Good point, Jane, and one that I sometimes struggle with. It's too easy to get stuck in the "research" phase checking out what others have done and sketching out an idea in my head. Around the time where the idea is ready to act upon and start implementing, I start looking at another interesting project and start the process all over again. It can become a bad loop. Personally, I've gotten a bit better in recent years at focusing on a single project and seeing it all the way through before starting another but it's still an ongoing challenge.
To transport cattle panels, I would probably go to Home Depot or similar place and rent their truck for an hour. I think it was $20/hour last time I rented one. Or maybe talk to a nearby farmer who has either a truck or a trailer and offer to pay them for picking up an order for you.
You all are inspiring. I'm thinking I'll put up some trellises soon and maybe can use them as a seasonal greenhouse but then take down the plastic when it gets warmer and use it for climbing/vining crops. Thanks!
Awesome job, Thomas, and hope it provide you many years of productive use! I'm looking forward to building an outdoor kitchen/grill/canning/garden produce processing area within the next handful of years. I'm leaning towards using the roof and partial sides of an old grain bin or corn crib and running water and electric to it. Include a sink, counter top, and possibly a cob or stone rocket oven for cooking and canning. Anyway, your build is definitely an inspiration to me.
For me, I would say lettuce and similar salad/leafy greens (chard, spinach, etc) because they get a jump start on almost everything else. Potatoes are pretty easy from a standpoint of growing through thick mulch that nothing else makes it out from and then they shade out everything else. Cucumbers for the same reasons others have already said.
I'm in my mid-30's and slowed down just a bit from my 20's but still enjoy reading through this thread to pick up bits and pieces on how to make jobs easier. I'm realizing that anything I can do now to take better care of my body will give me better odds of continuing to do physical work in later years. Just because I can lift a heavy log and carry it 40 feet now, doesn't mean I should!
Thanks for posting all the BB links at the top of the thread. For me, the best ones are the BB trackers as a way of picking which ones would be most attainable for me if I were to do them. I'm sure I'm doing some of these things now, but doing these things with 3 kids 5 years old or under, I don't make time to photograph them, upload, and come back to post about it in the right places. It seems like a fun self-challenge and might've been a better fit for me prior to kids or in a few years when the kids are a bit more independent and ready to be taught some of these skills. I like the idea of having them using the BB trackers as an education/skill tracking tool!
Similar to Charlotte, I would be very happy to win Justin's book and leap into reading Chapter 2 Starting Small, followed by Chapter 8 on what to do with the harvest. I'm hoping it's similar to Justin's Youtube videos in approach, inspiration, and detail.
We are all standing upon the shoulders of giants, given some understanding of concepts and shown some things that do work and things that don't work to inform what we attempt (or choose not to attempt). There are no new ideas in the world, rather new combinations and iterations of old ideas tried in different ways, in different times, different places, and different approaches. There is so much power in learning from those who have attempted things before us and leveraging their insights in our own pursuits!
Similar to the comments about hand tools being really effective when they're well-designed, in good condition, and a person knows how to use it well... powered equipment can be very effective when used by a skilled operator and in the right situations. Powered equipment operated without skill can sometimes be a faster way to damage or tear up things and sets you back a bit while you repair things. Thinking examples like angle grinder minor slippage completely ruins a surface or backhoe digs a bit too deep and takes out a propane line or drainage tile.
@Andre Herrera - last year, I planted some acorns in an air-prune bed with wire mesh covering it to protect from rodents (Edible Acres Youtube channel has some great videos on this). This year, I've planted out some of those seedlings, some additional seedlings I bought for variety of species, and field-planted acorns. With the field-planted acorns, I buried about half dozen at each location hoping that if mice/voles/etc find some of them, I'll still have some survive. Buried them about the depth of the acorn in the fall, with a bit of mulch to cover. I'm not sure yet how this method will turn out but I'm hopeful that sewing in quantity will be a good strategy.
That acorn bread recipe looks great. I just planted a ton of oak trees and will be waiting awhile until I have my own acorn crop to use but this thread is a great reminder of why I'm planting certain plants.
Wonderful documentation and detailed explanation of all of your steps! Thank you for putting this out there and I look forward to referencing this when I go to make my own bread. I wish I had some tips that I could share with you but you're further along in this than I am.
I'm interested in this answer as well, along with any insights on design considerations and what makes it different from other models that are out there.
I have not used the grain mill attachment but I have used the meat grinder attachment. If they're at all similar, the grinder was slow which would be fine for small quantities but may require some patience if you want to do larger quantities.
I'm glad to see a review here on the Mockmill. I don't own a grain mill yet but it's a model I've been looking at for my home use. It sounds like a great option! I ran across another review of Mockmill and a handful of manual mills that I'll find and post here shortly.
Do thorny plants like blackberry brambles deter deer at all? I want to protect my cherry trees which the deer go after hard. I've seen on Edible Acres Youtube channel that tall, dry grasses like miscanthus stalks and likely bamboo tend to protect plants from deer but have not tried this myself yet.
Wow, this is an extensive thread that I'll need to come back to several times to fully understand. Now I'm looking to grow some black locust at my place for it's many uses.
Waiting to do loads of laundry until a full load has accumulated and it's good drying weather to use the clothes line. Deciding whether to use the solar cooker, toaster oven, insta-pot, or oven depending upon how much I'm cooking and how quickly we need it. Mulching driest areas first, then shadier areas later. Making stakes or other small garden structures out of fallen tree branches as needed. I imagine there's a ton more that I'm not thinking about right now!
I've been searching all over for this kind of resource as well! Closest I've find has been some Youtube creators showcasing their guilds/groupings and explaining the rationale (e.g. 1-2 free trees in the center, 1 can be shorter lived fruit, paired with longer lived nut for succession planting, shrub/cane layer to the East for winter wind and sun scald shielding, lower ground cover at the base of the shrub/cane layer, and kind of fill in the blanks (nitrogen fixers, accumulators, pollinator attractors etc) to North/South/West sides). So, I'm thinking like a graphical illustration of those examples, short description underneath of WHY it's set up that way, then user enters a USDA zone (or global equivalent? sorry, not sure what the rest of the world goes by as a rough guide to what will grow where) and it returns a suggestion list of plants of the most popular, zone-appropriate plants to fit each of those locations in the illustration, roughly ranked by popularity.
Welcome Rob, Michelle, and Takota. And congratulations on writing a book! What an accomplishment and it sounds like a great book to help so many of us learn from your experiences.
This is really nerdy... I love it! How cool is this, especially if I were to pair it with a personal photo album of the PEP BB projects/items/structures created through the process. Awesome work!
I started a peach tree from a pit several years ago and it's only 6 inches tall or so yet, but I see what you all have started and they seem to shoot up really quickly! Why is mine so slow growing? For context, it's directly East of an existing peach tree maybe a foot or so away from the other tree.
This is a great thread that I'll definitely have to revisit when I find myself with too many eggs again. It doesn't happen often with my kids loving eggs every morning and always easy to make and use boiled eggs, but great to have this thread available. I need to try freezing eggs sometime too to see how that works.
Check out Edible Acres sometime! https://www.edibleacres.org/ They have a great selection for being a small, family-run permaculture nursery and do a great job of education about the plants they stock.
The Fokin Hoe blade looks awesome! I love that it's made of structural spring steel and durably designed for long term use. I'm so tired of cheaply made, poorly designed tools.
Humble Beginnings... because that's what it was for us when we started and what it will still be when we're slowing down or dead. It's a recognition that our dreams and ambitions for the place will always exceed what we're able to get done there but that it's ok because it's just the price of having big dreams. Not everything will get done and we will never know all that we want to but we'll keep working towards it regardless. It causes us to reminisce about where our journey started, what we've accomplished, and inevitably keeps us dreaming about what to do next on our humble homestead.
