For anyone thinking about bumping their pledge at least 10 bucks, do it today (5/23 after this post, through EST midnight) and post that you did here and I'll bump my pledge another $10 too....that's for another $10 for each post! (honor system)
We're all in this together!!! Let's bump our support for Paul and his work.
(and thank you in advance)
I won't be able to make it to the PTJ this year, but what a wonderful opportunity for 6 folks! I nudged my pledge up....let's get 6 more folks trained up (maybe you'll be one of them?).
Under this heat dome Pakistan just hit 51C (124F) yesterday. We may all need wofati homes. I hope everyone that can will plant extra this year. I'm planning for a garden excess free veg table put out at the road.
Rachel, do you have all of Sam Thayer's books on foraging? They are amazing.
Thank you for the recommendation for Alicia's book. Just ordered it and looking forward to trying her recipes out. I love her elderberry book (thank you again Alicia!).
There's commercially available closed cell glass foam. It is a barrier, is insulative, is critter proof, is LONG lasting and is strong such that it can take a compressive load.
Welcome to Permies Bill!
I hope this goes very well for you. I certainly would be interested in visiting to see how this ends up working out. Very best wishes from a fellow Mainer.
The UN is estimating that perhaps 1.7 billion people will struggle with food due to this war. So between 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 people on Earth this year. This really is a strong wake up call for us. Logging off to go plant more!
Greg Martin wrote:I guess my thoughts are just that I hope people will move away from annual agriculture and will help restore the health of our beautiful, miraculous biologically maintained world. May we all do what we can to move our species away from chemical monocultural annual agriculture.
I think those two things are very different. I'm 100% on board with moving away from "chemical monocultural annual agriculture", but I have no intention of ever moving away from annual agriculture. Annual agriculture is vital to me. It's very hard to supply needed calories from perennial foods. I personally believe that annual crops are better tasting, provide more calories, and most importantly, I believe they are sustainable. I don't think that annuals and the health of the planet are exclusive goals.
Agreed Trace. I was a little clumsy with that wording. I subscribe to the traditional methods of disturbance farming, where a site is prepared for annual agriculture as the primary production initially on the site and perennials are added to ultimately take over the majority of production on the site in future years. Having multiple gardens that are offset in time keeps a decent yield in annual crops all the time. Practical and it mimics natural progressional growth patterns. Thank you for pointing this out.
I read that parts of India hit 121F and that some portion of their wheat crop died, as did some people. I've also read that Indonesia is not permitting export of palm oil due to food expense issues. Not a bad year for us all to plant extra.
I guess my thoughts are just that I hope people will move away from annual agriculture and will help restore the health of our beautiful, miraculous biologically maintained world. May we all do what we can to move our species away from chemical monocultural annual agriculture. My thinking is that this was a monumental mistake that dwarfs the damage done by just about anything else people do. It's all that motivates me to practice permaculture.
UPDATE: Ok, confession....the amazing, fresh, diverse food experiences are pretty motivating to me too.
I love that coloration pattern Phil, and as a bonus I've read that Hidatsa Shield beans are great tasting....I ordered some of those this year too :)
Not quite the same color pattern, but a little similar is another bean that I picked up this year from Russ Crowe's collection, Bosnian Pole bean....can't wait to fill a mason jar with these.
This year I bought some Cranberry Fliederbarben pole bean seeds from Small House and I admit, I felt a touch emotional by how beautiful they are.....showed them to a seed saving friend and then ended up splitting them with her :)
This just came up at the beginning of a work meeting....there were 4 of us and it was 3 blues to one green (me). Everyone in the meeting said they knew mine would be green before I answered!
Robert, have you ever had a chance to taste one? I'm super curious what they are like. I've never really investigated viburnums, but there seems to be a lot of promise and there seem to be a lot of hybrids that have been created for use as ornamentals. Seems like at least a few of these hybrids could have nice flavored berries.
I like to sheet mulch over mine as a series of spot mulches, which effectively composts it against the soil surface. Not sure that it would be practical for you though based on the area and amount you are describing.
It looks like 2 of my sea beet seedlings survived this past winter unprotected by anything but the snow. I have them in a planting with some seedlings from VT that also survived the winter. My intent is to let them cross as the VT swiss chard is cold hardier and improved, but they are biennials. I very much want to try and bring the wild perennial trait back into this line of hardy chard. At this point I can't even say for sure that the sea beets that survived are perennial, though. Fingers crossed for some crossing magic to occur :)
A lot of what I think of as the best permaculture recipes seem to come out of the foraging community. Maybe foraging books sell better at this point than permaculture books? I sent Alan a note asking if he'd ever consider writing a permaculture cookbook, but it got me thinking....wouldn't it be great if someone got many authors who cook with perennial edibles to submit recipes with credit to them in a permaculture cookbook? I think some of the foraging chefs are great, I also think that traditional cultural recipes can be found that showcase our super amazing perennial edible foods.
I just really want to get folks dying to get more diverse roots in the ground!
I bet this could be a REALLY great kickstarter.
Beau Davidson wrote:
5) Potential to include conductive metals in substrate, which may subsequently be metabolized and woven throughout mycelium structure, yielding a electromagnetically conductive building envelope to shield inhabitants from nnEMF.
Super neat project Beau! Have you seen reference to fungi metabolized metals being deposited in a metalic state for EMF shielding? If the metals were in a dry ionic state I would expect them to not be an effective EMF shield...but data is king :)
Another option if metals don't end up working may be to incorporate wood charcoal formed at 800C throughout the substrate to act as the EMF shielding. As a bonus your panels would be even more carbon negative.
Personally, I'd love to see a permaculture cookbook that is set widely apart from all the homesteading cookbooks that are already out there. Something that gives people a pile of mouthwatering recipes that they can only make with perennial edibles that the book showcases....and not just stuff that's good, but recipes that make people see them and long to get out there and plant edible perennial ecosystems all around their home. Plantings that will outlive the folks who plant them. For me that is something that is sorely missing in the vast pile of permaculture books out there in the world. I think whoever prints that will sell a massive pile of books and will push permaculture forward significantly. I know that I'll buy a pile of that book and give them away to friends and family!
I think that the closest books to this that I've seen have come from the foraging community. But I wouldn't think it would be super hard to extend this to the many other perennial edibles that people have been eating for centuries....there have to be piles of recipes for those foods out there that can be looked at with fresh permie eyes to make completely permie perfect as needed.
I'd probably go with a seasonal format (what can be harvested as the year unfolds) or with chapters that focus on a specific perennial edible.
Eric Toensmeier has been experimenting for years with this and says the harvest time for digging the tubers is kind of off. Here's a video of him describing this.
