Charolett Knapic

Clusters of stone attract snakes and lizards. Even stacks of materials for future use can become a home to them. Stuff like bricks and wood, especially if there is a little space between things.

In my gardening business, I've found that native tree chip mulch layered 6" deep (absolutely no sun shining through) will smother most weeds. If you have Bermuda grass or perennial weeds like dandelion then lay cardboard first, in high summer when the Bermuda grass start to grow well. If you lay cardboard down at any other time, it will be broken down by the time the Bermuda grass starts growing. Or you can lay plastic and then mulch. Leave for a couple of years and then remove the plastic. The mulch seems to last a couple of years. If the soil is really hungry it usually only lasts a year.

I use leaves for animal litter. I use it in my goat barn for deep winter mulch, in the chicken next boxes ( although daylily leaves are the best) and to cover animal poops in their yards. I try to never leave bare soil or excrement visible.

I also leave any base suckers growing around the main trunk so that critters eat them before the trunk is easily accessible.

My goats like to eat the fallen leaves and the leaves are easy to spread over the poops in my deep mulch goat barn.

As long as your plants dry within 4 hours before night there won't be fungal problems from watering late in the day. If you have to use a sprinkler, use one that puts out large drops of water to avoid evaporation. These solutions have worked for me. I once read an article in The Avant Gardener that tests showed plants did better when they were watered when they needed it most, which is when it's hot and dry in the middle of the day.
And of course we do what we can do, when we can do it.

Really good practical, economically sound, information on growing healthy food. The practices are explained well without overly detailing concepts.

I've been gardening for about 25 years and am paid well to do so. To start out, don't charge full price and buy your tools as you need them. Study and research on your own. It's easy to be a mark above the crowd if you just be a good person, be there when you say and call if you can't, fix your mistakes without an argument and pay attention to details. Advertise on free or nearly so, platforms and then let word of mouth grow your business. My growth was slow and steady but solid.
In Kansas, people are just beginning to appreciate regenerative gardening. Price points play a huge role, such as using native tree chip mulch. It's cheaper for the client and I know I'm building better soil. Digging French bed edges rather than using that plastic edging, saves them money, helps hold water and mulch in place and needs very little touching up if there is solid lawn growth on the outside. Throw the soil that you dig up into the beds to slightly mound the grow bed to keep plant roots from rotting in late winter when it's often cold and damp. It looks good too. We refuse to use glyphosate and use 20% vinegar mix with salt and detergent or hand remove weeds. It doesn't save them noticeable money but it's important.

I live in Wichita, KS and am learning to work with the city councils to change old policies about plant and animal food growing but in the meantime, I installed rain barrels and hooked 3 of them together at the lower end of the barrels so I get ~150 gallons of water pressure that will feed my drip irrigation system 50' away and up 1' to the drip line attached to the fence so the mice don't chew it. If you hook the barrels together near the top, then you only have ~50 gallons of pressure and have to have a spout on each barrel.
Grading the yard was exciting, maneuvering a mini skid steer around the place to control water flow away from my basement into rain gardens, water gardens, and swales to still keep the free rain water on my place instead of shedding off into the gutter, to the river, to the sea. People don't realize that they're creating deserts under our cities from not holding onto the free rainwater. The system is working well though I need to finish the hand digging over the next couple of years.
I fence my chickens, so they have 2 spaces to forage and a free-range area when I'm out there puttering. Growing edibles in the flower beds seems to work fine and low growing meadow lawn plants in the easements between the sidewalk and curb is working this last year. (white clover, red clover around the base of the tree, ground ivy, vinca minor, violets, alyssum, allium, crocus, birdsfoot trefoil, thyme, healsall, creeping jenny, low growing grasses, etc.) I won't have to mow unless it gets tall when it goes to seed. I'll try moving the solar electric net fencing to those areas next year and let the birds eat out there. I made a portable coop on top of the stretch metal wagon so I can move it around and still keep the chickens safe. They love scratching in the plant beds that I'm preparing with cardboard or plastic and leaves gathered from bags on the street or native tree chip mulch that the tree services will dump for free unless they have to drive a ways.
It also helps to live in a less structured area of town so the neighbors don't call in complaints. For the most part, if I keep a lawn not much more than 6" of mixed plants and grow my taller plants in beds, all be it large beds, there doesn't seem to be a problem here.
Next year, my plan is to get 2 dwarf Nigerian goats to milk. My neighbors like the animals and I'm planning to get their permission to graze in their yards so I can have the total of 1 acre that the city allows. My properties total a little over 1/2 acre.
I'm retiring this winter from 25 years of landscape gardening and plan to teach Urban Permaculture Homesteading.

My grandmother in Kansas reused jars with rubber lined lids all the time for water bath canning. I do too. Never had a problem. Just watch for lids getting too faulty and for a good seal.