Remote Permaculture - Not Living on Property

Newbie here.. We do not live on our property yet.
It is located within a short drive (less than 2 hrs). If someone could be so kind and point me to any forums, groups, search criteria, or permie site links of a community that specifically does not live at their place on a full time basis. Im curious to see some of the aspects of Permaculture that are in play when you cannot be there everyday.
I've looked here on Pemies and was unsuccessful.

I'm not trying to solve anything in particular, I'm just looking for a forum or group of individuals that currently have the same situation as I do to get some ideas and knowledge.

Thank you so much.

Not living on the property does present some difficulty while trying to grow plants.

Lack of the ability to water new plants.

While this may not be the same situation, you might find some tips here:

https://permies.com/t/219018/Reality-land-separate-property

This is the only forum that a spend my time on so I cant recommend others.

Reddit seems to have just about any subject available.  Though it might not have the `be nice` policy.

Thank you, that's what I was looking for!

As I understand it, part of the permie thing is to set up food systems that are, by design, more resilient and don't need constant hand-holding.

Try these search terms for threads/posts that might be relevant to your situation:

guerilla
guerilla garden
food forest
absentee
zero maintenance

Welcome.  A more precise location will allow for plant recommendations that have lower maintenance requirements.

Hi Gray, Im in 7b. It not so much the items to grow, just looking at ideas others have experienced when having to travel to support their properties. Mostly livestock possibilities and irrigation.

Thanks

My dream is do this somewhere tropical and then find a way to visit a couple times a year to live off the bounty.

Even in 7b, there's a lot that will grow with virtually no care and input.  For root crops, Jerusalem artichokes and Chinese yams outcompete even the goldenrod at my 7b place. Amaranth and sorghum do the same among the grains. Asparagus, creeping cucumber, cardoon, oregano among the greens. Egyptian walking onions.  Fast ripening melons (before the vine borers), moschata varieties of pumpkin/squash, and sweet potatoes will also do well if you plant them and harvest at the right times.


Chestnuts, pecans, persimmons, figs, plums and mulberries will do fine with no care. Just about any berry you can think of will do well.

Country Way wrote: Mostly livestock possibilities and irrigation.

How often will you be on site? Do you have grid electricity?

Do you have neighbours you could cultivate to keep an eye on things?

I live on an acre that contains my garden. However, I work a lot of hours, I get to see my garden only on my off days. So, not remote, but almost hands off. I might spray some neem oil, a couple times, to get ahead of whatever eats my kale and turnips leaves until the plant die. Might be cabbage moths, might be harlequin bugs. Otherwise, it is left mostly alone.

I am also in zone 7. Moschatta pumpkins and squash are doing really well here in the humid misdsouth. Mixta (or whatever the botanists are calling that family now) are struggling. I purchased Joseph Lofthouse landraces of both families, I don't remember what company that I purchased them from. usually have good success with all Moschatta, even seed from the mainstream companies. They are resistant to both squash bugs and vine borders. Joseph's stuff has a head start from being bred to not need pest control.

Cucuzzi is an edible gourd that laughs at those bugs too.

I don't bother with zucchini or any other peppo anymore. I have to spray all the time to get a small harvest.

Cowpeas are another no tend crop for my region.

How far away from your land are you and how often do you think you will check in on things?

Good fences and water sources will be key to leaving livestock unattended. We leave for several weeks every summer with only someone to check water occasionally.  It is possible.

I did it for several years, about ten hour drive with a trailer.

Rainfall matters A LOT. Our land got enough rain often enough in non-drought years to not need irrigation for plant establishment.  We put potted plants under shade at the edge of the woods and most survived.

We would save up and take a “vacation” for 2-4 weeks and do earthworks and building the house. I know you are closer, but I suggest you do the same thing for the big projects. Weekend warrior does not work efficiently for those sized projects.  There are tons of projects that you can do on a weekend, but save the big ones for a full week stay—that also lets you rent equipment or hire someone for the earthwork jobs. Renting a machine for a week usually costs the same as renting for 3 days.

Buy or build a shed or garage with a sleeping loft. That will save SO much time for when you do the weekend warrior trips.

I have friends who do something like this, although they're unlikely to ever set up to live permanently at their half hectare food forest. They might park their caravan there once they have built their "real" house where they are living now, but at the moment the only structure is a shed with a decent lock on it.

They started planting a well-drained property on a river terrace near the northern extremity of the west coast of the South Island (box that compass, kids) in a microclimate that is practically subtropical and gets abundant rainfall, especially through the summer months. Its downsides are the remoteness and the sandflies, and its exposure to ridiculous extreme weather events that are ramping up with climate breakdown (the closest town of any size will need to be moved or abandoned in the next ten or twenty years...insurance companies won't touch it). They live in a very contrasting spot: the most inland part of central Otago, on old goldfields with a much drier climate that has hot summers and cold winters. It's a long day of driving to get from one to the other.

They started planting up the remote land about ten years ago and have everything from apples, pears, plums and peaches to figs, pawpaws, cherimoya, white sapote, bananas, nuts and all sorts of goodies. Thanks to the reliable rainfall, the only thing they need to do is stay on top of the mowing, pest shooting, do some pruning and damage control, and try to time their visits for when something they want will be ripe. Birds and possums probably take most of the harvest, but they might work out a deal with someone local to pick more of the fruit just on principle.

The biggest factor affecting remote gardening is probably going to be rainfall, water supply, and hot hot the summers are. If your land gets good rain all year, you can plant things, mulch them well, and when you come back a month later chances are have survived, though you'll have a lot of weeding to do and there may be some bug damage.

I'm trying to establish a garden in an old neglected homestead in a different country, where I  intend to move when I can but currently only get there a week a month. It has zone 7 winters, some rain in spring and autumn, but extremely hot, droughty summers.  In spring and early summer, the weed pressure is unbelievable. Then come summer, almost everything that's not irrigated is crispy and dry until the autumn rains, even the weeds. My aim is to plant as any seeds as possible and see what survives. So far, unfortunately not much! I must have the best fed ants in the village.

I've been able to start four hazelnuts from seed, though they've taken two or three years to get the size of a year old seedling in my UK garden. I should have done a better job of creating planting basins for them to contain the rain better. Also, one is located where it gets too much sun and needs shadecloth in summer. Twice that one fried to a bare twig without proper protection, but it leafed out again when I deep watered it (and is now well shade-cloth protected).  I thought I'd lost the jerusalem artichokes when they disappeared in summer last year, but they came back strong in the spring and have obviously been quietly multiplying there. They have the advantage of getting run off rain from my neighbours' barn roof, which is right on the property line. A patch of garlic and a couple of walking onions also disappear in summer but reappear when it cools off. A few squash have tried to grow, but haven't managed to produce fruit. I'm grateful for some good strong edible weeds and the previous owner's ancient fruit trees, a huge walnut, and some grapevines.

My lessons so far are to set up better rainwater catchment from the roofs, and form swales and planting basins. Plant from seed rather that starts as I won't be there to water them. Get seeds in early, even when it's too cold, to take advantage of the moisture in the soil -- plant too many seeds of as many varieties as I can and trust that some will survive to sprout when the soil warms enough.  I want to get more fruit and nut trees and shrubs and perennials planted, but unless I can figure out a good watering system or find varieties that will survive on a once a month deep watering in scorching drought, that might need to wait! If I do spend on bare rooted plants, I might give the Groasis Waterboxx a try, though they are plastic, not cheap, and digging the holes will be a challenge.

If you have reliable rainfall, none of this really applies, of course!

I've never reliably been able to grow squashes, and I'd like to start next year. I need a low maintenance approach even though I'm only 10 mins walk from our garden.

We're in central England, so roughly zone 8, 51 Deg N.  So the summers are slightly shorter than ideal for winter squash.  Climate change means we're tending to hotter, drier summers and more torrentially wet winters.

Any advice on varieties & techniques, much appreciated.

I've never managed to grow squash successfully, either, so I don't know any specific varieties. Our UK garden is too small and our Bulgarian garden is too hot and dry for them to survive without someone there to water them more regularly.

For the UK, I expect there will be faster maturing (possibly smaller) squash varieties. Maybe look for varieties especially bred for more northern growers in the US. Hopefully someone will have a better answer!

Jane Mulberry wrote:Our UK garden is too small and our Bulgarian garden is too hot and dry for them to survive without someone there to water them more regularly.

Empathy.  This year I will have a bigger, sunnier, and moister UK garden. So this sounds like a great opportunity to try again.

Jane Mulberry wrote:For the UK, I expect there will be faster maturing (possibly smaller) squash varieties. Maybe look for varieties especially bred for more northern growers in the US. Hopefully someone will have a better answer!

Very good advice. Thank you!

I know that squashed very easily cross, so if I am trying multiple varieties, they must be well separated to come true.

I read that winter as well as summer squash can be direct sowed after the last frost - estimated from the averages.

I think sowing saved seeds - which are likely to germinate better, and where you'll have larger numbers - is more likely to successful.

I know that squashes are quite hungry feeders, which seem to grow well in people's compost heaps in England too.

I have some Delicata squash seeds which I have saved. That was a lovely squash I got in my veg box "zero waste" lucky dip this Autumn.

I have older packets of seeds which a friend gave to me.

I am ripening a Lady Godiva squash on my windowsill which I was given. This was grown in the same suburb as I'm gardening.  It clearly didn't fully ripen on the vine, despite our long hot summer this year. But it's virtue is that it is supposed to have hull-less seeds which are easier to eat as a crop in their own right.

So I think I have the germs of a plan here!

Any more cultivation tips, for grosing squashes successfully when you don't live on the land to which you have access, gratefully received!

I agree with all you've said. Sowing a range of seeds as early as possible and seeing what grows, then saving seeds from any squash that get to maturity.

I'll be interested to hear what the Lady Godiva is like. I'd love to grow squash with genuinely hull-less seeds. I've bought a few varieties, but the seeds I was sent definitely had hulls! They tried to grow in my Bulgarian garden, but the lack of water held them back too much. Also, I need to plant them in richer soil, I think where I put them didn't have enough nutrients. Might try the compost heap next spring!

We started also away from our new permaculture farm

Planting, seeding , growing,
let the strongest plants/crops survive and the dying plants be the fertilizer and mulch.
Thats the start of permaculture and will build your soil for your arrival.

Now we talk about the harvest.
Remember when you were a kid. The fruits from the neighbors were the best and of course we have always chosen the safest places where you didn't get caught.
So it might be not you who is harvesting your fruits/crops.

Here in Thailand stray dogs are abundant
(when there is no stray dog sleeping in front of the slide door to enjoy the cool air that passes with every customer of the store, then it's not a 7/eleven in Thailand)
so we gained trust of 5 nice fellows, all some kind of character and color and after the first visit on our turf they happily stayed.
We trained them a bit into the do's don't do's and now they are thankful members of the farm and no chicken or fruit gets nicked anymore.

If this helps and how to manage this in your place I can only leave to you.

Jane Mulberry wrote: I'll be interested to hear what the Lady Godiva is like. I'd love to grow squash with genuinely hull-less seeds. I've bought a few varieties, but the seeds I was sent definitely had hulls!

I'm reading that squash can cross-pollinate up to 250 - 900 m apart. So maybe they'd saved seeds from a hulled-hulless hybrid?