George Yacus

If I were in the tropics as opposed to sub tropics, I would definitely test the fast growing Moringa tree to see if it reseeds easily.

An organization I recently had some training from (Equipping Farmers International) has heard of very good results with Moringa in the Global South.  It's a complete protein — especially good for nursing mothers.  I hear it can be grown as an annual, or brought inside.  I think I will try it out next spring.  Also a spectacular chicken feed I hear.

For a wider range, how about a native nitrogen fixer, Apios americana?  aka Groundnut.  I have not yet grown or purchased any, but I know some permies on here sell it.  

I bet Eric Toensmeier could rattle off a bunch more in his book...

https://permies.com/wiki/20163/Perennial-Vegetables-Eric-Toensmeier

I'm happy this thread serendipitously crossed my eyes today, as I just harvested my first Jerusalem Artichokes two days ago, and planted a single Egyptian walking onion then as well.

Two years ago during my fall PDC they gave us a few to take home, and I planted them immediately in a couple different agroforestry nooks.  I basically walked away and forgot about them... until Monday while walking with my friend I saw a flash of green and was like "Is that what I think it is?".    Whoopee!

~2 years after PDC planting~
Harvest notes to follow:

We harvested half of a nice plant cluster that was growing between some juvenile black locusts, plus another few tubers from a tall scrawny cluster growing in the shade of my outhouse.  From those, we immediately replanted:
- 3 tubers+roots between black locusts
- 3 tubers+roots by a young fig tree (under wood chips)
- 3 tubers each adjacent to a baby redbud tree (under wood chips)
- 1 random tuber (under wood chips)
Wood chips were dropped in summer.

We also each took between 200 - 250 grams worth of tubers home to the burbs.  I couldn't bear to eat them because I wanted to plant more!  So today I planted all mine around the house.  

Edit to add:  If someone reminds me a couple years from now I can check back at the recent and original planting locations for a yield report.  PDC was Fall 2023 for original planting nooks.

Welcome to permies, Zach!

First, here's a good reminder regarding percent grade (slope).  Recall that a 100% grade is a 45° angle.  A 15% grade would be rising (or dropping) 15 feet over the course of 100 feet of run.  A 15% grade is less than 9°.


(Source)

If you need to know your slope:

Google Earth can get you a good number over a large area.  

There are likely phone apps you could use

You can estimate it by hand, knowing your height of eye along with a tape measurer, and perhaps a spirit level or a transit and some string.

You mention needing more water retention.  Hmmm...are there signs of erosion or runoff happening?  

If you'd like to nerd out a little bit, you can do a search for runoff coefficients to estimate how much runoff you have leaving the land.  A lower runoff coefficient means that more water is soaking in, yay!  You may find that your soil is soaking in a bunch already, and a swale may not spread the water much.  In any case...

I personally would let the trees stay where they are, undisturbed.  

They've been seeking out water since you planted them, and drier conditions will make them search deeper.  Recall that mulch and organic matter can greatly increase water retention, so time-wise, collecting organic matter might pay off more than digging by hand due to added benefits.   If soil is compacted, a broadfork could help, too.  To save time, you could also do some micro-earthworks like "fish scale swales" or "boomerang berms".

Best wishes!

I had an idea come to me a couple weeks ago in order to make a "precision hügel" with terraced-like siding

Precision Hügel Steps:
1) Determine the desired size and shape of hügel.
2) Plant black locust trees around the hügel's outer edge.
3) Plant inner array(s) of black locust trees which will define the "risers" for hügel steps.
4) After 3-7 years, when the locusts are becoming sturdy, chop them at elevations corresponding to the desired height of the hügel.
5) Drop logs of appropriate sizes into the black locust vertical scaffolds, using pallet forks or heavy equipment.  The trees will help keep the logs from rolling out of place.
6) Add mulchy bits and soil and smaller sticks and logs along the way as appropriate.
7) If the black locust tree survives being buried, continue to use it as a chop and drop nitrogen fixer for the hügel.  If it dies, its longevity may still help keep a nice angle of repose.

Spaced repetition is key!  There is a Slavic proverb that "repetition is the mother of learning."

If my memory serves me correctly ;) there is something called the "forgetting curve" where we forget more than half of what we learn in the first 24 hours.  Hence the '2' in your video standing for reviewing info 2 hours after learning, as opposed to two days later.

Reviewing (2 hours, not two days) drastically helps memory shift bits and bobs into longer term storage.  Of course, this necessitates having something to review in the first place...good notes, audio/video recording, textbooks, etc.  

Other quick tips for memory improvement:

Multiple senses - Seeing, hearing, touching, *doing*, smelling or tasting even.  The more you experience, the deeper the memory.  Hence why students with handwritten notes recall better than typed notes.

Encoding - Taking knowledge tidbits and converting them into a different medium.  Like drawing a picture, or making up a dance.  Symbolism and forced connections, even weird or wacky metaphors, can help.  

Chunking - breaking big stuff (e.g. lists) into smaller manageable bits.  Like how US phone numbers are +1 (###)-###-####.

Memory palace - Our sense of location is pretty deep.  You can probably envision lots of details about your home if you close your eyes or if the lights went out.  Or if you commute, you don't have to think much about various turns, it's near automatic due to knowing specific key points.  A memory palace encodes items or concepts to be recalled into locational "pegs", and then you can "walk" through the locations in order to retrieve the memory set.  (I used this method many years ago to encode Holmgren's 12 permaculture principles into my old college campus.)

Relevance - If something to be learned can be made super relevant -  like it is super useful, or vital to survival or emotionally significant, there is greater motivation to retain it.  

Acronyms & Acrostics - Self explanatory.  The initial letters lead into the things to be remembered. Like ROYGBIV "Roy Gee Biv" standing for the colors of the rainbow in order.  

Teaching & explaining.  If you teach something, it really helps solidify it while also helping someone else :D

Bj Murrey wrote:
This "pattern" would drive me nuts. It's a hassle to get to the office at the center... nothing in nature works like this... it will take care to preserve this shape and layout...
I would only use this if I had a full time gardener and the office was some sort of local attraction people came to see...
I'd never use this at my home! Think about bringing a wheelbarrow to the center... PAIN IN THE....
Wasted walking, and once it's filled in with plants you can't see any spirals but from the air... and I can't fly.

Instead of these labor intensive designs, spirals, just use "comma" (like the punctuation) shapes... simpler, same principles, none of the obstacles or annoyance...

UNLESS of course you designing it all for the airplane passengers who might fly over and look someday

Great feedback, BJ!  

I designed my orchard about 7 years ago, and your feedback is welcome.  Of course, I designed it for me, but if I were designing for others, it would have looked drastically differently.  Some replies regarding the "non-efficient" shape:

1) Yes, I did design it for aerial view!  

I was a Navy H-60 pilot in my former life.  I believe one of the primary reasons people fly is so they can enjoy the earth, not the sky.  This is the kind of thing that makes heads turn and people smile or go "hmm" and feel a sense of wonder.  Lots of civilian and military aircraft overfly the farm.  I even keep a "runway" field free of large trees...just in case someone needs to make an emergency landing some day.  

2)  Yes, I did design it to eventually be an attraction.  

I want it to be a meditative walking labyrinth-like experience were families can enter and slow down and pick fruits and veggies and flowers.  I am building the office at a different spot for greater ease of access, but when folks enter the spiral and get to the center, I want to have it so they can picnic or press fresh cider or dance on a bandstand, or do some agritourist-y things with a sense of privacy.  The don't have to follow a "path" though.  They will be able to walk between the trees, too.

3) It's a slow / defensive / private pattern, kind of like a snail.  

The spiral shape is my (not yet launched) business logo, and it reminds me of a helicopter main and tail rotor system, a nod to my past.  But moreover, the "E" shape is a silly "love letter" to my wife.

So overall, it's intended for a sense of intimacy, not efficiency.

Ideally, a permaculture designer gets *plenty* of in person contact time with the client and project steward and the site itself.  There really is no substitute for the principle to "Observe and Interact" after all.

But I wonder, when it comes to remote permaculture design work, how do folks feel?  

There is a bunch that *can* be gathered digitally through maps and climate data and video chats, photos, shared drives and the like. Remote design can keep costs down big time, helping bridge the financial gap.

So what do you think: for our budget-friendly permaculture designer, how does he or she ideally interact with you as a client if not in person on site?  

What specific flavors of technology would you embrace... or avoid?  

Example of some tech flavors off the top of my head:
-Plain old telephone calls and email back and forth,
-Zoom,
-FaceTime video chats,
-Google Meet,
-Google Drive,
-Migratory swallow carrying the design in a coconut by the husk,
-Openly sharing design work on the permies.com forum,
-PurpleMoosage,
-DropBox
-WhatsApp
-Signal

Are there strong preferences on technology flavors for communication between a remote designer and client?  Thank you for your thoughts and feedback!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:How do we know what the manufacturing industry has decided is appropriate and food safe as opposed to what supports their economic considerations of ease in industrial processes?  How is preseasoning different from all the other industrial nonstick coatings on so many modern pans? (teflon, silverstone etc)

They list on their website what they use: carbonized veg oil.  They seem pretty transparent about the process and ingredients.

Lodge's website wrote:There are no synthetic chemicals added. The oil is highly refined, and all proteins that cause soy-related allergies are eliminated. The oil is kosher and contains no animal fat, peanut oil, or paints.

Lodge website FAQ section on seasoning

Lodge is seasoned with 100% natural soybean oil. Some folks avoid soy due to an allergy or concerns around inflammation, but Lodge cookware is perfectly safe for these groups of people. That’s because the oil we use has been refined at very high temperatures to the point that the proteins that cause food allergies or inflammation are no longer detectable.

If you’d prefer not to use soy bean oil when cooking or seasoning at home, we simply recommend using an oil that has a high smoke point and fits your needs.

Edit to add: The site also addresses your concern about pre-seasoning coming off.

Today I learned a term for a Zimbabwean gardening method involving mulched basins: pfumvudza.  I'm planning on taking a course next month hosted by the non-profit Equipping Farmers International which teaches this method.

I don't think it's worth pursuing, as the majority of roots tend to stick around in the top 30 cm or so of soil, right?    

Assuming this root zone as the target, I perceive it will take too much water to first saturate the entire wooden core, and then slowly percolate outward horizontally (hydraulic pressure) and downward with gravity all the way throughout the cone to the edges where the plants are, compared with just watering the immediate root zone to begin with and having organic matter nearest the rootzone.

In other words, the volume of the dirt cone is quite large, compared to the top foot or so of growing space, that's a lot of soil to percolate through, requiring a lot of water.