You mentioned erosion, but I'd put that a couple places down on the list.
You'll want mulch eventually, so this is a great opportunity to grow mulch material on-site. I think the rye itself will grow OK with little or no mulch at the beginning. I understand hedge trimming equipment, if you have any, can be a convenient way to cut moderate-sized patches of cover crop, and that one can often get two or three cuttings over the course of a cold season.
A second reason would be to begin nurturing a community of soil microbes that are associated with healthy roots. Rye is good at this, and its roots also benefit the soil in a more mechanical way.
More subtly, perhaps less important than erosion, most people can learn a lot about a particular garden bed by observing how things grow in that exact place. Cover crops will get you an early start on understanding these new beds.
You might consider adding some fava beans and/or vetch to the mix, to start building up nitrogen in the soil.
I'm excited for you!
Stones can be useful for season extension; Sepp Holzer uses them to grow citrus in the Alps. I don't think they'd be very useful buried within the berm, but they're a common feature on the surface.
awhitaker wrote: I've been thinking about using an old gas fired water heater set upon a rocket stove to heat our shower water. As the tank in these heaters have the flue running through the middle, would it be possible to set a tank on the rocket stove and use the flue for the exhaust and get sufficient heated water after a time of burning the stove? If you've tried this, how did it work?
I haven't tried it, but it sounds like it would work great. It might be less work than building a rocket mass heater, too, for the amount of thermal mass you would be bringing into the home.
pippimac wrote: Keep in mind, whatever you plant within a chook's reach, and even most established plants, will be massacred. I've never heard a happy ending to the 'chooks in the garden' story: I'd definately keep them out. Ducks, not SO destructive.
My girlfriend's godmother keeps chickens free in a normal-sized urban backyard. The plants do beautifully well. She coops them up at night to protect them from predators, but they have the run of the vegetable and flower beds through the whole day.
She has a special talent, though, to the point that she can't express any strategy or method in words. I guess that makes sense: if you frame things in human language, you aren't thinking like a chicken any longer.
Definitely not the sort of result one can reasonably expect, but it is possible. I've seen it firsthand.
Synergy wrote:I better get better at this so I can learn how to preserve for winter, either that or learn how to hibernate .
You probably were joking here, but it's an option.
Whether or not physiologists would count it as hibernation, many parts of the world traditionally, seasonally, drastically reduce activity in order to economize on food. I recommend this article:
I'd like to second Brice Moss's comment, and add that there are potentially better ways for wood to fuel an engine.
Pyrolysis can produce methanol and/or acetic acid, both of which can produce esters that are good as motor fuel. Methanol is a feedstock for biodiesel, and ethyl acetate is potentially better than ethanol in several ways, including energy density and hygroscopicity (bonding to acetate makes it easier for ethanol to give up its hold on water). Methyl acetate is also usable, but is a little more toxic.
There's also the strategy of building your kettle as a chimney, for example the Kelly Kettle (and a number of very old traditional designs, too).
The little portable rocket stoves, built from a 5 gallon square food canister, a stovepipe, an elbow, and a few gallons of wood ash, is pretty much designed to boil water.
I might second the charcoal recommendation, and add: even if it's absorbed in something very lightweight, enough water for intensive plant growth is going to be extremely heavy.
Since you're designing and building this all on your own, might I recommend very shallow soil where it will be difficult to support, and very deep soil where it will be easy? Often walls will be able to support tons in addition to the roof, but soil should be spread thin over long spans. Vegetation can still be thick over the whole roof, if it vines out from the intensive planter beds, and a low-maintenance groundcover remains as an understory.
It might be worth putting in some fava beans around the edges, if you're worried about nitrogen, but it sounds like, between weed roots and manure, there will be enough. I've read favas can handle frost really well, but I have too warm of winters to know this from experience; similarly, sources on companion planting are mute over favas being susceptible to the same garlic exudates that stunt peas and true beans, so I'm hoping they do well as a companion for me this winter.
dirtfarmer wrote:Strip cropping on the contour of fields with alternating wheat (or spelt) and clover would allow safe scything of the clover for regeneration without disturbing the wheat
That sounds like it would work well, and is very reminiscent of Helen Atthowe's method (except she market gardens on level ground).
The Natural Way of Farming reports another way that might be less effort, because seed can be broadcast at random: scything is carried out only once, when the wheat seedlings are short enough not to be harmed much, and rice straw is added on top just afterward. It seems this would make a more balanced C:N ratio in the sheet compost, and prevent much volatilization of nutrients from the clover.
I like the idea of "catch-and-release" vermiculture, a term coined by authors Barbara Pleasant & Deborah L. Martin.
In your situation, I might put a worm tower by a heavy-feeding perennial (or several, if appropriate), and use mulch and/or plywood to draw detritovores into range of the chickens every now and again. If it's cold, you could use a walking compost heap for the same purpose.
permieobserver wrote:...a failure to sufficiently adopt the ideas of Holzer et al. will not only result in a worse result for mother nature, but more importantly in a worse result for the company. I know that last sentence is going to raise the ire of other member here
It doesn't raise my ire, but I'd like to point out a subtle disagreement:
Your idea of Sepp Holzer's ideas won't, in my opinion, be as productive as your interaction with nature.
That is to say, I think someone could (and frequently, people have) form their own ideas, from similar or dissimilar premises, and interacting with nature will teach them to do right even if their words are at odds.
I really value the leadership and creativity that we can take from successful permaculturists, but (and I hope people aren't tired of me saying this) I feel it's much more important to continue the methods of inquiry that led them to such success, than to preserve the ideas that they discovered.
Loose sorts of replication are actually fairly abundant. I found the following here (emphasis mine):
Wheat/Red Clover as an Alternative to Corn — Sjoerd Duiker, Soil Management Specialist
Farmers are looking for alternatives to corn because of its high input costs. An interesting alternative is wheat planted after soybeans, corn silage or early maturing corn grain. Red clover can be frost-seeded into standing wheat in late winter when the soil honeycombs, or it can be mixed with nitrogen fertilizer and seeded while top-dressing wheat. Typical wheat yields are 60 bu/A plus 1 ton/A of straw. If wheat is $6/bu and straw is $100/ton, this makes for $460/A. A cutting of red clover may be harvested in the fall. If the yield is 2 ton DM/A this would add another $120/A (@$60/ton). Total value of wheat and red clover would be $580 in revenue. Input costs of the wheat/red clover package are much lower than those for corn, and in one example net revenue was $220/A. Herbicide costs are low and can be zero in a field with low weed pressure. The wheat/red clover package has some additional benefits in the crop rotation, especially for soil improvement. Corn yields after red clover are typically improved, and nitrogen application can be reduced. The N-value of the red clover harvested for forage is approximately 50 lbs/A, or 80 lbs/a if the red clover is not harvested. In addition, corn yields after red clover are typically improved. It is not uncommon to see a 10% yield increase in corn beyond the nitrogen value of red clover. The wheat/red clover combination also helps to keep living roots in the soil year-round, one of the principles we use in designing optimal no-till systems, making this option worthy of consideration. Get ready now for red clover seeding by acquiring the seed and getting set up for frost seeding your winter small grain acres. For more information see http://cropsoil.psu.edu/extension/facts/agfact67.pdf and http://cropsoil.psu.edu/Extension/Facts/agfact21.pdf.
Note that this is not an organic farmer, but a researcher who is happy to eliminate herbicide, reduce the use of chemical fertilizer, and sees benefits to the crop which can't be explained by nitrogen alone.
A direct laboratory experiment showed that cutting was important, and soil disturbance unnecessary, in the transfer of nitrogen to wheat from inter-planted white or red clover. This is consistent with the practice of scything clover while wheat is just beginning to grow. Abstract & link
Walk wrote:The only downside is if you have lots of burrowing rodents/voles as you'll be providing habitat.
Oh, that makes sense.
So a patch small enough to be patrolled thoroughly by house cats, or a plot with a good population of snakes and owls, might do OK with deep mulch from the start?
Also, it sounds liket the stuff in question ("3 year old decomposed woodshavings mixed with horse stuff") could at least be applied thinly as a fertilizer: it sounds relatively high in nitrogen, and doesn't seem as though it would have much loft.
johnlvs2run wrote:oh no, snakes would hide in the grass!
Sounds reasonable. Integrated pest management types create brush piles and similar for exactly this reason.
Some pushed-over grass in the pathways of your potato or garlic patch, for example, might make garter snakes feel at home, and keep the voles in check.
That said, I think there are circumstances where a natural grazing cycle (or an analogue like cutting and composting) is the most appropriate method of management.
An important point is that it's perfectly OK for mulch to be dry.
It will break down if it stays moist and warm, and enough nitrogen is present (built in for the hay, but must be taken from the soil in the case of straw). Part of the role it serves, it will serve better if it remains dry at all but the bottom.
It isn't too uncommon for exceptionally large accumulations (or rapid flows) of resources to have a major downside.
Just like rapifly-flowing water stirs up a lot of silt (and washes manure etc. into waterways), big spenders tend to attract grifters and parasites, granaries attract vermin...
DustyTrails wrote:do not cover with hay .. ever for fall planting. At least that has been my experience in the NW. After they are up four inches in the spring then mulch.
What is the downside, and do you have any advice on how Feral might decide if that advice applies?
Charcoal should get most sorts of asphalt nastiness out. Commercial filter cartridges are a bit un-economical, but there are online instructions on re-filling them with ordinary activated charcoal.
You probably know this, but chufa is used in a traditional vegan "milk" beverage, horchata.
Mexican horchata is vaguely similar, but being made with rice, is not nearly so nutty tasting. I really liked horchata de chufa when I visited Spain, but some of the other Americans I met there, didn't.
I think it would be a good candidate for aquaponics, a constructed wetland, or a constructed pond where it can't escape. I think it might be especially well-suited to an overflow, because it can handle some drought.
Similarly, kudzu might be contained on a constructed island, or by a chicken moat if you want to use it in a several-year rotation of garden beds.
ediblecities wrote:some good draining material like pebbles or smaller stones. In the middle bottom part you insert a pipe and funnel the water out to a pond (that must be dug as well) . this pond should have an overflow that it cannot fill the whole area.
It's possible that spaces between pebbles would fill in with clay over the years, leaving a mix that drains even less well than before.
Organic matter, such as wood, would decompose to leave a more humus-rich soil with better drainage, and have the added benefit of better water & nutrient retention than stone. This is one of the major reasons for hugelkultur. By contrast, you can talk to people who've put gravel at the bottom of some flowerpots, not in others, and compared the results: the consensus seems to be that any better drainage is very temporary.
I think the pond could be filled any of several ways; it's probably possible to fill it with surface runoff and do away with the pipe, but I don't have any experience to say for sure.
It might be difficult to feed in fuel, but I bet it would work just fine.
You might supply some twigs, for use in pushing the coal into the burn zone, also getting it going, and perhaps eventually as the only fuel source if that turns out to be easier.
It's made at room temperature, often from fresh garden produce, so no heating the kitchen via stove or oven or open refrigerator, and no driving to the store (assuming you've stored up some bulgur). Plus the herbs in it will make you feel a little bit cooler, perhaps combining with the low-stress process of making and eating it to allow you to get by with less A/C.
pahanna wrote: it works like a cultivator except it is wheels instead of sharp pans, just wondering what anyone else has come up with, looking for the best for less without electricity or gas
I've read the most effective way is to take off one's shoes, pour a batch out onto a tarp, stomp it around, and fold it over using the tarp.
Still a lot of work, so I hear, but not nearly as much as other methods.
I've also heard of putting a steel 55 gallon drum with no top or bottom over the plant, so that the fruit is easier to harvest and the growth is easier to keep control of.
Deer don't like the foliage of sesame plants, from what I've read. The plant is also reasonably drought-tolerant, and quite good at improving soil.
Sweet peas might be worth considering: the coumarin that makes the smell so sweet, will also prevent them from being a major source of forage. IIRC, there are some sweet pea species native to your area, that do great on a partly-shady hillside.
Most every genome includes a peroxidase enzyme, but I might argue that, rather than "all good things," the author means "harmless to all large things." But there is solid evidence that peroxide is a natural part of every ecosystem, and it is also used by the human body, as part of our immune response.
I expect it would help tilt the balance in favor of a fungal soil ecosystem. The lactobacilli that live on the surface of multicellular life seem to be able to bounce back from the shock of a strong oxidizer like peroxide or chlorine, but forcing them to do so seems to open a window of opportunity for less-benign things to occupy that niche.
I think it's a good-enough tool to keep in the toolkit, but stories like this cause my "it's more complicated than that" alarm to buzz incessantly.
Another oxidizer to consider using is ozone. It's familiar as smog, and as the odor of thunderstorms and certain electrical devices. There are devices to make it at home, for things like water purification.
Oxidizers and reducing agents (AKA anti-oxidants) are complimentary in much the same way that acids and bases are. Life tends to work toward a balance between these sorts of things, and IMOO it isn't wise for us to blindly favor one aspect over the other, either.
ediblecities wrote: I once had chia in the garden and it was really very pretty, but I didn't come around to harvest the seeds, it is difficult to get them at the right time before they shatter and they are small. The same happened to my grain amaranth experiment.
I hear the secret is to tip the living plant over a container and shake it, then leave it growing while more seeds mature. There are some clever designs for baskets to do this, but it seems like a plastic storage box (perhaps with a bag slipped over the end) would serve OK. I'm going to see how this works with sesame as well, at some point in the future.
I'm imagining what it would be like if each of those seedlings became a full-grown plant, 4" tall. Even if half of them die off, it would still look great.
And consider this: any bare patches have a track record of seed not coming up. I think neighboring plants have a better chance of filling in that space, verses more seeds.
One of my favorite bloggers is trying to do his whole home's hot water, and just posted on the start of his project. He feels he needs four tons of green brush, with 1" or less trunk diameter. His neighbors are willing to offer that, if he cuts & hauls.
I'm looking forward to growing a crop that has a long history in this part of the world, but are foreign and exotic to the culture that is currently prevalent here: chia, a member of the mint family. It's most famous as the carpet of sprouts on those cheesy pottery gifts, but it was a traditionally used to make flour for baking. Whole seeds, mixed with coconut milk or fruit juice, absorb a large amount of liquid and result in something with the texture of tapioca pudding: it's delicious in my opinion, and it is also a favorite of vegan raw foodists. They're apparently very drought tolerant plants, and the seeds are nutritious.
I plan to grow quinoa this winter, partly to feed my compost pile, but partly as a leafy green. I understand it takes a few rinses to wash away the saponins from the outside of the seeds, so I'm not sure it's worth growing as a grain.
