Jeremy Kenward

Thanks Darren, that does give me more to think about. I think its raising more questions for me though. We are fairly blessed here to get about 3 inches of precipitation per month nearly all year. There are of course large rain events where we can get 3 inches in a matter of hours on some occations, and lately getting a very hot dry month or two seems to becoming normal.

To avoid the flood damage to the soil profile you mentioned, it seems many farmers have drains and ditches to move water out of the fields. Water mostly sits where it falls or puddles in small lowspots across the land. In general, would subsoiling help sink that water, or would you be more at risk of drowning your aerobic soil food web? I'd imagine knowing the soil type may change the answer to that question. It seems that might help sink more of the water so that its not puddling in the low spots, but im not really sure.

The flood thread also talk a bit about irrigating with polypipe. What would the water source be accross a much flatter landscape? It seems we would need to pump from a well, or build catchment systems with elevated tanks all over the place. Would you build ponds, and then pump from there? I dont think thats what you have in mind, but I'm a little confused on that.

I'm hoping to use landscape shaping and management techniques to get away from some of the infrastructure of things like irrigation pumps.

I'm working with a friend to help to develop a demonstration of broadscale permaulture/restoration agriculture/keyline design on a small piece of land in relatively flat corn and soy farm land. This is a large conventional family farm, and permission has been given to the son (and probable future heir of the land) to try out his permaculture ideas on 1-3 acres of land. They family will want to see some results, and obtain a marketable yield within the first years. We've talked about subsoiling, planting trees, and running pastured chickens over the land. I've also though subsoiling and planting a hay crop may help obtain a quick yield and build soil.

Im especially interested in the broadscale application of permaculture, but nearly all of my on the ground work has been small urban scale. I have an idea, but im not sure the best way to appeal to farmers. What could be done on a small chunk of conventional farm land that would grab the attention of conventional farmers? The longterm goal would hopefully be to convert the whole farm, but thats not going to happen until theres something fully functional, on the ground, and producing a yield. There are no known commercial farms using these methods in the area and we believe that this might be a critical experiment for the area.

I apologize if this has already been covered.

I live in a region of the midwest where majority of the landscapes are relatively flat. I know that there's no such thing as a truly flat landscape, but much of the land has some slight undulations and almost no elevation drop. What is the best way to approach such a landscape? What can we design in accordance with, or center our design around?

So far, the best thats come out some conversations is to rip the soil with a yeomans/sub soil plow to open the soil up for air and water. Perhaps alley crop in between trees, or run animals on pasture in between trees. Is there a particular pattern that would optimize this?

Thanks for the good ideas. The most obnoxious grass on the site is the "quack grass". Basically nasty little buggers that spread by rhizome and will regenerate if the littlest piece is left. The trees that are surviving this nasty drought of a year (we've had some nice rain lately), are doing fine. We removed about 3-6 foot circles of the sod and mulched thickly with woodchips and some grass clippings. Making these circles expand to cover the whole space would encompass 2-3 acres of sheet mulch. The amount of organic matter that would need to be gathered is overwhelming, nevermind the install! The main thing is, we want the grass to more or less go away in place of more useful herb and shrub layer plants under our trees. It seems like plastic may be the way to go...

As far as sharing plants are concerned, I'd mostly be interested in edible or support species like the comfrey or sunchokes. The floodplain forest it connects to has tons of black walnut, black locust, hickory, and sugar maple seedlings that can be moved out if need be. I'm especially in need of shrubs...thinking all the ribes and rubus cultivars, as well as hazels and any other shrub/ground fruits

This spring when Sepp Holzer came through Detroit he was super keen on building krater gardens in our relatively flat terrain. He talked about building up at least 2 meters and down just as much, though he seemed to have a much taller berm and deeper crater in mind, so that there was at least 24 feet from top to bottom. He talked about building his caves/root cellars into this huge earthwork.

Obviously underground homes are inappropriate for flat ground, but does anyone think woofatis/psp/earthberm homes could be incorporated into a "krater garden"? Just wondering if this is an idea worth pursuing more, as building is an interest but not high on my skill sets....and were considering building something like a krater garden.

This spring we broke ground on an exciting new community food forest here in Detroit, MI. We had certain limitations and time constraints that forced much of the establishment in a less than ideal manor. The site is about 3 acres and will eventually have over 100 trees on the edge of a mostly healthy floodplain forest that's part of a 300 acre park, which is part of a much larger wildlife corridor that extends for miles more or less undeveloped. The slope is gentle but we planted the trees on contour. The design involves a 125 meter swale through the center, which was not dug at planting time due to a wedding happening on the same site in the spring. The trees were purchased with a grant with a quick deadline to be spent, and were mostly small, bare root and had to be planted within a week of arrival. We made mulch circles around each tree and put each in tree tubes.

Ideally we wouldn't plant trees, but plant an ecosystem...but that didn't happen. The area is much too large to sheet mulch. Chickens and other animals aren't an option because this is a permies, exposed site. I'm wondering the best way to plant the groundcovers and other layers in the midst of very competitive grasses. We've considered Martin Crawford's technique of killing the grasses with fabric (solarizing). Weve consider extending the mulch circles each year around each tree until the cirlces connect and the grass is supressed. And we've considered tilling and planting buckwheat or other fast growing, alleopathic cover crop that could be mowed down or winter killed as mulch. Looking for any other advice on getting this established. Some of the most difficult vectors/considerations include heavy deer pressure, theft and vandalism by bored neighborhood kids, lack of financial resources for established groundcovers  (though we can afford covercrop/green manure seed). We also have access to a lot of volunteers for labor. Thanks!

Ps im one of rhamis' students from his first course.