but just the fact that I use irrigation and mulch made me part of the horrible ones....
What's wrong with mulch? I never heard anyone in the organic/regenerative space criticize the use of mulch. In my Environmental Horticulture AS program, the instructors drove the point home about all the benefits of mulch.
pineisander...why are you not mentioning that you use synthetic fertilizers? As far as I remember, Eric didn't like the fact that you were doing 100% clearing of the land before planting "permaculture" in its place, not that you used mulch. I understand you had lots of "bad" trees like melaleuca but 100% bulldozing of land and then creating a "permaculture" forest in its place is something I would consider quite questionable if you want to be teaching permaculture to others and be the example of it. Would be nice if everyone named things by their names, not tried to make things look like they're something they're not. then no one would argue.
This may not be the case for Pine Islander, but in most counties in SFL, if you build your house on a lot, in order to get the certificate of occupancy, so you can get home insurance and move in, you need to clear the invasives. I would have liked to selectively remove old invasives as my fruit trees matured, using them along the way for shade, sugar, and chop and drop. Luckily I had some large oaks, banyan trees, pines, palms, royal poinciana, but it left alot of my lot treeless. Im letting the ear leaf acacia do the heavy lifting of covering up the treeless areas.
I see the benefits of planting trees next to other trees, no salts, no mowing. Joe Hewett mentioned in one of his first video interview with virginia about how well he sees trees growing in densely planted areas. UF TREC had a study of higher mango yields when they let the grass and weeds grow during flowering as well. I hope more people try this and report back.