Paula Edwards

Thanks for the hydroponic idea. What does the table sugar do and the salt - or the molasses (which is maybe even more expensive)?
And how is it used in what quantities?

Exactly right. The only thing what let me try doing something on the TOP of the soil was the hard work. I had to work all the time with the mattock to get the rubbish like concrete pavers, pieces of walls, road signs, rubble or even asphalt out and broke several handles. Yes there was dirt in between all that crap. I know that 1 1/2 meter below all that there is swamp, hence water. The more I build up the more the water runs off the land and the farer I'm away from the water.

It depends what you want. Jerusalem artichockes are prolific, but how much do you really want? They are not terribly good unless your want to burn schnaps.
Rhubarb is really worthwhile and grows in shade. Small fruits like currants or strawberries. The same with greens like sorrel or mints you only need so much.I will try air potato and kudzu both sound promising and can be used as staples. Chestnuts but the trees are huge.

It seems that you need a very decent windbreak. We have high winds here too and I am very aware of that. It helps against drying winds too and against cold winter winds.
I can't make any suggestions for your climate, but if you are in a bushfire prone area, bear in mind that anything pine burns easily. I think a windbreak must be evergreen too it helps with the heating of the house.
I would not introduce tyres in the garden because they contain toxins and if you ever want to get rid of them it costs you a fortune.
For your annual area you could make four or so sections, all fully fenced and rotate chicken or ducks over them to give you eggs and a lot of fertilizer. For your climate ducks might be better. It's expensive in the beginning though wire, concrete starposts.
Furthermore you could ask your neighbours for the garden waste or even call lawnmowing companies or gardeners.

Yes dig the timber in. I had bad experiences laying it on the top as written in the huegelbed thread. I would start with one or two beds only and keep modifiying. Mulching with stones is good in dry climates too. And yes to the water tank the biggest you can fit in. Try greywater use too. With the huegelbeds, doesn't they dry oout easier as they stick out of the ground?

You can use Dinkel spelt (or german wheat or whatever it is called) as well. It is well known to fill the very best pillows.

I have tried two methods of huegelbeds. In the first case the whole site for the vegetable was dug out with a machine. That was a majopr catastrophe and I don't recomment this at all. We then completetly netted the site which was good. Then we layed the beds first woody clippings and then grass and dirt. but we did not mound each bed. The beds had to be refilled since then. The soil is nice now but the amount of hard shoveling work was just too much and also the destruction of the surroundings. It was as well a huge stability problem to build everything in.
I have to add that we have next to no toposil and our whole land is fill with asphalt lumps and concrete pavers and some dirt.
The second method I tried was no good either. I decided to lay everything on top of the land. There are two versions, the first were i put first grass clippings on the wood (worse) the second were I laid the soil first and used the clippings for mulch.
These hilled beds are first of all not very stable and I really have no idea how Sepp builds his very steep beds without a problem - there must be glue in his soil.
Building the beds on top of the soil is good as long as the climate is very wet. But in Australia it always changes and we only had some weeks of dry weather and the stuff wilted and I had to water daily.
My next attempt will be to dig small trenches in the width of every bed, fill this with the woody stuff and then hild up the rest. I will bring in a SMALL machine for this one too as it is really no fun trying to hand dig our fill and it is not comparable to dig dirt.
Hopefully this approach is better.
I must find a method to restore the beds laid on the top.

What I've learned from the thread is that myco.. is something with beneficial fungi and inoculants are beneficial bacteria.
Our soil is landfill, stuff excavators dug up. So I think it lacks in both, bacteria and fungi.
There's an Australian source for the fungi, it seems quite expensive: mycoapply
I did not find a source for inocculants for home gardeners though.
I wonder weather one could rely on something homemade for both?
And once you have applied that stuff the bacteria and fungi should be happy and procreating?

There are more classical polycultures like the three sisters or to plant garlic/onions with carrots.
These plantings are often staggered by some weeks. I often plant more than one thing in a bed but often something gets choked out like my lettuces under peas or tomatoes.

We have dug some small ponds. I want to use bentonite to seal them. I won't do glay as we need all available muck on our beds.
Who has experience with bentonite? We can buy sacks of bentonite powder here.
My main question is: After digging the pond,and putting in a layer of bentonite do I put a layer of dirt to plant or do I put the dirt only were the plants are?
We have one bentonite pind were the ducks are and it does not lock great so far the water is very murky but I don't know weather this is a problem of the ducks.
If you put edible plants in the pond do you rather put them in containers or plant them in the pond itself?