Cathy Emerson

You've already gotten great suggestions as to what to plant, so I won't address that. Just wanted to throw out that you might check out Goldifarms on youtube. Her climate sounds similar to yours (also a 9 with winter rain) and she goes into her start with hugelkulture and what changes she made moving forward. I've found it inspiring as we also have hot dry summers though my zone is 7b, not 9b.

Good luck with your fall planting!

Looks interesting! Thank you for the heads' up!

Heather Staas wrote:
I'd love to see folks learning more about season extension,  using more of their organic waste in a closed urban system,  and really like to see some succession planting in conjunction with how to do that in polyculture!    And maybe some perennial/tree plannings made specifically for smaller urban or suburban folks.  

Neighbors and resale values are a real concern in living close to "conventional" folks as well,  anything we can do to keep the peace and/or/while educating is helpful.

Some support for implementing "pieces" of permaculture design without feeling like we need to go "all in" with a huge in depth design revamp in one go.   Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect it stops a lot of overwhelmed folks from dabbling and learning as they go!

This!

Been working on this myself for years in my own backyard. I've got a mix of raised beds mainly used for growing annual food crops and then the perimeter which is my "food forest" and incorporates fruit trees, bushes, asparagus, strawberries, and other perennial crops. It's a challenge to do all this in a small space without it looking too "foresty" or messy. But a fun challenge!

Debbie Ann, yes, also very hot here (100's now as a matter of fact), so we plant right around Valentine's Day up till the beginning of March. We're just about ready to harvest the spring potatoes, which did very well last year and look promising this year. Those aren't an issue at all, thankfully. Just would like to be able to plant again this summer for a fall crop, but not sure how to mitigate the hot weather to get them going. Can't find much at all online about this topic, either.

As for seed potatoes, while it's true that organic ones will sprout and grow, I did order organic certified seed potato hoping to start with disease-free ones and lessen the risk of blight and other issues. I hope it's okay to mention a company here, but I've ordered from Teton Organics a few times now and been very pleased with my crops from their seed potatoes. And they will ship at your requested time, which for me, was January to be ready to plant in February. I've ordered a fresh batch for fall planting this year, instead of replanting some of the potatoes I'm about to harvest, in case the lack of a cool weather cycle was contributing to the problem.

Just wondering if anyone out there has experience growing fall potatoes in an area where it doesn't really cool off till more like October. We're in zone 7b and first frost date is November 1st, but it's not uncommon to have a frost a bit earlier. We're often still in the 90's through September. Last year, I saved out some of our June potato harvest and tried replanting in late July, to no avail. But I can't really plant later than that. Is there any way to get them to start growing in the heat?

Oh, no! So very sorry for this huge loss for you and your wife.  I've been following this fire closely, as I've backpacked over there the past several summers and find it just stunning.  The loss of homes and wildlife is heartbreaking.

Forrest King wrote:
They came that way if you can find some that held hydrogen peroxide they will be black. Otherwise, it is a good idea to take the plastic out and paint it a dark color to avoid algae growth.

Thanks for answering! He wrapped both of ours in black plastic this year, but yours look so smooth and neat that we wondered if you painted them. I've not seen the black ones locally (Oklahoma), but will be sure to keep an eye out.

Nice job! I really like the look of your set-up. We do something similiar, but with only two IBC totes so far. I showed my husband this thread, and he was curious if you wrapped the IBC totes, or painted, or ?

Just ordered and received tree collard cuttings to try, personally. And as the person above mentioned, Swiss chard lasts through most weather here, until we get some truly cold weather (zone 7b, SW Oklahoma, so not till Jan/Feb here). While not perennial, I find lambs' quarters in abundance here this time of year and we use those as we would spinach for eating. Last year, the kale I planted in early spring produced well into winter, and probably would have kept going had we not been ready to remove it.

It looks a lot like my Sweet Meat squash.