Kate Alvo

Hi Neil,

You have some very intelligent doubts about Carbon Farming. I took Eric's course in March in Vermont, and he was very diligent about discussing the limitations of all the various solutions presented. He discussed the limits of soil carbon sequestration, but also presented a variety of other interesting solutions. He critiqued the "miracle solution" discourse often associated with techniques like holistic grazing, amongst others.

In fact, Eric is so balanced and meticulous in his research that I am surprised by the name of his book - "The Carbon Farming Solution" sounds like another miracle-cure, but in fact, as you will probably see when you read through the book, he is not claiming at all that there is one single solution to all of the world's problems...

Anyway, I think a reading group is a great idea for this book. The course was amazing, and if you have met Eric, you should feel confident about the quality of his research and the fairness of his arguments.

Enjoy it! I will try to keep up!

Kate Alvo

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the input. However, my post was regarding drained agricultural land. Maybe you don't have this practice down where you are, since it seems to be dry enough, but up here in Quebec we have a LOT of water. The standard practice for large agricultural fields is to dig parallel ditches every twenty or thirty feet and install agricultural drains in them to lower the water table, which is a bit of a ridiculous practice. In any case, the result is a field which is basically a series of mounds and ditches. Before knowing what I was looking at, I once envisioned turning them into chinampas, which would be pretty sweet. Now that I know, though, I see this would involve removing the drainage first...

Anyway, any thoughts are welcome!

Kate

Great, Alex. Thanks for the tips!

Hi!

I have a vermicompost that I started a couple of months ago with not enough worms. I would like to produce a bit quicker (I am feeding them once every three days or less, and not much at a time...). Does anyone know if it's ok to add more worms to this population? Will they be angry? Will they kill each other? I don't want to provoke a worm war...

Thanks for the help!

Hi all,

I have a contract designing a small organic farm on a piece of agricultural land that has been previously modified in the conventional manner of making wide mounds with drainage ditches between them.

I would like to make swales on this land to help provide some diversity in terms of the soil conditions (ie the mounds would enable us to plant fruit trees as wind breaks and for increased diversity on this quite humid piece of land).

Does anyone have experience with this? The drainage ditches previously installed obviously changed the contour lines - should I mark my contour lines on the mounds only and simply use the drainage ditches as my overflows? Or should I fill in the overflows? Or dam them to create small rain gardens here and there?

Any ideas would be welcome!

Thanks,

Kate

Ok, so would you say they are all a must for someone wishing to build a rocket stove?

Hi!

I want to help with the Kickstarter stretch goals and get the RMH DVDs but I can't decide if I should get just the new ones or whether the old ones have essential information in them not shown in the new ones. I guess I was just wondering how much overlap there is between the two sets. Are just the new ones enough, or is there good value in getting them both?

Thanks for the help!

Kate

Ok, great. Thanks to you both. I haven't yet come across such a cheap version as the one you bought, John, but I will keep my eyes open for one. I think for such a small surface (about an acre), it is not worth it for me to go with the 300$ version.

Good advice about the strainer too, thanks.