Jeremy Watts

Hi folks, I'm looking to buy a large parcel of ag-zoned land in northern NM and permaculture my little heart out.    I'm having trouble reaching anyone in the state's Dept of Making You Sad who can tell me what the deal is around pond-building in the state.   I was originally looking at Colorado but it seems like a regulatory nightmare up there.   They're draining ponds left and right.   How does NM compare?  

I almost bought a giant tract of land in Colorado before learning that it is not legal to do large-scale water catchment (ponds and such) there since the water belongs to Oklahoma, which became a state first.  

Does anyone have a resource with a good, comprehensive list of which states have which restrictions on water?  

Many thanks!

Are there any types of fish, or seafood, or chickens etc that can live solely on black soldier grubs?  And still develop into healthy critters, meeting all of their nutritional needs?

Hi folks.   I've got a new worm bin going and I want to start raising BSFL to speed up the compost proces, in the same bin.  I've heard this makes great compost, and I'm really just trying to get the larvae going to do other experiments with them.    Anyway just wondering if anyone knows a good way to do this easily without ending up with a bunch of adult flies around, or having them fly off with all my biomass.  

Travis Johnson wrote:I can see why people would think a horizontal run would work like the sealing action of a trap, but it does not work that way, they just do not work. You have to run your drain pipe to daylight. You might have to dig down until you can place your pipe on landscape, but it has to drain. It cannot go up hill.

What do you think will happen if I run it up hill?   Everything I've read just says don't go up more than five feet.   I'm only going up about two feet.  

Another dilemma: the folks at the greywater supply shop mentioned that once in a while there's a washer hose with an odd diameter that just doesn't quite adapt to the 1" barbed fitting coming from the diverter.   Well turns out this machine is just such a beast.   I guess I could try a 3/4" barbed with a hose clamp or 2 but I don't want to restrict the flow and put more pressure on the pump.  They don't really make 7/8" barbed fittings.   Any idea how people deal with this?

I'm installing my first laundry-to-landscape system and already have a dilemma.  

The washer being on an interior wall means I'll have to to through the floor and crawl space.  The greywater will travel a few feet uphill from the ground level before discharge into the landscape (but will never get up to the height of the washer pump).   The combination of these two things leaves me wondering if I should (option 1) put my vent stack inside just after the diverter valve, or (option 2) outside just after exiting the house.  

All the literature makes it seem like the pipe exiting the diverter valve needs to stay level before reaching the vent stack, in which case option 2 is out.   Since there is an uphill portion to the outdoor run some greywater will get trapped in the line between loads and stinky gasses might escape the vent if I put it in the laundry room as in option 1.  

Any suggestions appreciated.  

This is the 130+ acre section that we'll be working on this weekend.

: )

We've got room for a few more permies! Come hang out with us, be part of this beginning phase of a massive (1000+ acre) agroforestry project, eat some of the best pastured meats around (vegan options), and learn and share your knowledge with us!

Darren Doherty seems to trumpet the original "straight line" keyline, while Mark Shepard's farm looks much curvier, and HUMA design seems to over simplify the keyline ("guidelines").

Who can attest to witnessing pro's/cons of any variation? Shepherd's trees look great, even if you consider what he's doing to be other than true keyline. Do yall think that people are making too much of this and that any general contour -based patterning would basically serve to equalize hydration on a landscape?