I am the newest of newbies. I had barely heard of permaculture before a few months ago, and of forest gardens not at all. Our family has been in apartments for the last decade (moving in between each degree), but we're moving this fall (hopefully permanently) to a house in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas (zone 9), and a forest garden is my dream. I have almost no experience with growing things, so I intend to proceed slowly, but I am so excited. So far, I have read: Gaia's Garden, Paradise Lot, Perennial Vegetables, and started the two volume Food Forest books, as well as a book about earthworks rainwater harvesting for drylands. I have read that you need to spend a year observing your land before you jump in, which gives me a lot of time to learn more, but I thought my kids and I might dabble in some annual gardening this fall, just to get our hands in the dirt.
On the property we have purchased, there are already several mature trees: Lime, Banana (several), Fig, Pecan, Ash, Texas Olive...I want to add some more citrus and persimmon for sure, at some point. The one thing I want to address kind of quickly, is the lime...it appears to be the favorite tree of some local fire ants, and I would like to know what I can plant around it to deter them-- would ginger/galangal/turmeric be good choices? Daffodils? Garlic? Chives? Help!
