Yes, I do it every year to grow thousands of dollars of food for the small CSA I operate. I spend more time taking money and handing people baskets than I do working in the gardens and greenhouse. What did you have trouble with exactly?
Are you telling me, that you don't have to do weeding, like OP said, at all?
So not in the protected greenhouse, but out in the open gardens, where there are seeds coming from everywhere?
But unfortunately ducks are not an option, even though I also would love their eggs.
They'll always eat part of your harvest.
Side-note, duck eggs are great for baked goods. Nice, fluffy cakes and brownies. But fried they're a little gross.
The dirt will get covered in plants, but you don't have to pull up everything you didn't plant yourself.
What about them? A weed is simply an unwanted plant. If they do no harm, why do you want to spend time removing them? Again, plant a good cover crop and don't weed. Your soil will be better, you will use less water, and there's no downside.
>(and snails)
Nothing about permaculture says you can't deal with snails. You can still deal with snails/slugs however you like. The obvious being simple copper wire or beer traps.
>Are you telling me, that you don't have to do weeding, like OP said, at all?
Correct. The only plants I pull out of the ground are root vegetables.
>So not in the protected greenhouse, but out in the open gardens, where there are seeds coming from everywhere?
Yes. Again, seeds coming from everywhere doesn't matter, because a dandelion in your potatoes doesn't hurt anything.
I agree wholeheartedly. If. Unfortunately, if I ignore the thistles and many of the other unwanted plants, they will outcompete the plants I do want and completely overwhelm them. I'm not a big fan of doing unnecessary work. I know from experience that if I don't weed, I get almost zero yield. Squashes and potatoes are the only plants I have that survived.
OTOH, a few minutes here and there spent weeding (get them while they're small) and I get more veggies than I can eat.
This year I'm experimenting with using discarded heavy plastic bags as mulch to suppress the weeds. I'll see how that goes.