

Planting seeds outdoors has always worked better for me.

Sometimes I might open a seed packet and pour the contents onto the ground then sift some dirt over it.

I plant onion starts with a pencil.

You have been given some very helpful suggestions.

I discovered permaculture during the winter of Covid lockdown!  Suddenly a video popped up about it, and I was captivated.  You're right, though; there are a lot of people producing videos who don't seem to really know what they are talking about. The video that hooked me was by a man named Keith, who has "Canadian Permaculture Legacy."  There aren't too many people putting out permaculture videos who live in or near my zone, so this was fantastic.  He has a vast number of videos from which I've learned a lot.  I could reference a few others if you're interested. Just quickly, I'd recommend Practical Self Reliance as another very intelligent source.  She has one post about 60 hardy fruits and nuts: https://practicalselfreliance.com/hardy-permaculture-plants/ that helped me on my way.
How wonderful that you have so much land and a pond...That's half the battle.  You'll really be able to grow as much as you want. It was very helpful that you added that info in your post.  I guess when I was planning my gardens, I needed to know what was possible to grow...I didn't want to use all of my space and then find out that I wished I'd known that I could've grown X.  I got books from the library that were hugely helpful in this.  I needed to know the plants' requirements for light, their final size, etc.  Here are the books that I ended up buying and go back to time and time again;
1. Trees for gardens, orchards and permaculture by Martin Crawford--LOVE this book.  He gives each tree at least one page, but usually a couple.  Every tree has the same outline: Origin and history, Description, Uses, varieties/cultivars, Cultivation, Propagation, Pests and diseases, Related species, Suppliers.
The 75 or so trees are listed alphabetically from Alders to Willows.
2. There is a sister book by him called Shrubs for gardens, agroforestry and permaculture--same set up.  Both books have great pictures of the plants.
3. Cold hardy Fruits and Nuts 50 Easy-to-Grow Plants for the Organic Home Garden or Landscape by Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano (who I believe live in NY.)
4. The Home-Scale Forest Garden by Dani Baker--This has briefer info on each plant, but covers all of the layers of a food forest.

After reading and re-reading and re-reading again and editing my wish list, I drew a basic plan for my front garden.  I knew I had 120' of frontage and wanted the garden to go the entire length of the property and I wanted to tie it in to the existing bed I'd planted as a way to delineate my yard from my neighbor's. I have my driveway on its east side, the sidewalk on the south side and an existing shrub border on the west side.  My house is north of the garden. I figured out the curve and that I wanted to divide it in the middle with an arbor so that people could easily come in to visit without having to walk to the far end where the driveway was.  From there, I could take my wishlist, figure out mature sizes of trees and shrubs and place them on my "map" of the garden.  It faces south, so all of the trees are more or less to the back.  I have Regent Serviceberries and native perennial flowers lining length of the sidewalk(110'), with asparagus behind it. (50 crowns)  I used strawberries as a ground cover and roses on the arbor.  In its location, it was important to me that it didn't look wild and unruly.  I wanted well-behaved plants out front and have lots of flowers and bulbs (including garlic and daffodils) interspersed along with shrubby plants like currants, honeyberries, rhubarb and the like.

I have one rule and that is that I don't want trees that will get much higher than 25'. I only have one acre, and much of that is already covered with a barn, garage, vegetable garden, large driveway, a pool...So, I knew I wanted some nuts, but I didn't want ones that get to be 75-100' tall.  I settled for hazelnuts, and I just ordered some heartnuts which shouldn't get more than 40' tall, if that.  Same with the persimmons.  The tall and more unruly stuff is out back.  I have things like my elderberries and hazelnuts back there.  The key for me was to have my wishlist created.  From there, it was easy to order the trees and plants and place them into beds that I mapped out.  I rented a sod-cutter and a neighbor ran it, while I followed behind rolling it up and removing grass.  Some things I've had a heck of a time getting my hands on, like goumi.  I wanted the Tillamook variety which has berries that are twice the size of Sweet Scarlet or others that are relatively easy to get.  Having it on my wish list, I was able to reserve a spot for them.  They will be out back in the hazelnut, heartnut, gooseberry, wine cap mushroom, and mulberry garden.

Don't be hard on yourself. I remember feeling overwhelmed by all that there was to learn.  Get the stuff in the ground and it will fend for itself pretty easily.  You don't have to know everything about pruning or bug controls or soil composition on day one!  That's what winters are for!  I would say to figure out what trees you want and get those in the ground as soon as possible because they will take a while to grow.  Ground cover is important to keep weeds at bay.  The strawberries have worked incredibly well for me and provide me with breakfast every day, even through the winter! I started with only 50 strawberry plants, but each one will send out tons of runners that root in all by themselves.  I don't try to plant annual vegetables in my permaculture gardens--only perennial stuff.  I don't want to disturb the soil any more than I have to.  Leave room for paths.  I didn't do this too well...or at least, the strawberries didn't listen!  I need to put in some sort of stepping stone system.  A smart thing that I did do was to pay attention to the edges/borders.  I have driveway, sidewalk and shrub border, but on the north side the garden edge met lawn...which I knew would make its way in, so I lined the entire edge with hosta before I even planted anything within. Its roots are pretty impenetrable, so it keeps grass and creeping charlie at bay and makes for a neat edge which is easy to mow.  

I'll chime in with the best info sources I know....from people who are the real thing.

Steve Solomon's books, specifically the last two, Gardening When it Counts and the Intelligent Gardener.

Charles Dowding's Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@CharlesDowding1nodig


Jim Kovaleski on Youtube - best to search for him by name because his vids are on the green dreams channel here and there, he doesn't have his own channel. He market gardens in FL and Maine, commuting back and forth seasonally. His Maine info may be the most useful for you.

Curtis Stone - a market gardener in Canada. His youtube channel has drifted more towards survival orientation but scroll down to his actual gardening info from a few years back. His climate is probably similar to what you have.

https://www.youtube.com/@offgridcurtisstone

JM Fortier is another highly competent market gardener. His info is scattered all over the web.

You are so very correct that any info has to be adjusted for your latitude, and with the climate changing, traditions like planting times and what you can grow are changing rapidly too.
Getting to know some local gardeners may be the best place to start on that.
here's an example of some climate weirdness we're headed into, and it's not warming.
When I looked into this a while back NOAA seemed to think our misuse of  carbon may warm things enough to counter this. We'll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBwUQlHus7I

The type of soil you have will cause you to modify what you learn as well as climate.

Example - A lot of these gardeners mentioned are able to get results without fertilizer, but the reason why varies. Jim K has unlimited access to wood chips, so that carries him through with no other inputs here in FL. I have to buy any organic matter. I'm a little further north in FL, where there's huge demand for any of it,  so I buy compost and spread it on as per Charles D.
Charles D uses nothing but compost but it looks like he's on good land with very agreeable climate.
I  have to use Steve Solomon's organic fertilizer mix because I'm on sand devoid of any nutrients.

My universal advice to become a successful permaculture gardener is:

1. Redefine what success means. It definitely doesn't mean no failure. For me it means learning something every year.

2. Become a detective. Learn to observe. Like you said, everyone has advice but so much depends on location and changing climate and weather. So watch and look and notice and remember. Take notes, draw, take pictures, write, document, whatever works best for your brain to remember what you observe, especially over time. Learn to put together the pieces to solve your ongoing personal gardening mysteries.

3. Be a scientist and experiment. Learn from the "failures", modify and try again. The clearest experiments only change one variable at a time. Like the same soil, water, and light but different seed varieties. Of course with gardening there are often a million unseen and uncontrollable variables but I've found I learn the most when I focus on a few things I can control.

4. Have fun and never stop learning! Be flexible and keep a growth mindset!

February is a good time to  be reading in the Catskills. Lots of good suggestions here.

My two cents is:

Start small. My advice is don't try to plant everything this year. Plant some things, take care of them, and meanwhile learn what you can about what is on your land, the seasons and conditions, and what people in your area find good to grow. You don't have to buy all your plants and trees and shrubs the first year. If you wait and talk to other gardeners in your area, they might give you plants and offshoots and cutting -- which are naturally selected as the the things that succeed there and proliferate and need to be thinned, divided, pruned, etc.

Start building your soil, ie, composting and collecting organic matter for mulch and compost. For me, deep mulching has done great, using any and all materials I can get my hands on. But I'm in the high desert. For example, Charles Dowding in the wet UK says if he uses undecomposed mulch such as leaves, wood chips, sticks, etc, it causes slug problems. I don't have slugs where I am so it works great. Ruth Stout wrote about deep permanent mulch in Connecticut and it worked great for her.

I come from a 6th generation farming/seed saving family. Apart from the things others have suggested, one of the most valuable lessons my family have taught me through the years, is it matters where you live and the climate you live with.

Bearing this in mind take a walk around your town/area and see what is growing well locally and they will be your most successful. You can also chat with some of these gardeners and find what they do to achieve the best results in their patch.

I see people I teach here in our permaculture group get all excited by what they are reading in catalogs without even thinking to check out local plants.

You're quite right about books, they take you so far and then you find you need more.

Your suggestion (Number 2) Jump right in after you've had a good look around your local area works really well.

You'll have some failures, we all do, but you'll have more successes. Happy gardening.

Ha ha! you ask a group of gardeners what to do and you get a different answer for each person!

I'll add a little to the 'start small' suggestion. This will enable you to get to know your soil better. The conditions may vary quite a bit on your property. Maybe it is all nice deep soil full of life maybe it has had a hard time and .....isn't! I wish that I had actually ploughed up all my tree field and planted something like fodder radish, rather than planting the trees straight into the turf. It would have delayed my plans by a year, but would have worked out much better in the long run. My soil is shallow, silty and compacted by previous years ploughing and being grazed to a nub by sheep. In some places the trees have done fine and in others they have barely got above knee height in ten years! Maybe if I'd relieved the compaction first they would have done a lot better, but you don't really know until you try. I'm now doing something else new and exciting in the poorer areas, which involves digging by hand since it is too congested now to get machinery in for a one off session. Making mini hugel to retain water and improve drainage to help with the shallow soil/high rainfall dichotomy I have.

Well, my first advise always is - just do it! As permaculture principles teach us, start small. I always advise to start with 3-5 vegetables and learn how to grow them successfully, chose the ones that are the most important for you and your family. Next year and 3 more, etc.
Tend small garden bed perfectly, rather than many beds in a lousy way.
Decide on your gardening style, and at the start follow it by the book. There are plenty of options. For instance, you can go Ruth Stout way, or Charles Dowding's way, each described in details and each awesome. But when you are at the beginning of your gardening adventure, never mix the two.
There are some "no brainer" methods described in the books, like Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening, which might not be fully aligned with permaculture but give you good start and success. And no matter what is your gardening style, if you grow your own food and collect your rainwater, you are a good permie, better than vast majority of population.
Do not overthink it. Accept, that some plants will die, we will all die anyway. Failures are just lessons, observe them and draw conclusions. But as I have already said, just start and keep at it.

Hey Riley, Welcome!

I'm pretty much a noob here, too,  and what you wrote resonated with me. Especially the part about having head knowledge but not what I call "dirt under my nails" with permaculture.

I've studied permaculture principles for years, a lot of it what they call "purple permaculture" which is basically using the principles for things other than what Mollison and Holmgren intended. Given, it can be really useful when used purpurially. And I've seen people on Permies talking about the full range.

But here's what I found, and what I'm doing:

Paul, with the help of others, came up with this thing called the SKIP program. It's basically Permaculture Merit Badges for Grown Ups. If you look at the bottom of Permies member's posts, you'll see a bunch of little icons of different colors. They're called Badge Bits. Some peoples' start with something like "BB10" or "BB40" or "PEP1."

Those are from participating in the SKIP program, which is actually getting dirt under your nails by doing useful, proven permaculture and related skills. It isn't knowledge, it's doing. If you don't have the knowledge, you have to find it before you do what is required of each badge. So far for me, having been on the planet for almost 60 years as a Boomer, I found I already have a lot of the skills required in the badges.

Sadly, I don't think a lot of kids today do. Any of them. Seriously. Which makes it basically a Life Manual for Being Able to Do Important Stuff, in addition to being the SKIP Handbook.

I'd encourage you to get started on completing Badge Bits. I should be BB20 some time this week, as I've been knocking myself out the last few days to get there. PEP1 won't be far behind for me.

But in addition to scourinig the Forums, getting a range of answers on each topic from Noobs to Master Stewards, get with the SKIP program.  

Myself, I now have a clear path to get exactly where I want to be with my little 3/4 acre permaculture playground in northern Indiana. And I never would have found it if Paul hadn't put this whole thing in motion.

j

J Riley Harrington wrote:
1. How does one come to learn the difference between factual gardening advice, internet influencer fads and wivestales?
2. How does one expiriment ethically without being destructive to their gardens or ecosystems?
3. How do you guys parse through guidance material online that could come from anywhere in the world? (I see that there are regional forums here on permies but even still I don't want to flood those forums with ignorant questions either)
4. Any other sage advice for questions I failed to ask?

The Ruth Stout method works really well...with one big warning/danger.

Almost all the hay producers here used persistent herbicides on their hay.

This herbicide will kill your gardens and it goes right through an animal intact into the manure, which even if composted will still kill your veggies.

Here are the details and how to test:

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/crop-production/soil/herbicide-carryover-hay-manure-compost-grass-clippings



When these herbicides first appeared I got them in a load of compost and they killed off my gardens for a couple years.

Fortunately, there's a lot of high end horse stuff happening around here and those folks will not tolerate herbicided hay so "clean" hay is available ( for a very premium price ) but I would never go on somebody's word. Test everything before it goes on the gardens.

Seems any kind of hay ain't cheap these days so expense may be a major factor too.

Hi there!  I garden in 8b/9a.  We have our intense weather in the summer months, very few things will grow here.  As a result we concentrate on annuals that are short term, 70 days or less, then plant them at the end of February and again in August.  This may work better for you also.  I start all my veggies in the house for moderate weather conditions, put them in 6-8 hours of intense sun, and also add an aster family and dill family flower/ herb to attract good guys.  I am constantly adding refuse to each bed and burying it as in our climate it breaks down very quickly.  When I was having the same problem as you I ended up getting much better results when I added irrigation and included a soil drench made out of refuse that I soaked for 24-48 hours, then watered at the base of plants.  We get plenty of rain here (65 inches), but it is not spread out and the heavy rain washes food away while the dry weather stresses the plants.

I'm wondering if we are all talking the same language.  There are a lot of references to annual vegetable growing which I don't consider permaculture.  Perm= permanent or perennial.  I have herbs, asparagus and a few other random plants that are considered vegetables (which are perennial), but for the most part, I grow fruit on shrubs, trees, vines, etc.  I have a separate vegetable garden which requires different methodology and much more attention.

Permaculture can be practised in different ways, and we don't like to say any way is wrong, because that's not nice. Lots of discussion on this thread.
In my opinon permaculture is about mimicking natural patterns. Annual plants grow in disturbed ground, which does happen in nature. So do weeds, therefore managing an annual vegetable patch does require a different pattern of work. Maybe that is even worth another thread? Do we have one?

OK.  You have read enough. Hope you noted that permaculture is a design science. It is applied by observing potential demonstrated by your property and choosing design elements that may work with that. The science in documentation and adjustments you make to refine the design. I think that is the answer to your question, how to start learning.  You have to get your own ground to give the answers to the questions.

I hope my last comment's intention was not misconstrued as unkind or not nice.  I was just wondering what the original poster was looking for as far as help.  Both gardening types are valuable but require different things.  I guess that was at the heart of my comment. I was trying to figure out what type of gardening he was looking to pursue.  

Nancy Reading wrote:Permaculture can be practised in different ways, and we don't like to say any way is wrong, because that's not nice. Lots of discussion on this thread.
In my opinon permaculture is about mimicking natural patterns. Annual plants grow in disturbed ground, which does happen in nature. So do weeds, therefore managing an annual vegetable patch does require a different pattern of work. Maybe that is even worth another thread? Do we have one?

Everyone has so far already given great advice, and you came to the right place for that. My two cents: jumping on board with 'start small' but extrapolate that to mean a lot of things - start with small areas that will not stress you out to maintain for the full season, start with few crops that you love to eat (important) so that you can focus your research on fewer topics and expand as you feel comfortable, start with a small number of recipes to use those things in so that you will use it, start with one preservation method to put some back for later.

Also start small with your expectations. You are not going to change your landscape or knowledge base in one, two, or even 5 years. This stuff takes time. Be patient and enjoy the journey. As they say, stop and smell the roses.

Thank you to everyone to gave me such great advice, contributed and took interest in my adventure into gardening! We've gotten past the point of me being able to respond to everyone but know that I've been reading, digesting, and am appreciative of everyone's responses! I very much resonate with small controlled expirimentation as a way of learning. I very much enjoy taking notes and iterating on approaches as I have done in several other hobbies like rearing insects and aquarium building. I think perhaps similar principles will apply and things tend to just get easier after you do it the hard way 10 times, suddenly you see an (obvious in hindsight) better way of doing it.

For those who are curious, I think I will opt to go with more of a permenant, perrenial ecosystem rather than classic veggie gardens. Fruits, nuts, berries, and perennial herbs that can reset on their own with a little bit of effort each year. This has been where a lot of my reading has lead me and what seems to be getting me the most excited. And not just because I am lazy! (although I can't say the low effort part is a little bit appealing) but also I just LOVE the idea of thinking about perhaps being able to transform my land so much so that it could even outlive me. Maybe one day some future human will buy my land and find a little corner of the woods that still pouring out produce and feed their family with it Love that..

P.S. I have included update pics since I submitted the post originally. I've got all the sheet mulch beds down in one (I think managably sized?) corner of my yard. Its 4 beds with paths between that total roughly 280sqft. Hopefully that won't be too much for years one... Also I've started some seeds in my basement of a few species that really interest me like seabuckthorn, table grapes, and walking onions.

Looks good!

One thought....if you do more beds perhaps run them across the slope to slow the water runoff and let it soak into the beds.

Well, two thoughts....many annuals go perennial in non traditional ways.

Some leeks and garlic can grow little bulbils on the regular bulbs and become perennial by you just harvesting the tops on the leeks and letting the bulbils reproduce into more plants. You can also dig them then replant the bulbils.  Baker Creek seeds has a leek someone in the comments had go perennial on them. Elephant garlic is actually a leek and will spread into a patch from bulbils  if left alone for a while (years).
if you do replant the bulbils you'll get a one clove garlic the first year and then replanting that the next year gets you the many clove big garlic.
The alliums are good for discouraging bugs too.

I grow "living room lettuce" on racks under lights for leaf cuttings in 10x20 trays and when it's starting to bolt I plant it by just throwing the mat of roots and plants down on a few shovelfulls of compost.It all goes to seed and there will be lettuce there next year from dropped seed and/or I can save the seed.

Ground cherries do something similar in the way of self seeding.

Anyone else know anything else that will perennial "weird"?

Three thoughts...try to find seed/plats/trees from close to your area and climate. I believe that one of those would be Fedco and they have excellent quality.

https://www.fedcoseeds.com

Johnny's would be another.

https://www.johnnyseeds.com

You're my spirit animal. Ha ha.

J Riley Harrington wrote:I just LOVE the idea of thinking about perhaps being able to transform my land so much so that it could even outlive me. Maybe one day some future human will buy my land and find a little corner of the woods that still pouring out produce and feed their family with it Love that...

Dave Bross wrote:
One thought....if you do more beds perhaps run them across the slope to slow the water runoff and let it soak into the beds.

Aha. Good point on going perpendicular to the grade. I'll keep that in mind and will be able to do that as I expand down the hill but I was a bit squeezed into this particular corner because planned build project around the front of the house. I also don't intend to keep up the grid-like pattern anyways and hopefully it will just grow organically as I get more confidence to expand. :)

J Riley Harrington wrote:
For those who are curious, I think I will opt to go with more of a permenant, perrenial ecosystem rather than classic veggie gardens. Fruits, nuts, berries, and perennial herbs that can reset on their own with a little bit of effort each year. This has been where a lot of my reading has lead me and what seems to be getting me the most excited. And not just because I am lazy!

I like how with building a perennial ecosystem, it starts out really slow but all of a sudden things start taking off and since you did the majority of the work five or ten years previous, it really feels magically easy and simple.

For example we planted a josta berry about six years ago. Two years we got nothing. The next few years we got about 3-5 berries. Two years ago we got a cupful. But then, last summer, we had almost more than we could eat and were eating our fill daily for about a month.

We have lived here for about ten years and have been expanding and planting new perennials each year. So as we plant each year, we get to reap the rewards of previous years which makes it easier to be patient for the new plantings.

Your set-up looks great. I'm envious of your pathways!  In the last number of years, I've come to realize what a wonderful mulch leaves can be, and it looks like you will have a fair amount.  I've mulched up a ton of them and use them in the beds, but I hope to be able to start using them in the pathways, too.  They are amazing weed suppressors, and in the pathways, you wouldn't even have to mulch them up!  I originally used them where I've got mushrooms as an annual way to "feed" them, but I've put them in my vegetable garden and as mulch in many of my permaculture beds.  I find the color very pretty compared to wood chips, which I also use. Once mulched, they stay in place, too. We had a few windstorms where some very large evergreens were snapped and wind was clocked at 95 mph, yet the leaves remained in place in my gardens.  I was amazed!

I like how you have these beds near the house.  I'm sure you've read about zones of proximity!  With that being said, I'd use those closest for things that need the most attention.  For example, I have elderberry, American persimmons and hazelnuts way out back, but strawberries and asparagus and little berried things requiring frequent picking, out front.  That's not hard and fast, and I do like to walk around and visit all of the plants, but if you're going to be harvesting a lot for a long stretch of time, it does make it easier. I do have four dwarf Gerardi mulberries out back; they were out front, but then I remembered that the root systems on mulberries can be destructive to sidewalks and septic systems. Even though they are dwarf varieties, I checked with Stark Bros. and they advised that I move them out back being the front garden has driveway on one side, a sidewalk on another and the septic system on the third side!
If you're planning on planting things like blueberries, which are acid loving plants, you might consider like-minded plants nearby like lingonberries, cranberries, etc.  Connected to that idea, remember that eventually you'll want to try propagating your own plants, so even if you want 50 blueberry plants, two to four plants will be enough to get you started and then you can start as many as you want from those existing four.
Depending on your age, you can invest in a basic start up of plants. I'm well into my sixties and have some health issues, so for me, getting trees in the ground was important.  I may never see the fruits of my labor when it comes to the heartnuts or paw paws, for example, but the sooner they are planted, the sooner I might!
Another thing that was important to me was to plant in order to get fresh fruit for the biggest span of time.  I didn't want a glut of fruit all at once and then nothing.  My harvest will start with honeyberries, rhubarb and asparagus in May or June and end with paw paws, persimmons, quince and medlar in November or December!  I do have some of the better known fruit, with the caveat that they will require the lion's share of work and care.  Apples are not easy and there are a lot of pests and disease potential, say nothing of pruning.  Same with plums, apricots, pears and cherries.  It seems that the rarer fruit trees don't have the same workload requirements.  Time will tell.

#1 Not To Worry: If the garden doesn't work there are plenty of edible "weeds" around: read Euell Gibbons on Dandelions ! (I think it's in his first:"Stalking The Wild Asparagus". Dandelions are AWESOME, (start slow with mixing young flower buds and leaves into a regular salad, graduate into roasted root "coffee" (which is a liver tonic, rather than stress)  Everybody loves to talk about their garden, so you can learn about the local soils and maybe even which "weeds" are edible and which not. Find out what neighbors consider the easiest garden species and varieties thereof. Tour gardens at every opportunity. Start with just your favorites, the ones that you love: if they don't grow well you'll have something to ask others about. If you travel, make sure to find some gardens, not just museums and National Parks. Subsistence farmers have a lot to learn from. Take all advice with a grain of salt, but keep notes mental or otherwise. Keep your eyes open!  Last year's OMG moment for me was seeing movement down towards my feet, where there was some blooming Dog Bane/Indian Hemp. (a good fiber plant related to Milkweed, and very toxic (the "Bane" part) So I relaxed and watched. Well- some of the bugs flew like flies- backwards and forwards: OK, pollenators and some lay eggs on other beings. Some were striped black and yellow- so: many hymenopterans- bees and wasps, which have ovipositors on their tail to put eggs or toxins into other beings ( at least those that weren't flies under false colors, looking like little hornets to scare predators away, but even many flies have predatory larva)- but wasps are not as crazy in flight as flies which can even fly backwards. Sudden changes of direction are typical of flies. So, I am leaving that invasive weed in the garden for predator support, so that I will have less work at pest control. The best thing about gardeners is, as a general rule, we all enjoy doing and sharing and learning all our lives. When it gets too tedious and overwhelming, kick back and observe and soon you'll have things to share. My favorite trick for starting a garden in a lawn is to much with corrugated cardboard, which you may not know is designed to grow fungi really well, and change the lawn flora quickly. Besides the structure, the stuff is made from at least two WIDELY different families: Birch/Poplar for the wiggly bit and Conifer for the walls. So if you know you'll want to expand into a lawn zone but don't have the time to grub out the turf, or if it is rainy and wet and you don't want a mud wallow, you can just lay down the cardboard and have a much easier time when you do get around to it. Hardly any grass and weeds, and softer soil. Of course the squash family can be planted right away at the edges and grow over the corrugated board, keeping the wind off. This is part of: don't push it, don't work too hard. I  know (and knew) people who did and had strokes and heart attacks, and then you'll be forced to garden less or totally drop it, if you are lucky enough to still be on this side of the turf.

Barbara Simoes wrote:Another thing that was important to me was to plant in order to get fresh fruit for the biggest span of time.  I didn't want a glut of fruit all at once and then nothing.  My harvest will start with honeyberries, rhubarb and asparagus in May or June and end with paw paws, persimmons, quince and medlar in November or December!

Ooh, that's a really good point that's universal! My perennial harvest goes from about April or March to November. Right now the weather is unseasonably warm so I can even start collecting nettles now.

The OP's climate can easily go year-round.

Books and youtube are great resources for learning.  Although, my advice is to just dive in and start growing!  Don't get overwhelmed with fantasies about all of the different methods, just picked something suitable for you and your capabilities, then go for it.  I've tried just about every method there is, and I've circled right back to traditional row crop gardening that my grandparents taught me.  It works best for me personally because it can be done on a small scale with hand tools or scaled up with mechanical equipment while the math, spacing, watering etc., doesn't vary too much. The only limits are my personal ambition or fuel.  I still practice some hugelculture for perennial landscaping and raised beds for containing vigorous spreaders.

If you are looking for in person hands on lessons then perhaps try:

Local extension office.
Local community gardens.
Local social media garden pages.
Farmers markets.

I got serious about gardening last year in the winter, so 2023 was my first serious gardening season.  Well as serious as pots on a patio in an apartment can be.  I didn't know about permies yet, so didn't have that resource.  I just planted whatever I ended up with, did research online about what each plant or seed needed.  And did my best, there were some fails, and some moderate successes, nothing spectacular, but some good.  I'd say just experiment, try different things, ask questions here, read, watch viddies, take some classes perhaps.  I have a local lady whom I occasionally take a class from, she is very knowledgeible, she's in an intentional community about a half hour north of me and manages the garden there.

When I looked at your pictures, it reminded me of a garden patch I had in New Hampshire, many many years ago. Nothing grew well there. I realized later that the ground was very acidic. It was very woodsy with pines all around, looking much like yours. Just an observation, but you mentioned having had trouble with things growing well and I figured I'd throw that in for consideration.