Andrew Fuller

tribalwind, we'd be happy to have you join us!

ediblecities, thanks for pointing out the name error.  That was indeed my mistake.

dustbin, donations are a possibility, and may consider it but I never want anyone to feel obligated.

permaguy, that's a nice layout you have.

My intent with this website, aside from making it easier for myself so I don't need to cross reference dozens of books and resources, is to permit everyone to share their knowledge/discoveries.  A similar vein to wikipedia that is open to everyone or these forums where people are free to discuss permaculture, etc.  I don't want to in any way speak ill of PFAF as they have done excellent work, but they seem to restrict who can contribute.  I am more of a mind similar to Holzer and Fukuoka who put more stock in people observing nature rather than getting degrees.  I see this website filling the niche that combines openness to contributions (such as wikipedia and forums like these ones) with structure to enable easy searching / cross referencing (such as PFAF).

Some people certainly prefer one style over another and can choose what they like.  If it turns out that nobody feels the way I do about wanting a hybrid system, then this will turn out to be my personal database that others are free to use.  On the other hand, anyone who would like to be more involved is more than welcome.

ediblecities, you'll be happy to hear that I've collected a considerable amount of propagation information for many of the plants and posted it.

Thanks, ediblecities.  That book sounds interesting.  I find ancient plants particularly appealing.

My take on edges:

Any edge by definition is a transition from one environment to another.  For example the edge of a pond goes from water to land.  Understandably that transition is not abrupt (assuming a natural edge and not a concrete-lined pool), so you have extremely wet to very wet to pretty wet to kinda wet to not wet.  Now you have the moisture conditions suitable for a much larger range of plants.  All the plants that want something that's drier than standing water but wetter than dry land can find a happy home somewhere on this edge.

As an extension to the above, this helps fight against monocultures.  If the environment is 100% uniform, then it's best suited for a single plant (whichever that may be).  Perfect recipe for disaster.

Finally there are creatures who require two environments in order to survive.  Consider frogs who are aquatic as tadpoles and later become land dwellers.  They won't exist in the middle of a lake where there is no land nor on land where there is no pool of water.  So again, the edge is where they make their home.

Well, I'm not one of the heavy posters here as I'm mostly lurking and trying to absorb all the info I can on topics I know absolutely nothing about (read: I can't even ask a good question most of the time).  But at least I haven't had any posts deleted!  I have been using the report-to-moderator button, but wasn't sure whether that was helpful or not.  Apparently it is, so I'll keep doing so.

Keep up the good work, Paul.

No I'm not.

Thank you all for your encouraging words.

bigelow wrote:
Cool. Looks like a good project. When we get into our new homestead next month, I'll try to contribute as I learn to id the native species on the property.

That would be wonderful!  Hope your move goes smoothly.

Dan Poole wrote:
That's looking pretty good! I especially like the advanced search options. One thing I'd like to see is some companion planting suggestions or a companion planting search option. I know that'd be fairly involved though...Keep up the good work!

Yes, it will be involved but certainly doable and necessary (this is a permaculture focused plant database, afterall!).  What I had in mind for this: aside from researching what's already available, to have the ability for users (read: all of us) to list a number of plants that were planted near each other and report on how each one did.  As more reports are collected we can analyse them to find trends.  Such as: When plant A and plant B are grown together, plant A consistently grows poorly or fails to grow at all.  Or when B and C are grown together, C consistently does better than when B is not present.  It will help to find affinities between plants as well as animosity.  Before going that far we do need to first build a base set of plants with their hierarchical relationship (family/genus/species..) in order to do proper analysis of reports.  The more people who contribute, the sooner we can progress to the next stage.  One step at a time.

What are your thoughts?

ediblecities wrote:
That's really a very good idea!
I would like to see more search functions (lists), for example plant families (like alliums) and practical lists like "root vegetables" "starchy crops" etc. or as well crops for shade etc. and then propagation is missing and maybe something like easy to grow or diddicult.

Very good points.  I definitely intend to add more search parameters as well as some pre-defined searches for basic/common searches without needing to go full-blown advanced.  Especially as the search parameters grow.  I'm still mulling over how I want to do the interface to search within a plant group.  It is necessary, but requires a bit more thought before I do it.  The propagation is something I personally need.  I've got a French Sorrel outside that's gone to flower and I keep checking it to find where/when the seeds appear and can be harvested.  I've got some original seeds for comparison so I know what I'm looking for.  Photos are going to be an important part of the propagation component.

dbingham wrote:
I like the idea.  What are you building it in?

Not sure I follow.  Are you asking about the technology?  Just your standard web tech: PHP / PgSQL / JS.

Sorry to say I've never heard of it.  Seems to me Telix was the one everyone used around our area.  And very occasionally ripterm.

paul wheaton wrote:
Andrew, in your fidonet days, what com software did you use?

Now you're testing my memory.  Ran a BBS using Renegade, IIRC.  Can't remember the software I used for the fidonet connection.  Had a point node and got my feeds through someone else in town (LD was freaking expensive back then).  Looking over some archived nodelists on the 'net, I think my address was 1:17/3409.9 (not certain of the '17' -- can't read the nodelist too well).

Given your interest, were you a SysOp?  Had a fidonet node?

I just found this thread, so sorry Paul I didn't comply sooner.  When I had signed up I saw no mention of this and even with other people using their names I didn't bat an eye.  That's simply because my screen name is by far more unique than my real name.  Even in the days of FIDOnet I've run into someone with the same first+last.  But I understand that this is not about actually being able to identify the person, but rather for others to feel that they could (reduce the feeling that we're all talking at a masquerade) and making the names more memorable for others.  And since I seem to be the first Andrew Fuller on your site, then I'll happily claim the name and let any future ones work around it.