Michael Turner wrote:ISO, eco-village. Does anyone know of a Permaculture ecovillage within an hour at most from Palatka? It would have to welcome children which I will have every other weekend. I would love to rent a cabin. My goal is to move from the cabin into an MCI bus conversion that I plan to buy in the next few months. I want my kids to learn Permaculture and community and have other kids to play with and other parents who teach an inspire them so they can know what a toxic free environment is like. Also I want to be around knowledgeable permies so I can learn the things I don't know and teach what I do know.
Tristan Alexander wrote:
What do you guys think? Its only my second video.
Bryant RedHawk wrote:
bob day wrote:I hear all these ideas about economics and producing microgreens, but not much about the permaculture/ sustainable side of the operation.
It is one thing to buy a bunch of stuff, put it together and then sell a bunch of stuff and say I have this much profit, or can pay off this much of my debt, or buy this much of my food, etc, but the permaculture side has to ask other questions
where does the seed come from, where does the electricity for lighting come from, where does the plastic for the high tunnels come from, etc.
In this world today, many unsustainable product streams are made viable by environmentally subsidized production. Ie, things necessary for production would not be so cheap if the true environmental costs were being paid.
I personally love microgreens, a girlfriend of mine grows and sells wheat grass trays as well as other microgreens, but i could never call her operation permaculture or sustainable.
I grew some Kale last year, it was the only cruciferous green in the garden and let it go to seed. I harvested many of the seed pods, and let enough scatter seeds so that i have some "wild " kale coming up now. I also have some seeds that i can process out for sprouting this winter, and it's pretty cool for me to have some of that not just sustainable, but even with little to no work., but no way could i even grow microgreens for myself all winter long, although i can probably keep myself in kale growing slightly larger plants and making the seeds count for a little more biomass before i eat them.
In short, I would like to hear people talk about all the aspects of the operation and how they are making them sustainable, not just how they are turning a meager profit based on large outlays of fossil fuels and products made cheap by fossil fuels.
I seriously doubt that any microgreen operation could ever be called self sustaining.
The very nature of selling seedlings for food does not permit the food to mature and so produce seeds.
I also don't think it wise to over indulge in a product that is more enzymatic than nutritious.
How could you permaculture microgreens when what you are selling is plants at the start of life not the middle or the end.
The only way I could see this particular "trendy" food stuff being sustainable would be if you planted some of the seeds and allowed them to mature to seed so you could be planting your own seed.
We eat greens but they come from the older leaves of the plants we grow, things like beet greens are plucked from the outside of the growing beet plant.
I've eaten microgreens before but I much prefer the fuller flavor of more mature plant material on my plate. It has more nutrients and more developed flavors than those just getting a foot hold on life.