A couple of people as designated "crew" could be a great idea, especially if they are multi-skilled and reliable. Having these go-to people would reduce the stress and hassle for everyone else.
If you did not have specified crew, and everyone was expected to contribute to chores, then it might be sensible to hold an application process. People could be selected based on what useful skills and experience they have that would be useful for your 3 week intentional community. This might exclude a lot of people without experience, but it would mean that the whole trip can run smoother and can focus better on producing high quality content for the web community to learn from.
Mary James wrote:Just going to giggle at this one,,,Just giggle ,,if it was just a few nibbles of lettuce we were looking at here I would be one happy lady,,, LOL
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what dream world I was in when I wrote that. They have decimated all of my seedlings I think I will be lucky to get a few nibbles of anything at this rate!
I did a bit of WWOOFing on a 17 acre small holding. They had a 4 acre food forest that was 5 years old. It not only provided more fruit than they could eat, but much more than they could even harvest! This was even with monthly community days where people were invited to come in and pick. But that is just fruit.
They grew a lot of vegetables, but still bought some in. They also bought in a lot of supplemental feed for their livestock. In order to become completely self sufficient would take a serious amount of work - things were already pretty full on - all day every day.
Self sufficiency is possible, but a lot more work than I think most people realise. Self reliance is much more achievable, whereby you can meet most of your needs, but still rely on some external inputs. The focus then turns to developing communities and local economies, so that all can meet their needs as locally as possible. This allows us to take advantage of some economies of scale too, reducing the overall burden of work.
Frogs and toads love to eat slugs and snails! So encourage them with a pond or two, maybe even just a small body of water to have a dip in. I always find toads in piles of grass clippings, so maybe a pile nearby will give them a nice place to chill out when they are all full up on slugs! It's also important for them to have somewhere warm to hibernate in winter, so piles of grass or compost are ideal.
Ground beetles are good slug predators, they will eat the eggs and baby slugs. Piles decaying wood make ideal habitat.
Hedgehogs like slugs. Hedges and piles of scrub are good for them to hide in.
I think that the thing with chemical free solutions is that we have to accept some degree of loss. That's just natures way. But by establishing healthy predator-prey relationships, we can keep those losses quite low. A few nibbles on the lettuce can't hurt!
I think I will be lucky to get a few nibbles of anything at this rate!