Heather Merritt

I've had very good results with a baking soda spray as long as I catch it early enough. 1Tbsp baking soda to 4 Cups water and a squirt of dish soap. I usually only have to spray once every week or two to knock it out. The best though has been watering with a drip system or soaker hoses, eliminates the splashing into the plants and they don't get mildewy to begin with. Good luck!

Hi Permies, this is my first ever post of my own and I'm nervous as I'm very new to permaculture.
We have 5 acres with a natural pond way out back, and a sort of seasonal creek/pond through the middle which runs off to the neighbor's wetlands. When we moved in 5 years ago my husband used an excavator to dredge and widen the pond part of the creek. It now has some trees sprouting up around the edges and a healthy frog population with a heron that comes to take advantage of that... but it is also overrun with canary grass. It's surrounding the entire thing plus popping up in the shallows and crowding it all up.
My questions are: How can we manage the canary grass to keep the pond from being filled up with organic matter? I did add some lillies this year to get some surface coverage, but it will take a while I think.
Are there things I can plant along the edges to keep the grass down and the critters happy?
We are planning to fence the property and bring in alpacas and turkeys and ducks (we already have chickens and raise pigs in the spring-fall). Should I allow access to the pond for the animals? I would think the pigs would destroy everything, haha.
Any other insights I might be missing as a noob?
Thank you seasoned permies, I love reading all of the forums and appreciate any help!

Hi Knut,
I am definitely no expert, but I've listened to Paul a lot and just made my own hugel. I know I've heard Paul talk about how we work with what we've got, so if you've got pine and food scraps I'd say go for it! You mentioned sheep grazing, perhaps you could dig some sod from someplace close to turn over onto your hugel? I used sod we'd dug to put in raspberries/blackberries elsewhere. Or how about sheep manure? Something to consider might be trying initially to grow some things that will help to mitigate the acidity of the soil (pine needles tend to make it more acid). All in all, of you can build it fairly easily it could be what you need to get some plantable soil going, probably not the first year, but worth a try! I hope you'll update us with what you end up doing.