A Permaculture Solution for Goji Berries

Perhaps permaculture’s most memorable adage is “The Problem is the Solution.” Do you have too many slugs?  Maybe the solution is adding ducks which will eat those slugs and turn them into eggs. 

Canadian anemones certainly aren’t as annoying as slugs, but they are extremely aggressive and were crowding out some of my food-producing ground level plants like woodland strawberries and ramps. 

Yet I had mixed emotions about trying to eliminate them. The Canadian anemone’s white flowers attract a variety of pollinators. And their mat of fine surface roots that strangle their plant competitors also provides lush habitat for worms and arthropods. Pull off the “scalp” of living Canadian anemone roots and you’ll find soil that incorporates previously decayed roots, holds moisture and builds a wonderful, crumble-in-the-hand tilth.

Was there a permaculture solution somewhere in that mix? I thought of my goji berry plants, the Asian imports much hyped for their anti-oxidant value, but which, in my garden, had never lived up to their growing potential. Maybe a berry or two in late August, but, instead of the promised September profusion, a quick fade in a location that was sunny, but probably a little too dry.

The goji berry plants have relatively deep roots. Could they possibly thrive in all that rich, moist soil under my Canadian anemones?

Short answer: they have, and how!

 Goji berries growing in a bed of Canadian anemone.

The berries are coming nonstop and provide a great addition to fruit salads.

Companion planting in other mat-like groundcovers would probably produce the same results.  I’ve got another goji berry plant planted in the middle of sweet woodruff, and it’s doing almost as well.

Permaculture Success….and Failure

Three years ago, I and five other permaculturists (including GARDENOPOLIS Cleveland co-editor Ann McCulloh) built a Hugelkultur in my back yard. The name comes from the German “Hügelkultur” or “hill culture” and consists of a 5-foot+ pile of logs and branches covered with soil. Ideally, over time, a Hugelkultur evolves like this:

In theory, Hugelkulturs offer gardeners multiple benefits. One can simultaneously (1) recycle logs from downed trees; (2) increase gardening surface area; (3) create a sun trap to extend the growing season; and (4) extract water and nutrients from the decaying trees and, thus, eliminate the need for watering.

I’ve had to make adjustments to my Hugelkultur. My first installation of (conventional) top soil contained too much sand. Rain and snow melt quickly eroded much of it away. I then replaced the soil with a sturdier mixture of clay fill and compost, which has stayed in place.

And some plants seem to love their whole Hugelkultur experience!  Here’s an exuberant horse radish that seems to be burrowing deep into the decaying wood’s nutrients and water.

But I’ve had failures, too. Here’s a dried out (and barely recognizable) kale plant that couldn’t survive the drought and my three week absence from Cleveland.  

Maybe its root didn’t go deep enough to tap the underlying moisture or maybe, as Ann suggests, it, like all brassicas, just didn’t relate to the heavily fungal soil created by decaying wood.  Since my basil (of course, a non-brassica) did well —-just a few feet away, not especially deep-rooted–I’m inclined to accept the latter explanation.