I think when dealing with cultural properties sensitivities and permission are exceedingly important. From an objective point of view, it seems like you could use the information within such art for said purpose. Though I'm not sure why you would favor that information over modern GIS data, photos, and ground research which is often freely available.
Google earth, google maps, open street maps, all have very easily browsed map data including fairly up-to date satellite imagery in most cases. Localities will often have more precise contour maps, hydrology information, meteorological data and history, and photos.
I just read about aflatoxins for the first time after reading your post.
My take is you're probably okay if you practice good storage hygiene. Keep your seeds dry and avoid the damp conditions needed for any molds to grow and you'll probably be fine. A hygrometer in your storage area is likely to be at least as useful as specific aflatoxin tests. If you see or suspect mold on your stores, consider disposal.
Take that with a grain of salt, but that is my critical reading of the situation based on the wikipedia article.
Mike do you all plant any fire-break trees? Mollison talked a lot about designing for fire prone areas by using particular species of trees that don't ignite easily.
He was very welcoming of foreign species though and often talking about Australia, I dunno what the situation is like in southern USA
Very cool. I got my little mostly meaningless Udemy certificate this morning (not meaningless to me of course!)
Watching at 2x speed it takes about 27 hours of watching. I watched a lot in between work or while having my morning coffee.
Now I'm considering getting a copy of the big black book, as there is a discount for people who paid for the Udemy course.
I'm also interested in filling in the missing course work by doing a design of my currently unused mountain property.
I can tell there is a lot of practical information left out from the Udemy course, since it is only the lectures, but the short montage of the design activity gives an idea as to the kind of effort and group work that happened.
The other thing I realized through this is what a PDC curriculum typically covers and what it doesn't. And obviously as systems for designing ways of living and interacting there is only so much information that can be conveyed in a 72 hour period.
Huge amounts of very important information is left out, though I imagine a lot of what I'm thinking of IS in the big black book.
Things I find myself wanting to learn or observe after studying:
1. planting patterns of various gardens, orchards, guilds, etc.
2. specific earthwork designs for the steep contour and high rain area I'm in
3. the characteristics, habits, and functions of many many plants around me
4. lists of useful plants and creatures for my climate
5. planting calendars for all the above plants for my particular microclimate
Still reading it, but greatly enjoying the motivating message. I feel like this book is giving me the answers to a lot of elementary questions I had about silly terminology like open-pollinated and out-crossing and such. It's a great beginners handbook for a permie seed-saver.
I find myself a little puzzled looking at the "pollen flow" chart on pg 47. Where can I learn more about this?
To make it a badge bit submission you need to reply to the actual BB thread itself, not a new thread. You should be able to copy and paste your post to there and click the "submit BB" button.
I used lanolin to soften up some leather garden gloves that had gone hard. It worked to some extent, though I expect a mix of some other things will probably work better.
I haven't personally, but I see folks around here making coal out of rice hulls. I assume they're doing it for biochar, but I haven't asked. In a lot of ways it's an ideal material since it's already tiny, but the burns always seem pretty smokey to me.
Honestly having a partner around just to take pictures would make PEP about 20x easier to accomplish.
Documentation is more than half the battle for me.
If you have enough work to do the badges twice, just trade roles after each job is finished. There are many jobs which I could accomplish 3-5x on my tiny property.
Bethany Brown wrote:I have chips. I’m guessing I have about 200 cubic feet, hopefully there will be more tomorrow. My orchard area is about 6000 square feet. I know the cops won’t be able to cover all of it. What do y’all think? Should I use it closest to the trees, make paths, or just mulch well at one end of the orchard and hope to get more chips later to do another section?
Do it the most energy efficient way possible to get the best effect. That might mean spending another 2 hours considering the location you move the chips to before you start moving them. It's a LOT of hard work.
I don't know what kind of mulch depth you need, so it's hard to answer but deep mulches are often as thick as 8 inches. Geoff Lawton said he liked to just keep piling it up until the volunteers around him said "Isn't that a bit excessive?" And then he'd laugh and say, "Yeah, maybe?" and move on. He says he likes to take things to the edge of extreme and see how it works out.
Interesting problem. By any chance do you know what kind of wood the gate is made from? It looks kind of red, but that may be a stain or treatment.
Other than building a new gate I don't know of anyway to stop wood moving with humidity changes. So yes, creating a latch that doesn't care if it is 2 inches off vertical seems like the other option.
You can design a gate/door/etc such that the movement doesn't create a problem like this. You can also build with wood that experiences minimal seasonal movement - Japanese cedar is a good example here, I don't know what you have there.
I can commiserate. I often think about having work parties... but I feel bad about inviting people over to do menial labor. I'm hoping to slowly build a permie community in my community and eventually have permie action swarms! Johnny A needs a swale dug, everybody meet up for swales and sushi! Or something like that. Maybe a pipe dream? Maybe just an aspiration that needs nurturing.
Yet the few times I have asked for help because I really couldn't do something on my own, my neighbors came over right away and got me set-up better than I could have ever hoped for.
Congratulations! You should be in mulch for a long while. And don't worry... the more they break down the better they'll serve you. So taking a while to get them spread shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Gluts of anything are sometimes overwhelming though. If you can turn it into a work party and reward your helpers somehow that might help keep your motivation up by giving you a big push forward.
Something I noticed about my own penmanship recently - When I'm thinking and writing it's terribly messy. When I'm copying something it's very legible.
I think I will proceed with my journaling in two phases - draft writing in my cheapo notebooks, and copying into long term bound journals. I like going back and copying what I've journaled, it's a good chance to reflect.
This thread might benefit from some discussion of (natural) building terminology as well. I often find myself lost in these and looking them up. Sometimes the answers are easy to find, others not so much.
roundwood - wood that has not been sawn, riven, or hewn.
green wood - wood that is still wet
shaving horse - a type of work-holding apparatus that clamps wood by means of a treadle
treadle - a thing you push with your foot
eaves - the extension of a roof over the walls of a building
haft - a handle of a tool
bevel - the edge of a blade, usually used when talking about the angle it has been ground to.
whetstone - a special abrasive stone (sometimes ceramic) used for sharpening metal tool edges
I'm still confused about purlin vs rafter, and what the building terminology for vertical beams and other particular whatnots in framing are.
I'll add more as I think of them.
P.S. I remembered one I intended to write when I started the reply!
riving brake - a work holding apparatus in which you put the end of a log into which you intend to rive
riving - the careful splitting of a log, often guided by a froe
froe - a metal tool usually loose fit onto a handle and hit with a particular type of mallet to split wood, or levered by hand to guide the split
From what you've said so far it sounds like you may benefit from re-organizing your gardening situation.
If your garden is easy to forget and neglect, it's unlikely you will have very much success, even if you sporadically amend it. They say the best fertilizer is a gardener's shadow, or something like that.
I might suggest putting your garden in your way. Maybe put down some containers of soil beside the path you walk along everyday. Somewhere where it is impossible to ignore. I believe you will have more success by starting there than trying to work in a distant gardening space. Especially while you are still getting your garden going in the first place.
Edit: Also, I recommend starting small. Don't try to go all in at once. I made that mistake. If you have a busy work-life, or a busy family life, or a busy social life, and you're starting a garden it's easy to push it aside. If you have a couple pots growing a couple vegetables that are easy to grow and you like to eat, you're more likely to see it to fruition.
Once you've harvested a few delicious vegetables it's likely your success will give you a lot of motivation to expand.
I'm putting together a 2 bay pallet composting station.
I have decided to orient it such that the slats are vertical to avoid compost collecting on the slats.
I'm now wondering whether it would be more advantageous to add extra wood to block the vertical gaps.
By leaving them open I see the advantage of more air-flow. I also wouldn't have to do the work and use the materials to put more slats on. I do have scrap wood enough to fill them I believe.
By filling them I can more easily contain and collect the composted material.
I haven't ever really worked with an enclosed compost station much, so if anyone has any feedback on either design it would be appreciated.
Here's a picture of the set-up as it stands right now.
Opal-Lia Palmer wrote:
I just wanted to check in...... I have been feeling isolated and over stressed. I lost my husband the father of my children and best friend of 20 years to Suicide in July of 2021, then this past Nov my son went in the hospital for suicidal thoughts and my father just died at 71! I have had a rough 2 years. I thought 2023 was going to be a change for the better but 9 days into the new year shockingly my Dad dies! I just moved and am so overwhelmed. no friends, no support. Thanks for listening.
Thanks for checking in. You said you just moved and it sounds like your missing your support network. That's extra tough.
Take care. I found myself breaking down in overwhelming waves of grief at strange times. Best to avoid being on the road or other dangerous places soon after a major loss. I remember crumpling into a ball of sobbing tears in the dormitory shower until long after the hot water ran out.
Reminds me of Bill Mollison's story about the chestnuts in Melbourne was it? Some guy asked him if he was crazy for thinking of collecting the nuts and selling them to Italy. Mollison said he wasn't crazy at all and the guy apparently went on to do it and made like 3 million in a few years and retired for life.
Connecting supply and demand is how people have made enormous amounts of money throughout history.
The numbers also get more challenging when you start dealing with intercontinental, crossing mountains, terrain that may be inhospitable to air cushioned vehicles (i.e. regular cars).
For me to visit my family back in the states requires either air travel or boat travel. Going by boat apparently takes something like 3 months last time I checked. Traveling by air, car, and public transportation (all required to make the trip) takes about 3 days. I did seriously consider shifting to freighter travel for my rare intercontinental visits... but I haven't done a trip in several years, so it has been a moot point.
I don't mind flying, it's hard to do a 48 hour series of flights, but when I do it alone I can turn on my "endurance flight" mode and sleep opportunistically, do yoga in layovers, and maybe catch a few in-flight movies when I can't sleep. I tend to finish a book or two as well. But flying with little kids proved to be traumatic. One trip back to the states with our son when he was under 2 was enough to break both my wife and I at some point on the trip. We haven't done it since.
Other problems with flying include jet lag, lost luggage, missed flights, difficulty traveling with instruments and pets - slow travel tends to avoid these.
I must say my opinion of airlines improved dramatically after leaving the US. Many other countries airlines have far superior service and reliability than the major US ones I've flown. Flying around Asia is a dream. Again when you're traveling around here you have to choose flying vs boat most of the time.
All that said, I prefer not to travel 99% of my holidays. When I do travel my favorite mode by far is cycling. In some places you can combine cycling with public transportation - they have bike racks on buses and some trains will let you bring them on as luggage if you remove the front tire.
But your OP is driving vs flying, so I have digressed. I guess I have trouble thinking in binary.
Edit: I missed your last questions!
Questions for fellow permies: As you've adopted the permaculture mindset, are you opting to travel by car instead of flying? What is the future of travel in a post-limits world? What place does travel have in permaculture?
I think travel will always have a place in human society, but I do hope we opt for slower modes more and more and develop a more local mindset. Some people just need to travel, flee, or go on their own pilgrimage. For others opportunities will make the rewards greater than the costs. Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison traveled the globe around, but I do think they have done more good than harm - their purpose was to instruct, design, and develop permanent systems and designers of said systems.
As long as we have the internet and virtual tools for meeting people far away though I think that is a more sensible means of spreading information and communicating on a short term basis (in many cases). I think the future will see more sail, solar electric, and public transportation. Also more walking and cycling and the support systems for people choosing those modes.
I'm half-way through putting together a simple 2 bay pallet compost station which should help me deal with kitchen and garden waste. Half-way through I dropped a pallet on my ankle though! Lucky it seems to be mostly just a scrape. I'm a wimp to injuries though so it took me out for the rest of the day. Unfinished... but almost done!
I find that taking care of things from the waste (or end-of-life or end-of-use) perspective tends to nurture a very long-term mindset.
The collapsed greenhouse started coming down today. I'm in a rush to figure out what I'm going to do with it and how I'm going to introduce permaculture within socially acceptable norms.
Probably lots and lots of mulch, compost, and living mulch. I'm thinking of seeding clover first, and possibly introducing some vetch later. My land produces a lot of vetch naturally, so seeds are easy to get. I'd like to have a rotation of living mulch that flowers throughout the year.
I'm also interested in this topic. I'm also trying to find the best resources for my locality. I'm beginning to think the best way to learn is to find someone who knows and go for a walk with them.
My father-in-law's friend seems to be able to identify trees in our local forest without thinking. He quickly told me what a tree was, what it was traditionally used for, and its other virtues.
I kind of wish I could get his knowledge in a book with pictures.
I heard about phenological planting a long time ago, though wasn't particularly in the know at the time. More recently it came up in the Garden Master Course, so I've regained some interest.
I'm hoping to figure out a lot of these things for my own situation, because I've had trouble with it in my own backyard microclimate. My shade situation puts me in a very different boat than a lot of the other local gardeners, so trying to imitate them has proved less than fruitful in many cases.
I'm feeling lucky that I have a lot of the plants that are used as indicators listed in the article above! I have peonies! I have lily of the valley! I am going to have apple blossoms before too many more years!
I also admire people who have the ability to really savor so much of their daily life. I have the ideal and sometimes I can strike the right chord, but I have so much drive to do and act that it does get in the way of slowing down.
Honestly the best way I've found to slow down and focus was my 2022 new years resolution: Eat slowly and chew thoroughly.
It's amazing how much that one point of focus has helped me to shift my entire pace of life and outlook.
Touching on what other people have mentioned about appreciating things more after feeling their absence. I have found that going on a long walk - over 2 hours, half a day or more if possible, can instill a miniature version of this feeling. Food tastes better, water is a luxury, resting on a chair is heavenly.
With items and gifts I try my best to think of items as having almost a spirit of their own. Certainly they want a home to live in that suits them, where they will be needed and cherished. So if I cannot give them that home then I try to find them a new one. I dislike giving gifts that will not be cherished, so this is always on my mind when there are items changing hands.
For me, I find I can make the biggest positive impact when I'm thinking clearly from a big picture view and have taken time to really assess what I have control over and the trade-offs I am willing to make.
I don't expect to be perfect. The current global consumerist society makes it ridiculously hard to even approach perfection.
I've chosen to try to grow a long-term responsible mindset in myself, my family, and my community. Mistakes or bad choices will happen, but they can be learning experiences and be turned towards good in the long-term.
Some choices I have made include:
Clean up my surroundings and remove pollution as much as possible.
Decrease my use of polluting materials gradually and continuously.
Use fewer and fewer non-renewable resources over time.
Improve my ability to cook with seasonal ingredients.
Improve my ability to grow and process food that is available seasonally or from my garden.
Prefer hand tools over power tools, including transportation.
Learn more.
Edit to include: Make a point of talking about these issues.
In my case none of these are hard binaries. There is no "never" for me. It's about tendencies and preferences and direction and a growth and improvement mindset.
Is this good enough? I don't know, but it's what I'm capable of doing consistently without falling into depression and hopelessness. So yes I think it's as good as it's going to get for me right now.
I tried tons of things. I find that a cheapo notebook with lots of pages is best for me. No themes, no rules, just ANYTHING can be written. I do write the date at the beginning of any entry, be it journal, planning, etc, because that really helps with looking back and making it useful. I also try to skip lines or open space because inevitably I will want to go back and write additional notes or addendums when reflecting.
If most of what you write, plan, and log is text, then a regular straight-line ruled notebook is probably best.
If you do a lot of designing then a bullet journal (one with tons of dots) or a graph paper journal might work better.
Thanks for the update! I enjoyed seeing all your photos from your inspiring project!
Can I ask, what kind of animals or other pressures are you protecting the trees in the "tree nursery" pictures from with the big net? I don't know much about ecology in the Philippines, but I'm interested.
Yeah, I have a similar mess. I've cleaned up most of it since my plot is small, but I still find bits. Just yesterday I was setting some cinder blocks level to put up a new compost station and I unearthed 3 scraps of corrugated plastic greenhouse flooring, one strip of vinyl greenhouse plastic, and one chunk of styrofoam.
When I had whole sections of crumbled UV broken plastic like you show in the picture I just gave up, scooped the whole section including a little bit of soil and put it in the burnable trash. They incinerate most of the trash here. If it were a landfill I'm not sure what I would have done. Neither course is ideal in any way, but it can really just be soul crushing to try to take the moral high ground when faced with a shit storm that you didn't make. I say do the best you can, but don't let it break you.
Getting to this stage where I'm only finding bits once in a while took 7 years though. It used to be a daily pick-up.
Now I have an increasingly strict rule - No new non-biodegradable materials go into the garden.
Edit: If you're wondering about the cinder blocks breaking my rule, they were also here when I got here, so I'm still using some old non-biodegradable materials where I deem them appropriate... but fewer and fewer. This past season I transitioned from plastic/metal garden stakes and supports to pollarded mulberry poles and trellises lashed with jute. The reduction in stress is enormous, knowing I can just chop the whole thing down and throw it on my compost pile when it's not useful anymore.
Not quite bones... but we eat a lot of cartilage over here in Japan. Once I got started on it I couldn't stop. Deep fried chicken cartilage with a little bit of meat hanging on is a pretty gnarly snack. So crunchy and delicious. Now when I eat drumsticks I clean them up... down to the bone for sure.
I used to crack chicken bones and eat some of the marrow when I was a kid. I haven't done that in years though.
Bill Mollison apparently measured distances by his paces, which he had figured to the millimeter I think?
Every three steps I take is roughly the same as my height, and roughly the length of my tatami mats (though non-standard). That's still especially useful for me here in Japan since area is typically measured by tatami mats.
My index fingernail width is barely over 1 cm.
The length of my hand at its widest span is 20 cm in either direction.
Do you use any similar metrics for quick measurements when you may not have a ruler, tape, or other accurate measuring tools.
Perhaps some other method that doesn't involve body parts?
The perfect opportunity arose and I waited about three weeks until the perfect timing followed then I jumped. Now I have a chance to turn a former market garden plot into my own little permaculture project site.
Why is it perfect? It's directly in front of my front door!
It also gets almost full sun! I'll have to measure the size, but it's probably about 30x30 meters. Maybe a little more. (edit: nope, my estimation skills are way off - it's considerably less than that, but still a good sized plot) Combined with my backyard garden it's enough to vastly expand my vegetable production.
It's been mostly under a vinyl greenhouse for the last decade or two, but that broke in recent snow, and the owners are going to lend me the land after they finish cleaning it up. It's been tilled regularly and fertilized with mostly chicken manure during most of its life.
I'll probably do a soil test to see what I'm working with. Also need to watch the sun and shade of neighboring houses for the rest of the winter.
Now I need to quickly finish my permaculture Udemy course and the Wheaton labs garden master recordings before they finish cleaning it up!
I expect it will be a while before I can build the soil life up to thrive without tilling, but I have lots of organic material I can use to get started - my garden is a veritable jungle.
I'll have to talk to the owners about bushes, trees and vines... But even with no trees it's a great plot for annuals and herbaceous perennials
Your experience may differ, but I have found that trying to document the calorie projects means extra planning needs to be taken.
Set up your scales and storage before harvest. Double check the requirements. Get a camera ready.
Make sure your documentation procedures are future proof. Do you have necessary dates logged? Do you have photos of the growing area while everything is growing.
Also the sourcing requirements of seeds and plants is quite strict, so especially for the 1,000,000 calorie where there's no forgiveness outside of 1 year, make sure your plants meet the requirements.
My calorie counting has fallen off, but since the 100,000 badge bit is a bit more forgiving I'm not too stressed out - just trying to enjoy the food we grow is pleasure enough for me for now.
The fruit/juice might not be sweet, but is the rind aromatic? Sometimes you can cut in half, turn so the outer peel faces your food and squeeze in a backwards arc and the oils spray off into your food giving you an amazingly delicate but interesting flavor. Citrons are often used like this I think.
What happens when you dehydrate it? Can you candy it?
Can you zest it? How is the white part of the rind?
Some citrus have surprisingly sweet parts and bitter other parts. For example the local fruit called a buntan has extremely bitter membranes, but if you peel those and reveal the inner fruit sections without membrane they are very interesting in flavor.
Rachel Lindsay wrote:I want to grow my Social Capital this year!
I have had similar thoughts. I'm in it for the long game, so I'm doing some observations first of the community and looking around at facets that intersect in ways that I can engage with in meaningful ways
My hope is to start one or more permie clubs. Hopefully I'll be posting about them if I get them off the ground.
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