Permaculture gardener’s glossary: 50 terms to know

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Natural gardening has its own vocabulary, and it often discourages beginners: you read “BRF,” “outcrossing,” “surface crusting,” or “hügelkultur” without anything explaining what they mean. Yet these words are not empty jargon: each refers to a precise reality that changes something in the garden.

Here are fifty terms organized by subject area, each with its definition and, above all, what it concretely implies.

The soil and its life

Texture — the proportion of sand, silt, and clay in a soil. It can hardly be changed: you have to work with it.
Structure — the way these particles come together into clods. Unlike texture, it depends entirely on your practices.
Aggregate — a clod of soil held together by secretions from soil life. Its presence is the best indicator of healthy soil.
Surface crusting — the formation of an impermeable crust on the surface under the impact of raindrops. The scourge of silty soils; the only solution is never to leave the soil bare.
Plow pan — a compacted layer just below the working depth of a rototiller. Water and roots can no longer pass through it.
Drained — describes soil that has lost its excess water and can be worked without becoming compacted. Test: a squeezed handful releases no water and crumbles when you open your hand.
Humus — the stable fraction of organic matter, the final result of decomposition. It retains water and nutrients like a sponge.
Mineralization — the transformation of organic matter into elements that plants can absorb, carried out by microorganisms.
Rhizosphere — the few millimeters of soil around the roots, where microbial life is densest.
Root exudates — sugars and acids released by roots to nourish this population. The plant literally cultivates its microbiome.
Mycorrhiza — a symbiosis between a fungus and a plant's roots: sugars in exchange for water and minerals. Destroyed by deep tillage.
Mycelium — the network of filaments that makes up a fungus's body. What we call a “mushroom” is only its fruiting body.
Nodule — a small ball on the roots of legumes, housing nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Earthworm cast — an earthworm excrement, significantly richer than the surrounding soil.
C/N ratio — the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of a material. It controls the rate of decomposition and explains most failed compost.
Nitrogen hunger — temporary immobilization of soil nitrogen by microorganisms decomposing material that contains too much carbon. Symptom: pale foliage, stalled growth.
Amendment — an addition that improves soil structure (compost, manure). It should be distinguished from fertilizer, which provides directly assimilable nutrients.
Bioindicator plant — a spontaneous plant whose dominant presence provides information about the condition of the soil: nettle for nitrogen, horsetail for waterlogging, plantain for compaction.

These concepts are explained in The Basics of Living Soil and The Different Types of Soil.

The seeds

Stable variety (or population variety) — a stable variety whose seeds produce the same plant again. This is what makes seed saving possible.
F1 hybrid — the first generation resulting from the crossing of two pure lines. Vigorous and uniform, but does not reproduce true to type.
Segregation — the random redistribution of traits in the second generation (F2). This makes F1s unpredictable when replanted.
Self-pollinating — a species that fertilizes itself: tomato, bean, pea, lettuce. Accidental crosses are rare, making seed saving easy.
Cross-pollinating — a species requiring cross-fertilization: squash, cabbages, carrots. Requires a sufficient population and variety isolation.
Seed parent — the plant or plants deliberately left to produce seeds. Their selection determines the quality of future harvests.
Farmer-saved seed — seed reproduced by the grower themselves, often selected locally.
Stratification — exposure to cold needed to break dormancy in certain seeds, particularly those of trees and perennials.
Scarification — deliberate wearing down of the seed coat of a hard seed to allow water to enter.
Seed coat — the protective covering of the seed.
Cotyledons — the first, rounded leaves, which come from the seed itself. The following ones are the “true leaves,” the stage at which seedlings are transplanted.
Etiolation — abnormal elongation of stems due to a lack of light. The classic flaw of seedlings started too early.
Hardening off — the gradual acclimatization of plants to outdoor conditions before permanent planting.
Vernalization — the need for cold in certain biennial plants to trigger flowering the following year.
Damping-off — fungal disease that causes seedlings to collapse at the stem base. Favored by cold, waterlogged soil.

See What is the difference between F1, hybrid, and reproducible seeds? and How to store your seeds.

The techniques

Mulching (or mulch) — organic soil covering. It reduces evaporation, limits weeds, and feeds soil life as it decomposes.
BRF — ramial chipped wood: shredded young branches from deciduous trees. Excellent when used on the surface, but causes nitrogen immobilization if incorporated.
Smothering — opaque covering (tarp, cardboard) used to suppress vegetation without herbicide.
Grelinette — a broadfork with tines and two handles that loosens the soil without turning over the layers.
Raised bed — an elevated bed, often with a wood core. It drains and warms the soil; it also exists in a buried version, which retains water.
Hügelkultur — a German term precisely designating a mound with a wood core.
Lasagna bed — a bed built in alternating layers of brown and green materials, without wood.
Green manure — a plant sown for the soil rather than for harvest: it covers and structures the soil, fixes nitrogen, or traps nitrates.
Nitrate catch crop — a cover crop that captures soluble nitrogen before it is leached away by rain.
Crop rotation — alternating botanical families from one year to the next in the same bed.
Intercropping — a short-duration crop planted between two main crops.
Succession sowing — staggered sowings of the same species to spread out the harvest.
Thinning — removing excess seedlings to give the others room.
Transplanting — moving a young plant from one container to another, or into the ground.
Sucker — a shoot emerging from a leaf axil, particularly on tomato plants.
Winnowing — separating seeds from their debris using a current of air.
Pasteurization — moderate heating of a substrate to eliminate competitors without completely sterilizing it.

Biodiversity

Beneficial organism — an organism that regulates pests: ladybug, hoverfly, lacewing, ground beetle, hedgehog. Adults often feed on nectar, hence the need for flowers.
Pest — an organism that consumes crops. The concept is relative: an excessive number of pests mainly indicates a lack of regulators.
Weed — a spontaneous plant that is unwanted in a given place. The term “bad weed” has no botanical meaning.
Companion plant — a plant associated with a crop to protect or promote it.
Trap crop — a species more attractive than the crop to be protected, deliberately sacrificed. Nasturtiums against aphids.
Allelopathy — the release by a plant of substances that inhibit the growth of other plants. Proven case: the walnut tree and its juglone.
Honey-producing — a plant that produces nectar and pollen in abundance, attracting pollinators and beneficial organisms.
Cross-pollination — fertilization by pollen from another individual. This must be managed when saving your own seeds.

See The best vegetable combinations for the garden.

Permaculture design

Design — the overall planning of a site before any implementation. It is the core of permaculture, often mistakenly reduced to techniques.
Zoning — organizing space according to how often it is visited: things that require attention are placed closest.
Layer — a level of vegetation. A layered system occupies several volumes within the same area.
Edge effect — the boundary between two environments is richer and more productive than either one. Hence the value of winding edges.
Forest garden — an edible system imitating the layered structure of a forest, with fungi and perennials predominating.
Microclimate — local conditions that differ from the general surroundings: a south-facing wall, a frost pocket, or the shelter of a hedge.
Thermal mass — an element that stores heat and releases it: a wall, a stone, or a body of water.
Closed loop — a cycle in which the output of one element becomes the input of another. Kitchen waste becomes compost, which becomes a harvest.

See The basics of permaculture and Planning according to zones and exposure.

Five common confusions

Soil amendment and fertilizer — one improves the soil over time, while the other feeds the plant immediately. Compost is a soil amendment, not a fertilizer.
Hybrid and F1 — all F1s are hybrids, but hybridization occurs naturally and is not problematic.
Texture and structure — the former cannot be changed, while the latter depends entirely on you.
Permaculture and organic farming — a design method on one hand, and a regulatory set of specifications on the other.
Mushroom and mycelium — what we harvest is only the reproductive organ; the organism lives in the substrate.

Key takeaways

This vocabulary is not a barrier to overcome before you start gardening: it develops through gardening. First, remember the few terms that change how you garden — structure, mulching, rotation, self-pollinating, nitrogen hunger — and the rest will come naturally.

Going further

To put theory into practice: our vegetable seeds and our starter kits.