Q&A: Explaining the Plant to Soil Mechanism

To learn more, explore the new Permaculture Masterclass series, here: https://www.discoverpermaculture.com/... Question: I completed a PDC with Bill and yourself in Melbourne a few years ago now. I continually use the manual and books. I live in the south west of WA with dry summers and wet winters. Also fires aren’t unusual. I tried a food forest but ended up with the fruit trees, nitrogen fixing acacias but in the end replaced the lower green manure with newspaper with mulch on top. It has drip retriculstion from tanks/dam. I fertilise with worm juice with hydro fish and sea weed tonic once a month. The trees are healthy. We also have grapevines and olives. It is probably like farming in Jordan. My husband and I work very hard to maintain our 40 hectare property and wonder if was the plant to soil mechanisms you noted that I missed. Can you explain this further please? Brief Overview: Geoff takes us through why acacias aren’t the best trees for instigating a food forest and makes suggestions for what does work well, particularly for dry (Mediterranean) landscapes such as much of Australia and California. Acacias are potentially longer living trees that don’t respond well to coppicing and pollarding, such that they don’t provide the early chop-and-drop wood mulch required to create the fungal soils necessary for growing forests. As a result, they also tend to get large and fall over, taking out fruit trees on the way. Instead, it might be better to include low-lying nitrogen-fixers like cowpeas or vetch with another groundcover like Carpobrutus edulis (ice plant in California, pig face in Australia). Lucerne and Albizzia julibrissin (mimosa or silk tree) are great nitrogen-fixing trees for Mediterranean climates, and they can be coppiced to continually provide wood mulch for the forest. This combination would work better than acacias for establishing a forest garden. Key Takeaways: • Acacias don’t respond well to chop-and-drop technique, so they aren’t good at providing early mulch material for food forests. • Acacias grow to be large and fall over on fruit trees. • Good nitrogen fixers to try when beg food forests include cowpea and vetch as groundcovers and Lucerne or Albizzia julibrissin as nitrogen-fixing trees for wood mulch. • Carpobrutus edulis (ice plant) is another great groundcover for arid regions. Support us in making more films by: ► Signing up to our newsletter and the Permaculture Circle—my curated collection of 100+ free videos: https://start.geofflawtononline.com/p... ► Liking us on Facebook:   / geofflawtononline   ► Following us on Instagram:   / geofflawtononline   ► Subscribing to our channel:    / @discoverpermaculture   About Geoff: Geoff is a world-renowned permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He has established permaculture demonstration sites that function as education centres in all the world’s major climates — information on the success of these systems is networked through the Permaculture Research Institute and the www.permaculturenews.org website. About Permaculture: Permaculture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permacu...) integrates land, resources, people and the environment through mutually beneficial synergies – imitating the no waste, closed loop systems seen in diverse natural systems. Permaculture applies holistic solutions that are applicable in rural and urban contexts and at any scale. It is a multidisciplinary toolbox including agriculture, water harvesting and hydrology, energy, natural building, forestry, waste management, animal systems, aquaculture, appropriate technology, economics and community development. #permaculture #foodforest #nature