Jim Garlits

And Jen, just today I turned a William Bond two ingredient hot compost pile for the eighth time! It had some hiccups similar to yours, and I'm happy to report that... I don't have to turn it again. Once it goes through this final thermo cycle and cools off, it'll finally be ready to make compost tea out of for the summer, and it'll go on my garden beds in the fall after final harvest. I'll be sowing buckwheat into it to overwinter and next spring, I should be the owner of one awesomely improved row garden. Don't give up, just keep turning it, checking it, and feeding it when necessary.

Jim

I love William, the Permaculture Consultant! His dad, Billy Bond is great, too.

The problem with the sludge is that it is basically anaerobic. It isn't beyond hope, it just needs major aeration over time. I'd add it to fresher greens and browns as you're building your compost. If you add it in small amounts, the surrounding carbon materials will absorb a lot of the moisture and allow it to start breathing again. You see what William does when he turns his compost piles...toss it up in the air and catch it again repeatedly on your fork as you're turning it. Good hot compost, even if you're learning a "quick" method, is still allowing nature to do what it does naturally. It's okay to go slow when things go wrong. You're still going to end up with improved soil. Add the slime when you need moisture. Aerate it real good when you're flipping your pile. It'll be fine, just not as fast as you might like. If your compost stalls, you've still got a great big pile of goodness that just needs jump started with green manure or clean manure if you can get it. Though with all of the negative developments in recent years, I'd hesitate bringing in outside inputs unless you're 100 percent sure that they're clean and free of gick.

Jim

Whild dumpster diving last year I agitated some yellow jackets who very quickly informed me that they had the situation under control. While flailing my arms and running for cover, this came out of my mouth:

"This was not on the agenda today!"

There was a time when I may have used spicier words, of simply groaned outwardly as the spirit gave utterance. But I was proud of myself for staying in character.

Jim

I ordered a wine cap mushroom starter kit (inoculated wood chips) a couple of days ago with the intention of placing them in my black walnut ditch. Any tips on placement? I've got forest edge, deep canopy, and seasonal creek environments. Who has had success with what? I mean, seasonal creek is probably out for obvious reasons, but close to it? Stay completely away from it? I want to increase my chances of success on this experiment.

Jim

Welcome to Permies, Aaron.

I don't know if the program at Fieldsong Farm is still operational, but the post was from 14 years ago. I do know that there are other active permies here with similar programs around the world and hopefully some of them will respond. In the meantime, have a look around and I hope to see more posts from you.

Jim

I’m interested in Permies in Indiana. I’m SW of Fort Wayne.

Check out my signature line.

Jim

Mk Neal wrote:

Mark Reed wrote:

I like rice a lot, especially wild rice and although I doubt I could ever grow it in serious quantity, I'd like to give it a try in my little garden pond but not sure where to find seeds.

There is actually a variety of wild rice that is native to the river ways of Indiana, but had almost died out. Some of the Myaamia folks in Ft Wayne area had found some a few years back and were working to reintroduce it in that area. I heard about this from Dani Tippmann at a Miami Heritage Days event in Ft Wayne some years ago.

It’s not a garden plant, though. Needs to grow in flowing water and needs seasonal fluctuations in depth, is what I heard.

I think if you're wanting to make your own barley pop, it makes economic sense. And I have an all grain mash tun, so it is definitely something I have been thinking about.

Jim

I made this post a wiki post that anyone can edit.  

Try it.


Ok, I did...should I leave a name or will a new name show each time the post is edited, re-edited, or edited, yet again? I'm not sure.

Random Links
Wiki Weirdness
PEP BB tool.sand.knife
Rendering Fats
Create a BB for PEP

Not sure what we're looking for but hey have a link or 3 to look at.
So, get that a wiki can be edited by anyone.  And I suppose in any edit, I have the write to be rong and so be it  Happier practicing here that stuffing a great page



one is the lonlyist number that you ever know.

On the other hand, there is always another way to look at it.

So just how does one know which wiki posts can be edited?
- good question.  If you can see an edit button, you can edit the wiki.  But some wikis have only a few people who can edit them.

oh look another change.

Not sure why we're testing editing it. But here goes!

I typed this.

The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things. Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms made out of springs. But how much embodied energy are in Tiggers, and if your area doesn't recycle, are Tiggers ultimately damaging to the environment? We may never know!

Spice Girls

Edited to add: I don't know that I've ever edited one, until this round of gardeners came in!

I, for one, would rather experiment by editing this wiki, than risking screwing up an important wiki. So I'm happy with testing here! Jay A.
Couldn't agree more, Jay!

(20210914 - Thanks for making this post and thread, Jay!)

20201118 clw: Oh neat! I thought I globally didn't have wiki-editing permission. Now I know there's something to look for.
20260516 jg Just checking to see if I can make multiple edits to a single wiki for scavenger hunt credit. And guess what? I can. So I will. It's really just editing a page. But the page is a wiki. It's just muscle memory. And repetition. Or as I like to say "rinse and repeat."

Plant identification. Very earthy. Very useful. Sometimes...very wrong. But these apps are getting stronger and more accurate, and I think they will continue to do so as that dreaded machine learning is applied to such "edge cases" as flowering plants without flowers, young plants, distressed and diseased plants, and the like. I won't debate, and I hope you won't debate, the ethical and philosophical implications of artificial intelligence. That isn't why I created this thread. Just take it as a given. It exists. APPs are getting plugged into it.

I've been using Picture This app to identify plants everywhere I go. Sometimes I conduct experiments, taking several pictures from different angles. And sometimes I get two or three different answers.

I recently downloaded iNaturalist, and so far I like it. It gives a probability percentage, telling me basically "I'm 79 percent sure that this is white flower leafcup." It will then give me four or five other probable candidates.

So right off the bat, it begins a discussion about what it could be. Not saying, "this is what it is" like Picture This.

There's another app that I haven't tried yet, called Pl@ntNet. Does anyone have intel on that one?

The bottom line for me on such apps is that it is increasing my biophilia. It is making me smarter about the plants and trees around me, so that I can walk past something green and blurt out, "Well, hello Mrs. Northern Catalpa! How are you today?" And I'll never forget what the bark and leaves of catalpa look like.

Jim

I wanted to create this thread to address the usefulness or lack thereof in smartphone apps and the like, and I'm specifically addressing it as appropriate technology. I have no idea what Fritz Schumacher would think of this power (for good or evil) we hold in our hands or choose not to.

But it is a lot of power. Let this thread be a home for such discussions. Let's lay out the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, and as the thread ages, new developments and specifically how they might help permaculturalists.

I'll start off with phone apps for plant identification.

Jim