Jason Avers

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since May 13, 2022
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Father, Husband, Author, Media personality, Occasional Movie Producer, and Owner of Green Country Agroforestry, the Permaculture Nursery
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JasonAversGreenCountryAgroforestry
Twitter: @GreenCountryAg
Email: greencountryagroforestry@gmail.com
Website: https://www.greencountryagroforestry.com/
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Recent posts by Jason Avers

Gee, Paul I know you needed it .. but carrying around Tommy for a couple years really is a horrible weight loss program!
I'm glad to hear that the changes are working .. will check with the missus about releasing funds for breaching paywall ..
But in all cases, congratulations, and keep up the good work!
I just completed an end-of-July tour of our front yard food forest - 1,600 square feet, including a grape arbor that we didn't cover in the tour - I hope you like moving pictures
1 year ago

Jay Angler wrote:Hi All,

Has anyone got any more experience with ducks to add to this thread? Has anyone used a rotating paddock system with Campbell/Runner- type ducks and can identify some successes/failures of their system so that I can learn from that?  My friend is hassling me because my duck habitat lacks good swimming facilities, but we have heavy predator pressure (flying and land-based) and I hate to loose more of my feathery friends through the learning-curve while I figure it out. I've got 3 birds in what is essentially a portable cage on grass that moves twice a day but they only get buckets of water - no swimming pool.

Thanks



We have 8 Khakis on 1/3 acre, and use a paddock system that I have been putting together with a bit of trail and error.  For fencing, we finally figured out that 1/2 cattle panels for a foundation are easiest to use, durable, and work when the sun doesn't shine or the power goes out.  they are too high for the ducks to easily fly over - though if they felt threatened by something inside the enclosure, they could fly over it - and too rigid at the bottom for them to be able to push underneath.  The overall strength of the panel makes it impossible for them to pile up on it at one spot to push it down and climb over, World War Z style like they can with one of those portable electric fences that are so popular with the homesteaders these days.  I stretched poultry wire across the lower 3/4 of the panel, so they cannot 🦆 between the wires.  Each 8 foot section is easy to move to where you need it, ties together with other panels utilizing a bit of baling twine, or wire if you need something a little more permanent - or need to turn a panel section into a gate.

We use these panels to move the birds around the garden, and take advantage of their eating habits.  There are several plants that we have found so far that the ladies will either not eat, or will only eat conditionally .. and I am always eager to experiment and find another plant that they don't care for.  To date the list includes:  Corn and wheat, once established.  They may eat emerging plants, or nibble the tips When they are still tender,  but once it has gotten started, they are not so interested in it.  They enjoy taking shelter in our corn and grazing weeds, and hunting grasshoppers.  They ignore violets completely, as well as some black lovage that was growing wild in their enclosure.  They will ignore ragweed and poison ivy, and any woody vine.  When there was nothing for them to eat aside from peanuts and sweet potatoes, they did not eat peanuts, or sweet potatoes.  I have seen them eat some morning glory leaves when they were very hungry, but I do have to hand weed those, for the most part:  If they can have access to them when they are emerging, like many other things, they can keep them under control.  Peas, beans, and cowpeas can be grown with ducks, provided that the tender bits are above duck height.  They love the leaves, but wont eat the vines .. so train them up, and they will weed around your plants for you.  To date, NO cucurbit has survived their attention.  Grow your melons, pumpkins, cucumbers and squash AWAY from your duckies.  I managed to sneak a tromboncino squash up a trellis last year, and they did not consume the vine .. it is worth further experimentation.  Alliums seem to be mostly safe - a duck may take a nibble to find out if they like them or not, but the interest ends there.  About the only hazard onions and garlic have is being trampled - so space them wider than normal, and they should survive.  The mulberry trees that you are planting near your alliums (or was that the other way around?) will be OK so long as they are established, and the tender bits are above duck height .. the birds will appreciate the shade and the opportunity to bug hunt .. and your alliums will appreciate the sulfur content of the leaf litter.

I just planted our second crop of corn for the year, and have put some of our generic cover crop mix in, in the interest of 'picking my weeds':  Daikon radish, sugar beet, sunflower, safflower and buckwheat.  By harvest time, I should have an idea about which of those plants are on the menu as well.

How effective are ducks ate eliminating grasshoppers?  Watch a feeding frenzy here:


I tried some other things before hitting on cattle panels with poultry wire .. observe how quickly and easily ducks can bypass obstacles here:


Even before the cattle panel fencing, we knew that we were on to something, using ducks to weed among certain plants.  Here they are working a small patch of garlic, and you may note the spacing.  Provide more spacing, to allow chubby little waddlers to get between your plants:

1 year ago
Good Fortune to ye, in yer quest!  It appears you have a few potential candidates lining up, and at least one or two keepers among 'em.  Let us know how it works out - I'm a sucker for a good romance story 😁
 Since the other permies have done a decent job of covering what to do with the dead fish, and aeration (heating liquids causes gasses to come out of solution more readily - that's some 3rd grade physics, but its still true!)  I'll take a stab at the root problem:  water loss to evaporation.  Three trees that should be found on the banks of a pond are Alder, Cottonwood, and Willow:  They will provide shade for the pond (at least along the banks - pond sizes vary, but keep in mind, that shade band is also an edge) and other benefits:  Bugs for the fishies to eat, and convenient places to harvest from.  The Willow has other uses like basket making, charcoal, paper making, and medicine.  Cottonwood is a fine fodder tree with leaves that are higher in protein than most grains, as well as having similar medicinal properties to willow, useful for rooting hormone, and who doesn't enjoy seeing the cottonwood down floating through the air on an afternoon?  Alder is the tree that should have been replanted (along with other species of course) after the logging industry swept across the central US a century ago.  To give the people of the time some credit, they just did not know what we know now:  Members of the Alnus genus can form mycorrhizal associations with both arbuscular and ecto mycorrhizae, making them potential hubs in a well networked ecosystem These water-loving trees are fast growing, an excellent source of biomass, and nitrogen fixing to boot.  IF your pond Ph tends a bit high, the cones dropped by mature alders can help lower it gently - which is why they are valuable for aquarium owners as well (get a profitable yield!) They take several days to sink, so if you DON'T want to buffer your Ph, there is plenty of time to scoop them out.  Drop them in the place where you have your blueberries and wintergreen planted, or bag them up for sale.

 On to the surface!  Water Lily, Duckweed, and Azolla:  Nymphaea odorata, the white American Water Lily will grow in water up to 5-6 feet deep, provide shade and shelter for the fishies, and attract beetles and flies which are also good for the froggies and fishies to num on.  The buds are edible to us, too .. pickled or cooked.  Lemna Minor and Gibba have been received plenty of attention on forums like this, so I'll only add that they are useful for free floating shade in addition to their already well-known attributes.  Azolla is an interesting aquatic:  It does not reproduce at the rate of Lemna, but it can still reproduce fairly fast under the right conditions.  Good for feeding fishies that enjoy a little veggie gnosh now and then, and does an adequate job of soaking up fish waste - but Azolla has another trick up its sleeve:  It can make its own nitrogen .. so if one finds that one has too much azolla, all one needs to do is scoop it out, and place it wherever additional fertilizer is desired.  Finally, all of these aquatic plants take up the nitrate in the water, reducing its availability to algae, which prevents algae blooms .. which can rob the fishies of oxygen, especially when it is hot out.
2 years ago
 When Grandpa Conrad built his main irrigation pond, back in '36, he had the outflow pipes radiating out to the fields from about 5 foot above surface level .. but the wet end of those pipes were all the way down at the bottom, to be able to pick up all of the free fish fertilizer that he was making.  I'm not entirely sure just how deep that was, but it was DEEP - the earth that was removed from the pond went to build a berm around it, and it was easily 30 feet from surface level.  When he opened up those 8 inch pipes to let the water out, whatever pressure of water there was ABOVE the outflow pipe was sufficient to evacuate the muck from the bottom:  Irrigation + Fertilization, all at once, hence "fertigation".  He didn't call it that.
 
 What I'm getting at here is, you don't need to have a naturally occurring slope to be able to get gravity to do the work for you .. you just need to be able to hold water above your outflow point to make pressure.  If you would like to see it work before committing to a build, grab some modeling clay and a bit of air line tubing, and make a bowl with the clay.  Half  way up from the bottom of the bowl, pass one end of that tubing through, and leave the other end on the bottom of the bowl.  Seal the point where the tube goes through so that it won't leak and .. pour water in!  When the water level rises above the halfway point, it will begin to flow through the tube, out of the bowl.

 Et voila!  As long as you can build a water tight berm 2-3' above grade, you can use gravity to flush the sediment from the bottom of your pond .. You'll still need to incorporate plenty of aquatic plants to help clear up the rest of the green water, and some critters for skeeter and algae management.  The ducks will enjoy munching on those little fish, too.
2 years ago
You can get small flat tubs from your local ranch supply store to tide you over until your pond is built - 1 for every 2 ducks will keep them happy, and you can change the water out every other day - I transfer the contents to 5-gallon buckets and carry it out to wherever I feel needs some fertigation, and pour it on.  That's about ten gallons of water per day that you will need to move, if you empty half of the tubs each day.  We are ALSO in the process of building a dedicated duck pond, just waiting on the temperatures to come down to survivable levels before resuming excavation!
2 years ago

Beau Davidson wrote:I'm thinking about putting together some "backer stories" from folks who are invested in the project, the campaign, or rocket mass heaters in general.  If you wanna tell your backer story, reply here and let me know 1) why you are backing this project, 2) what your history is with (or where you first became aware of) rocket mass heaters, and 3) what's the reward (apart from the main movie) that you're most excited about getting!  



I'm backing the project because mass heaters (especially ones that heat water) are dovetailed nicely with an energy project that I'm in the midst of cooking up - Its primarily solar water heating, but having the ability to get 140F+ water by burning fuel will keep the electricity going, even when the sun isn't shining.  Storing power as heat in a thermal mass means less mining/refining/recycling of heavy metals for batteries, a good deal all around.  The movie, plans, ect are all wonderful, and I'll get good use out of them .. but I would be lying if I didn't say that getting to see "Green Country Agroforestry" in the credits doesn't tickle my fancy, too 😉
2 years ago
We are very happy with the new stretch rewards - Earth sheltered housing is ANOTHER topic that we find very exciting!
2 years ago