Nynke Muller

Leigh, I agree that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and that it changes with permaculture knowledge. Maybe there are "universal" aspects of beauty as well, but when it comes to plants, in gardens, in nature and on farmfields, my idea of beauty has shifted from one end completely to the other.

I remember how I used to think about what they "should" look like, but now, when I see one, I am horrified. I have found it extremely difficult to let weeds grow, and at times, I still do. The need for tidyness is so deeply rooted in my upbringing and probably my culture as well. I really had to learn to see the beauty of a messy ecosystem.

Today I am proud of my messy garden that provides my familly as well as birds, frogs and insects (and other critters), with so much food. The wild flowers and the wildlife cheers us up everytime we see them. However, my husband (and many friend ans family), are not at the same level of accepting the "eco sysem messiness" they need their time to get there. What really makes a difference: if the edges are tidy, the whole place looks tidy, to me as well. So my husband takes care of the edges. Edges are weeded and the edge of the lawn, which is slowly turning into a wild flower meadow, is mown. It does make the whole place more visual appealing to everyone.

So, I think our place looks great and so does my husband. However, my dad looked at my berrybushes in the cage, with groundcover and tall white flowers of a vegtable in between, nicely contrasting with the red berries, pathways clear to move around and neat edges, and said: "well that got out of control". I was so surprised. Same thing when I started to chop and drop in "syntropic farming" style: I really think the nicely arranged heap of biomass swirling through the garden, following the contours of my romanticly shaped gardenbeds surrounding the fruit trees, look great. I see reduced work, mulch, future compost, fungus feed and wildlife habitat. My husband looked horrified and said: "do you really want to keep it this way? I can help you clean it up." So I guess there are different levels, and there will always be. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote: ... the boiled root is a chocolate substitute! ...

Wauw Joylynn, chocolate, I had no idea. Just pulled some yesterday to trow on the compost heap, what a waste.

Does anyone ever use its root? How does that work?

Geum?

Birds drop a lot of stuff. I let most of it grow. After identification, I know its value for me and it's ecological value. When it is not in the way, I let it grow. Otherwise I replant, or just chop and drop.

The most surprising useful plants are bay leaf, which starts to pop up everywhere. They are supposed not to grow well in my climate, but I have more bay leaf than I can ever use. I want to dig them up, to give away, but they grow very close to the trunks of my fruittrees. So I chop and give away.

The most ecological surprise is Enchanted Nightshade (Circaea Lutetiana). All kind of folklore goes with this plant. The Dutch name translates as "witch herb". After identification, I read that people used to see it as a warning that one went too deep into the woods. I must be doing something right, when it grows under my grapes and blackberries right next to my paved path on my urban alotment (just to be sure, I take care not to step on it, because I might be lost forever).

I am with Greg.
Select one and remove the others to concentrate growth.
If you leave the roots intact, regrowth can be huge in the first season.

However, if you want to graft onto this tree, you can leave it be. Graft ont them all, see what graft takes and then select which one to keep.

Good luck!

Good morning Peter,

Nice design. I think you need the olla or something like it. As an alternative, you could water into some of the holes in the side. Spiraling a drip irrigation hose inside the strawbelisk will certainly help. I think, the amount of soil in the strawbelisk, as well as the amount of plants, need a lot of water. It requires a lot of patience watering that all into the top of the strawbelisk, especially when the top is dry.

A cheap alternative for an olla, could perhaps be a bunch of sticks in the ground, sticking up almost to the top of the strawbelisk, wicking water from the ground (assuming there is water in the ground). I want to try this wicking myself this season, but I have no actual experience yet. The height of the structure might be an issue for wicking, so you still need to water from the top.

Good luck! Let us know what you did, and how well it worked. I would love to see a picture when it is ready.

Hi Burra,
My leeks and garlic have done that once. With one leek flower, I let it go. Miniplants grew out of it. I carefully picked the mini plants and planted them in a planter. I stopped when I had 400. There were still many more, so I passed the flowerhead on to someone else, who passed it on after she picked out as many as she wanted, and so on.

As I understand it is pretty normal in the allium familly. When the flowerstalk flops over onto the soil, a new bunch of alliums will grow there.

Somehow I am not sucessful at further propagation. Does anyone know how it should be done?

Lin Frost wrote:So you just plant the pumpkins right on the chip piles? Wow! Do you add dirt or anything? Thanks.

Hi Lin,
I have two compost piles. One I am adding on. Try to be diverse, but dont bother to much. Just dumping stuff on that I can not or will not use elsewhere in the garden.  
The second position, I clear in fall and winter, I spread it in the garden. In spring, I put some debris, from all over the garden, like mulch that covered the beds in winter on this second position. Than I make a small pile of grassclippings, in the middle, this will cause some extra warmth. My husband turns the compost from the first position onto the second. It looks like black soil with lumps of decaying wood in it. I level the surface. Really big chunks of wood, go back to the first position. Than the pumpkin is planted. I sow some other stuff around it, with varying succes.

Josh Warfield wrote:When you say "broad beans" you mean the same thing as "fava beans," scientific name Vicia faba? I have tried sowing those in spring, and they all wilted and died by early to mid summer. Should I be sowing them in the fall instead, around the same time as the peas?

Hi Josh,
Yes, fava beans indeed.
They can be sown when the weather is still cold, like february here in the Netherlands. Harvest in may or june. After that the plants deteriorate.
I understood that the race "aquadulce" should be particulary good for fall planting. I tried that last year, the plants did well, besides being nibled on. Last fall, I could not find aquadulce, so I tried something else. Aquadulce definitely did better for starting in the fall. I will try to get them for next fall.

My experience is not that succesfull to recommend them here on permies, but I certanly recomment including fava's and especially aquadulce in your fall planting experiments.

Good luck

Hi Josh,
I am experimenting with winter peas and rye for harvest in spring/early summer, like you do. I try broad beans as well.
My purpose is two fold:
- Avoid having young vulnerable plants in spring when the snails are hungry.
- Have some roots in the ground/soil cover during winter.
So far I am not very succesfull, because something is nibeling on my peas and beans in winter. This is only my second year trying, I don't have a great landrace to start with, so you might do better. I really believe it is possible.
I do have succes with the following crops growing over winter: Miners lettuce, garlic, kale. The miners lettuce, I can actually eat during winter, and it sows itself at my place. I am looking for more variety, hence my experiment with the peas and beans.

Good luck Josh, let us know how it goes.