Victoria Fauve

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Victoria,  Is that "Chinese bamboo" really straight and no bigger in diameter than your thumb?

Indeed ! It's very small in diameter, quite straight, and with lots of leaves ?

I didn't know about the arrows made from chinese bamboo - that's some cool information, thanks ! Will look into that - be it just to learn more about it, even if I can't find anyone who would want to use it in my area [would be worth keeping an eye open for this too though !].

Thanks all for all the great answers and thoughts. Learnt a lot reading through your comments !

The bamboo variety we have is often called 'chinese bamboo' here, but I'm not sure it's its true name.

I like to use some of the sticks as stakes for the climbers in the garden indeed. For the handicraft, I would love to, but I'm not sure it's possible with this variet [or I do not know how to work with it].

I had the intuition it might be best to let it dry before using it as mulch, so that's good to see this confirmed. Didn't think about the sprouts though actually, good to keep that in mind too, thanks!

For the browns, we definitely didn't have enough of it in our compost- lately we're being careful about that and adding way more of it. It mainly comes from dried leafs and non-inked cardboard.

Thanks again everyone !

Hi everyone !
So I know that most seems to love bamboo as it's so versatile...but I'm actually having a hard time dealing with it, so that it does not become 'waste'.
We're actually in an urban area and trying to re-design the existent garden to be as productive as possible. We're also avoiding waste as we can.
The hedge of the house is made from bamboo [ I forgot the exact name, but it's the small variety, not the big ones that are so useful in constructions - hedge bamboo I guess ?]. The bamboo has to be cut quite often, to keep up with the 'tidy' look needed [as we're in an urban area, and letting it grow wild wouldn't be much appreciated by the neighbors...] - but hence it creates a lot of green waste... that we learned by experience, does not compost very well ! A compost has been installed since several months and we just earlier put together a 'slow rot' pile thingy where all the branches and other things that will take a lot more time to compost will go [looking at you coconuts !]. Would you add it to the slow rot pile ? Or Would you maybe use it directly as mulching ?  
Any other ideas on what to do with it ? What would be the best use you could think of for it ? I might only be lacking of ideas on that one...

Thanks for all the tips; might indeed try to put the coconut shells directly into the soil, as I too have been wondering how to compost them.

In regards to using them as planters : be careful to not overwater them though, there had been a lot of rain when I had just experimented with coconut shells as planters [with holes in the bottom, as there's this hard shell that retains the coconut water that I guessed would retain the water too], and the water would just not flow through correctly, and ended up drowning the seedlings....

Thank you all for your answers !
I think that the fence while the plants establish themselves will be an idea I'll try ! Surely operating areas by areas, so that while one areas is fenced off the other is available...
Loved hearing all your stories with your own dogs too - pulling out a half grown banana out of the ground, that's one they haven't done yet here haha

Hi Everyone !
I'm Victoria, and live in Mauritius. I've been looking around and reading this forum for quite some time - so many awesome discussions ! - but only finally decided to create an account a few days ago.
I've always loved questioning the world around and asking 'Can it be done 'better' ? How would that look like ?', this brought me after some time to permaculture and a PDC.
I'm currently in Mauritius, staying with my parents, and took on the challenge of re-designing the garden with permaculture in mind, to get as close as possible to the dream of my mother: to produce as much food as she can from her garden.
We live in Mauritius, in the middle of the island. So it's a sub-tropical-ish climate, but as we're in the center of the island, that is higher in altitude, it's 'colder' [ people from other part of the world would still consider it pretty hot weather most of the time I believe !] and more rainy than the rest of the island.
The house is situated in an urban area, but there's still a garden around the house, with even a few big old trees and such -so it's not as if we're stuck with no spaces as most people in urban area, but we're definitely trying to maximize space.
Now, here's the thing : there are currently 4 dogs. They are mostly in only one half of the garden, as doors were put on each side of the house, so that they can only go in the front yard when we're with them, otherwise they're in the back of the house. Now, in that part we still have two areas that are shaded by trees, and that are for the moment bare-grounded ! Even if it's not big spaces, I absolutely want to grow some kind of ground-cover there [of course], but would also love if it was some kind of productive ground cover [to once again maximize the growing space]. Now, the thing is, the dogs are used to play around in the whole area behind the house, so it would need to be plants that are still quite resistant to probably being walked on/played in by the dogs. One of the spaces does not have much good soil neither. So I was thinking about maybe growing vines ? Some kind of pumpkins or chinese winter melons [as I was given a few seeds by a friends a few days ago] maybe ? I mean, that would be resistant to the dogs I believe ? And them playing in it wouldn't compromise the yield I believe ? But would love if anyone had any others ideas of 'dog-resistant plants' for sub-tropical areas or how to still use these spaces - or at least not leave the ground bare, while also knowing that the dogs would enjoy these spaces too ?
Thank you !

Just wanted to drop by and say that I love this thread and all the discussion going on !
I've come to believe that truly being told that something is 'impossible' can be such a huge push to actually make you do this very thing - quite often.
I do not like to hold anger too much neither, as someone said earlier in this thread : I consider that it takes too much energy to actually actively hate/be angry at someone/something... but this initial anger [I mean, we're all humans, right ? We can't avoid feeling angry sometime], if transformed in something else, can be turned into something quite interesting and positive. For example, here : weaving !
Maybe anger sometime is just this sort of starting fire and that it just is, a natural reaction to something, but that then it's up to us to see how we'll use it, either dwell in it and not do anything, or evolve this feeling into something else and makes something out of it... Just as fire can be used to keep warm or used for destruction ? Or something like that. Maybe it's too early here to be thinking about such huge subjects as 'anger' haha.