Permaculture Gardener's Glossary: 50 Terms to Know

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

Here are fifty terms classified by field, 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 soil. It is practically impossible to change: you work with it.
• Structure — the way these particles come together into clumps. Unlike texture, it depends entirely on your practices.
• Aggregate — a clump of soil bound 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. A 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.
• Friable — describing 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 holds 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 roots, where microbial life is densest.
• Root exudates — sugars and acids released by roots to feed this community. The plant literally cultivates its microbiome.
• Mycorrhiza — a symbiosis between a fungus and plant 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 casting — 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 is too carbon-rich. Symptom: pale foliage, stunted growth.
• Soil amendment — an addition that improves soil structure (compost, manure). It should be distinguished from fertilizer, which supplies directly assimilable nutrients.
• Indicator plant — a wild plant whose dominant presence provides information about the condition of the soil: nettle indicates nitrogen, horsetail indicates waterlogging, and plantain indicates compaction.

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

Seeds

• Open-pollinated variety (or population variety) — a stable variety whose seeds produce the same plant. This is what makes seed saving possible.
• F1 hybrid — the first generation resulting from crossing two pure lines. Vigorous and uniform, but unable to be faithfully reproduced from saved seed.
• 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 that requires cross-fertilization: squash, cabbage, carrots. It requires a sufficient population and variety isolation.
• Seed parent plant — the plant or plants deliberately left to go to seed. 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 the dormancy of certain seeds, particularly those of trees and perennials.
• Scarification — deliberately wearing down 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 next ones are the “true leaves,” the stage at which seedlings are transplanted.
• Etiolation — abnormal stem elongation caused by a lack of light. The classic problem with seedlings started too early.
• Hardening off — gradually acclimatizing plants to outdoor conditions before their final planting.
• Vernalization — the cold requirement of certain biennial plants to trigger flowering the following year.
• Damping off — fungal disease that causes seedlings to collapse at the crown. Favored by cold, waterlogged growing medium.

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

Techniques

• Mulching (or mulch) — an organic soil covering. It reduces evaporation, limits weeds, and nourishes soil life as it decomposes.
• BRF — fragmented ramial wood: shredded young branches from deciduous trees. Excellent when used on the surface, but causes nitrogen immobilization if incorporated.
• Sheet mulching — opaque covering (tarpaulin, cardboard) used to smother 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 woody core. It drains and warms the soil; it also exists in a buried version, which retains water.
• Hügelkultur — a German term referring specifically to a mound with a woody 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 by rain.
• Rotation — alternating botanical families from one year to the next on the same bed.
• Catch crop — a short crop grown 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, especially on tomatoes.
• Winnowing — separating seeds from their debris by blowing air.
• Pasteurization — moderate heating of a substrate to eliminate competitors without completely sterilizing it.

Biodiversity

• Beneficial organism — an organism that regulates pests: ladybird, hoverfly, lacewing, ground beetle, hedgehog. Adults often feed on nectar, hence the need for flowers.
• Pest — an organism that consumes crops. The notion is relative: an overabundance of pests mainly indicates a lack of regulators.
• Weed — a spontaneous plant that is unwanted in a given location. The term “bad weed” has no botanical meaning.
• Companion plant — a plant grown alongside a crop to protect or promote it.
• Trap plant — a species more attractive than the crop to be protected, deliberately sacrificed. Nasturtium against aphids.
• Allelopathy — the release by a plant of substances that inhibit the growth of other plants. A proven example: the walnut and its juglone.
• Meliferous — 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 conception of a place, before any implementation. It is the heart of permaculture, often mistakenly reduced to techniques.
• Zoning — organizing space according to how frequently it is visited: things that require attention are placed closest at hand.
• Layer — a level of vegetation. A layered system occupies several volumes over the same area.
• Edge effect — the boundary between two environments is richer and more productive than either of them. Hence the value of winding borders.
• Forest garden — an edible system that imitates the layered structure of a forest, with a fungal-dominated community and perennial plants.
• Microclimate — local conditions that differ from the general surroundings: a south-facing wall, a frost pocket, or shelter from 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

1. 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.
2. Hybrid and F1 — all F1s are hybrids, but hybridization occurs naturally and is not problematic.
3. Texture and structure — the former cannot be changed, while the latter depends entirely on you.
4. Permaculture and organic farming — a design method on one side, a regulatory set of specifications on the other.
5. 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 practice—structure, mulching, rotation, self-pollinating, nitrogen hunger—and the rest will come naturally.

To go further

• How do you create a permaculture garden? A complete guide
• What equipment should you choose to start a natural vegetable garden?
• The sowing calendar month by month
• Composting: nourishing the soil by imitating nature

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