Carol Shulman

Some of us are urban gardeners. My entire lot is barely 1/6 of an acre.

How about something for urban gardeners? I do hugelkultur and at least 2 other permie techniques every year. (I recently dismantled my keyhole garden because it was underperforming--poor location. I'll pick something different for next growing season.) I build all kinds of structures out of many kinds of materials, most very humble and homemade. And I do most of it in my front yard right now so that I can spread the word, be an educational resource and proselytizer.

My heirloom tomatoes and giant collards plants and extensive arrays of herbs and medicinals spilling down my hillside are the envy of the neighborhood and many walkers-by ask me how I do it. I always tell them to quit tilling their soil, keep it covered, stop using chemicals, and welcome all life, including ants and spiders and all kinds of creepy crawlies. I teach them how to be pollinator friendly and make them aware of pollinators many people overlook, like ants and butterflies. I dig up small portions of my STUN garden and show them soil structure and explain its benefits, including carbon sequestration. I teach them to make compost tea.

But there's no way I could ever be in the running for growing the most calories on an acre.

With the pandemic and continued working from home, many people in my neighborhood now walk more often and farther afield than ever before. More are taking up gardening, even if it's just a few tomato plants in pots. So, my audience is bigger than ever, and hungrier for tips on how to be successful. What an opportunity to educate people on our broken food systems and how we can help heal them, and how that can contribute to mitigating climate change!

(Urban gardener here. Didn't have time to read the entire thread, so apologies if I'm repeated something.) Our home sits on a rather steep slope of heavy clay. Nothing would grow on it, not even dandelions. We installed a hugelkulture mound near the bottom of the slope. Planted on the mound, threw down a little rye grass and clover seeds elsewhere. That was about 5 years ago. You wouldn't' believe how lush my gardens are! All from that mound holding water and top soil on the hill! PS: Highly recommend compost tea and/or a bagged topsoil brand called Dr. Earth to amend heavy clay. You need to get some wee critters working on soil structure! (That is, you need to seed that clay with life in the form of beneficial bacteria and other microbes.)

Thank you, Anne.  I will try that.  I don't have have much in garden beyond tiny just-sprouted plants, but I can uncover those, and I can uncover the spots where I want to plant my tomatoes.  The other seeds can wait to get in the ground until the soil drains, presuming it *ever* stops raining.  This may be our spring "new normal".  Last year's rains drowned a beautiful English Lavender that I'd had for years.

It's been pouring rain here for days and days and it looks like it will go on for at least a few more.  I have 3 permaculture beds in which I have already planted:
- Keyhole garden with garlic, interplanted with carrots that have just begun to sprout.
- Huegel mound on which various kinds of greens had just begun to sprout when the rains began.
- a STUN bed that isn't raised much--maybe a few inches, in which beets, chard, radishes, and kale had just begun to sprout when the rains came.

All of these structures are multiple years old, so they have good, well established soil structure.  All are currently covered by several inches of straw.  I also have tomato sets that I'm desperate to get in the ground, and potatoes.

Now to my question: when the rain stops, may I temporarily remove the straw to help the soil dry out a bit?  I'm worried that all of my seedlings have drowned and that I'll have to start over, and we all know you can't work in sodden soil.  I also know it's a major rule of all permaculture not to leave the soil uncovered, but I'm worried that if I don't remove the straw, it will take weeks for the soil to dry out enough to work, at least in the STUN bed. And then it will be quite late to start crops.  (I live in MI, and our growing season isn't that long.) But I don't want to wreck the soil ecosystem, either.

HELP!

Be careful with borage. I threw a few seeds near my mound and they took over my yard. Then the next year I planted a single fennel plant, not the bulb kind. I wanted the fennel pollen, I'm kind of chef-y. The next year I had enough fennel pollen to supply 30 restaurants for a year and this year I am trying to dig it out from all the many places it hid. I must have pulled up at least two dozen fennel plants. I thought I had them all but I walked the Garden today and saw at least 10 more. Live and learn, sigh. I have had similar run-ins with mint, chives, lemon balm, and horseradish.