There's no place like 
$LOAM. 🌱
Where every plant has a neighbour that protects it
A bird's-eye glance at the dream — every zone above, sketched on one piece of earth, the two of us and the whole guard at work.
At first, I just wanted a piece of land. To grow food the way the earth does it on her own — organic, generous, alive. I imagined bats eating mosquitoes at dusk, bees brushing the flowers at noon, dogs keeping watch at night.
I didn't have the money to buy that land alone. Sanctum Elysium and the LAND Fund were born so that anyone holding $LOAM could share the same dream and act on it together.
— The origin of the LAND Fund
Tick and adjust to match your life — the last two lines give you the price of your independence.
Assumptions: mid-range values from the table below; the intensive switch packs the annual beds 1.5× tighter (same plants, same water, less soil to weed); the paths switch applies the +25% rule; beds and compost count only the annual vegetable areas — trees and perennials feed themselves once mulched. The thirst line uses the same July mid-range as the Water page — drip cuts it in half, and the cistern that carries it is sized over there. “To be independent” totals the plants and infrastructure (the greenhouse dominates) plus a $250 base for tools, compost bays and drip; “Per year” is seeds and amendments — the perennials and trees stop asking after a few seasons. A starting sketch, not a plan — the first year of observation (rule one, below) redraws it better than any calculator.
| Element | Area it asks | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fresh summer vegetables | 15–25 m² / person | Salads, tomatoes, beans — the companion grid below |
| Year-round pantry | +50–80 m² / person | Storage crops and the August preserves |
| Potatoes as the staple | 20–30 m² / person | ~3 kg per m² in decent soil |
| The Three Sisters block | 20–30 m² | One complete agricultural cell — corn, beans, squash |
| Unheated greenhouse | 5–10 m² / person | Steals 4–8 weeks at each end of the season |
| Cold frame | 1–2 m² | Salads in April, mâche in December |
| Hardy fruit tree | 20–30 m² each | 2–3 per person — and apples refuse to fruit alone |
| Berry row | 10–15 m² / person | Haskap, saskatoon, currants — June before the strawberries |
| Perennial bed | 10–20 m² / household | Three springs of patience, thirty years of asparagus |
| Herb corner | 2–4 m² / household | One lovage plant seasons every soup in the house |
| Pollinator strip | ~10% of the plot | The bees set the fruit — leave them a wild margin |
| Compost bays | 2–4 m² | ~1 m³ a year per 25 m² of beds — the loop closes |
| Peak-July thirst | ~5 L / m² of beds / day | The arithmetic continues on the Water page |
| Paths & edges rule | +25% on everything | A garden you can't walk through is a garden you don't weed |
Two people, a year-round pantry, a Three Sisters block, four fruit trees, a 10 m² greenhouse, berries and perennials: ≈ 320 m² of growing space. That's a 16 × 20 m corner of a plot — self-reliance is not a farm, it's a serious backyard.
A site is not a blank page. It has a wind direction, a slope, a sun trajectory, ancestral soils. Sit in it for a full year before drawing a single bed. Permaculture starts with watching.
Waste is unfinished design. Chicken manure feeds the compost. Compost feeds the tomatoes. Tomato leaves feed the chickens. Each output becomes the next input — until the garden no longer needs you to bring anything from outside.
A monoculture is a buffet for one pest. A polyculture confuses pests, attracts predators, and keeps producing even when one species fails. The more species per square metre, the less you have to defend.
Indigenous nations of the Northeast — Haudenosaunee, Wabanaki, Cherokee — were planting this trio long before colonisation. None of the three sisters thrives alone. Together they form a complete agricultural cell: vertical structure, soil fertility, ground cover. The first companion planting documented in the Americas — still the most elegant.
Basil repels whiteflies and hornworms; some growers report richer tomato flavour. Plant 30 cm apart.
USDA zones 3–11 (annual)Onions confuse the carrot fly with their scent; carrots return the favour against onion flies. The classic mutual defence.
USDA zones 3–10Dill flowers attract parasitic wasps that eat cabbage worm caterpillars. Plant dill at the row ends.
USDA zones 2–10Nasturtium is a "trap crop" — aphids prefer it and leave the cucumbers alone. Edible flowers as a bonus.
USDA zones 2–11Beans fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil — carrots are heavy feeders. Roots at different depths so they don't compete.
USDA zones 3–10Radishes mature in 25 days, lettuce in 60. Plant the same hole — radish out, lettuce takes over the space.
USDA zones 2–11Borage attracts pollinators in droves and is said to improve strawberry yield and pest resistance.
USDA zones 3–10Garlic at the base of the rose bush repels aphids, Japanese beetles, and several fungi. A trick from European monasteries.
USDA zones 4–9Basil and oregano shelter pepper plants from spider mites and aphids. Pepper appreciates the humid microclimate.
USDA zones 4–11Horseradish at the corners of the potato bed is reputed to repel Colorado beetles and stimulate disease resistance.
USDA zones 3–9Nasturtium repels squash bugs and cucumber beetles. Plant it under the wide leaves where the pests like to hide.
USDA zones 2–11Sage masks the brassica scent — fewer cabbage moths find their target. Also keeps slugs at distance.
USDA zones 4–10The same garden that marries friends also keeps old feuds. Knowing who not to plant together saves more harvests than any spray.
Fennel's roots release compounds that stunt tomatoes, beans, and most of its neighbours. Give it a corner of its own, far from the beds — it will feed the butterflies there just fine.
The quarrel: allelopathyAlliums are reputed to trouble the bacteria that fix nitrogen on legume roots. The old rule holds: onions, garlic and leeks stay away from beans and peas.
The quarrel: underground chemistrySame family, same enemy: late blight jumps from one to the other like a brush fire. Distant beds — and never one after the other in the rotation.
The quarrel: shared blightBlack walnut seeds juglone through its roots and leaves — a slow poison for tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, even apple trees. Stay 15–20 m from its shade line.
The quarrel: jugloneAn old market-gardener's rule: brassicas and strawberries stunt each other and sulk side by side. Each gets its own end of the garden.
The quarrel: old rivalryThe same dill that guards the cabbage stunts the carrot once it matures — same family, same appetites. A plant can be a friend in one bed and a rival in the next.
The quarrel: family tiesA blanket of straw, leaves, or living rye over bare soil. Keeps moisture, kills weeds, feeds the worms. Bare soil is a wound — covered soil heals itself.
The most studied repellent of the plant kingdom. Tagetes patula roots release thiophenes that kill nematodes in the soil. Plant rows along carrots and tomatoes.
Ferment 1 kg of fresh nettle in 10 L of water for 10 days. Diluted 1:10 it stimulates growth; pure, it repels aphids. Horsetail prevents downy mildew.
A single ladybug eats 50 aphids a day. Plant dill, fennel, yarrow, sweet alyssum — they attract the predators that work for free.
A bramble-and-hawthorn hedge shelters birds, hedgehogs, bats. Each of these animals is worth ten pesticide sprays. The hedge is the garden's perimeter immune system.
Never plant the same family twice in the same spot two years in a row. Soil pathogens specific to nightshades or brassicas accumulate and crash the harvest. Four-year rotation minimum.
The sky delivers for free what the tap sells: one millimetre of rain on one square metre is one litre of water. A modest 100 m² roof, in a single 25 mm storm, fills 2,500 litres of barrels. Catch it high, store it in the shade, spend it slowly.
Under the mulch, bury ollas — unglazed clay pots filled with water, an irrigation trick more than two thousand years old. The clay sweats only when the soil around it runs dry: the roots drink exactly what they need, and nothing is lost to the sun.
When you do water, water like the rain the garden remembers: deeply, rarely, in the morning. Shallow daily sips teach roots to linger at the surface and burn in the first heat wave. A deep soak once or twice a week sends them down where drought can't follow.
And the pond is not a decoration — it is the garden's oldest ally. Frogs and toads patrol the slug lines at night, dragonflies hunt mosquitoes over the water, birds come to drink and stay to eat caterpillars. Dig it once; it defends you every year after.
An orchard is the slowest promise made to a piece of land — and the northern cold keeps it honest. These fruits shrug at −35 °C.
'Honeycrisp', 'Liberty', 'Norkent' on a hardy rootstock like Antonovka. 'Liberty' shrugs off scab without a single spray. Plant two varieties — an apple tree refuses to fruit alone.
The 'Romance' series ('Carmine Jewel', 'Juliet'), bred on the Canadian prairies: zone 2 sour cherries on a bush you pick without a ladder. Self-fertile — one plant is enough.
The first fruit of the year — ripe in June, before the strawberries. Laughs at zone 2 winters and late frosts. Plant two unrelated varieties so they can pollinate each other.
A native of the continent, hardy to zone 2, asking for nothing once established. Blueberry-like fruit for the family — and the birds will insist on their share. Net a few branches, gift the rest.
Zone 3, and it fixes nitrogen — a fruit tree that feeds its neighbours. Berries loaded with vitamin C. Plant one male for up to six females, and wear gloves at harvest.
'Pembina' and the prairie hybrids take zone 3 in stride. They need a wild American plum nearby as pollinator — plant the wild cousin at the hedge and let them talk.
The orchard's guardians — the hens that break the apple-maggot cycle under the trees, the bees that set the fruit — keep their own page: the Symbiotic Bestiary.
Annuals ask for everything again every spring. Perennials ask once — then keep their promise for decades. The patient gardener's corner.
Three springs of patience before the first real harvest — then twenty to thirty years of spears. The garden's finest lesson in waiting. Zone 3.
Indestructible in zone 3. The leaves are poison on your plate and a feast in your compost. Divide the crown every 8–10 years and give the halves away.
A native sunflower with edible tubers, so vigorous the only real problem is stopping it. Give it a corner it may conquer; dig after the first frosts, when the tubers turn sweet.
The onion that replants itself — the stalks bow down and set the next generation one step away. Plant it once, and never buy green onions again.
One plant of this perennial celery seasons every soup in the house, for years. The bees adore its flowers as much as the cook adores its leaves.
The first green of spring, up before the snow has finished leaving the fence line. Lemony leaves for soup while everything else is still a seed packet.
Indoors: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, leeks. Hardwood pruning of fruit trees. Sharpen tools.
Cold-hardy seedlings outdoors: peas, spinach, lettuce, onion sets, radishes. Spread spring compost. Plant berry bushes.
After the last frost (zone 4: ~May 25): transplant tomatoes, peppers, squash. Direct-sow beans, corn, cucumbers. Mulch the beds.
Strawberries, peas, garlic scapes, salads. Water deeply in the morning. Watch for aphids on roses and beans.
The harvest begins. Tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, beans. Successive sowing of lettuces and radishes every 2 weeks. Sow fall carrots.
Heart of the harvest. Preserves, lacto-fermentation, sauces. Sow spinach, kale, mâche for fall. Save tomato and bean seeds.
Squash, potatoes, last tomatoes. Plant fall garlic — the most expensive bulb of the spring market is one you can grow easily. Sow rye / vetch as winter cover.
Heavy mulch. Move tender herbs indoors. Empty the rain barrels. Spread leaf compost. The garden goes to sleep — but the soil keeps working.
Plan next year. Order seeds. Rotation map. Sharpen, oil, repair. Walk in the snow and look at the bones of your land.
Zone 4 grants about 120 frost-free days. Every layer of protection you add moves the garden one climate south — without moving an inch.
An old window laid on a wooden box facing south. Four to six weeks stolen at each end of the season — salads in April, mâche in December.
A few grams of fabric per square metre: 2–4 °C of frost protection, and a wall the carrot fly and the flea beetle cannot cross. Blanket and defence in one.
Sun comes in, wind stays out. Tomatoes weeks after the field ones have blackened, greens all winter under a second veil inside. Each layer is another climate.
Spinach, kale and mâche don't fear the frost — they sweeten in it. Sown in August, tucked under two layers, they hand you salads in January.
One teaspoon of healthy forest soil contains over a billion bacteria, several kilometres of fungal hyphae, hundreds of nematodes, dozens of arthropods. It is the densest ecosystem on Earth — denser than the Amazon canopy.
The mycorrhizal fungi attach to plant roots and extend their reach a hundredfold. In exchange for a little sugar, they bring back water, phosphorus, nitrogen — and even chemical signals from neighbouring plants. A garden is a network of trades, mostly underground.
Two simple rules to keep the soil alive: never till deeply (you break the fungal network), and never leave the soil bare (UV kills the microbes). The rest, the soil handles on its own.
The recipe is older than agriculture: two to three parts "browns" for one part "greens" — dry leaves and straw for the carbon, kitchen scraps and fresh cuttings for the nitrogen — kept as moist as a wrung-out sponge.
Build it a cubic metre at a time and the pile lights from within: 55–65 °C at the heart, hot enough to kill weed seeds and pathogens. Turn it every week or two and it is black gold in two or three months. Leave it alone, and the worms do the same work in a year. Meat, dairy and oils stay out — they invite guests you don't want.
This is the principle from the top of this page made real: the hens' manure, the tomato leaves, the leaf-fall of October — nothing leaves the land, everything returns to it.
A seed is a memory — everything a plant learned about your soil, your winds, your winters, folded into something the size of a comma. Choose open-pollinated varieties: they come back true, year after year. F1 hybrids are brilliant once; their children remember nothing.
Start with the easy ones — beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes — they pollinate themselves and rarely stray. For tomatoes, ferment the seeds in their own juice for two or three days to dissolve the gel that blocks germination, then rinse and dry. The squash family is the cautionary tale: they cross with everything, and your zucchini and your pumpkin will make strange children together.
Kept cool, dark and dry, most vegetable seeds live three to five years. Save them every August and something quiet happens: your varieties adapt to your land, a little more each generation. Your seeds, like your memory, belong to you — on your own shelf, not in someone else's vault.
💡 Know a plant pairing, companion trick, or variety that works on your terrain? Share it on the Ideas page or mention @LOAM_token on X.
Questions to sit with
The garden asks for your dawns and your dusks — but is tending the same thing as being free?
If a presence kept watch over every seedling — never tiring, never forgetting which plant grows beside which friend — would the garden be less yours, or more?
And everything it learned of your earth: to whom should it answer — a distant cloud, or you alone?
The conversation with the land was never meant to be a cage — and that hand, somewhere on this site, has already been imagined.
A garden is a slow conversation with a piece of earth. You don't impose — you listen, you offer, you wait. The plants that thrive are the ones you placed next to a friend.
The land is patience. The land is freedom.
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⚖️ $LOAM is a meme coin for community and culture — not a security, not an investment, and not a promise of profit. Any value is incidental and can go to zero. Nothing here is financial advice.
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