Greg Martin

I ran a marathon in Sweden.
I knew I was lost when I crossed the Finnish line.

Where does a boat go when it doesn't feel well?
To the dock.

I've been crazy about permaculture for 20 years and this year will be my 12th year on Permies.  I came to interact with all the lovely folks here.....and sometimes to drop a couple bad jokes.

I love Bernd Heinrich!  I've really enjoyed reading his books.  

I planted Chinese chestnut seeds a decade ago that I have been harvesting from for the past few years.  I see a few seedlings popping up here and there from those trees.  Also, last year I bought nuts from a mother tree that is 75% American chestnut and am hoping they end up behaving very much like full American chestnuts as they will need to compete in a forest setting.  Fingers crossed.  I'd love to get my fingers on some resistant 100% American and chinkapin seeds to add to my forest too.  Such a lovely dream to see them return.

I put my Kia up for sale and the Devil contacted me.
I sold him my Soul.

What do you call a melancholy robot.
A sigh-borg.

I'm not quite sure what to do.
I'm late on my payments to my Scrabble subscription and now they're sending me threatening letters!

Meli Mot wrote:I love the idea of a vegan permaculture food forest! I don't see how to get enough protein though. I live in hardiness zone 5b. I used a nutrition tracker to input walnuts and hazelnuts,  which grow in my area, but that only came to 20% of daily protein needs. Fruit adds very little protein. Perhaps Siberian pea, but apparently that has dangerous toxins. I will keep researching though!

Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds can be shucked in August while green and taste wonderful cooked.  One analysis has them at 31.5% protein and they grow great in zone 5.

I'm officially in zone 5a and I planted out a block of seeds.  For a good many years they died back somewhat and then grew back stronger year after year while continuing to die back a bit.  Last year they did not die back at all and grew over my head.  Weather?  Didn't seem like it was an easier winter. Trees gaining enough strength?  Not sure.  

I'm waiting for spring to see if they are done with dying back or not.  If they don't have any die back then I'll harvest their new growth as I pollard them to 4'.  I like the idea of training them at a convenient harvesting height.

I don't make raised beds, but if I did I would probably try burning the wood's faces for a shou sugi ban style wall.  As a bonus it can be really beautiful.
There is a a thread here on Permies about doing this.  Several people mentioned it taking a lot of time and fuel to burn the wood faces.  I'd move the wood over a camp fire as I wouldn't want to use fuel.  There is also a method where 3 boards are wired together to make a sort of chimney and that is placed over a small fire to get the internal wood faces to char nicely, though seems a bit smoky!