serj McCoy

Maybe I'm missing something but I havent had luck getting kiwis to climb a tree. These are large established trees, honey locust, black locust and hickory. So far the kiwis have no interest in climbing the trees and just get shrubby at the base. Everything I've read said yes they climb way up trees but this far that just hasn't happened for me. This is only their 3rd year so we'll see what happens. I've tried training them a little but that hasn't helped either.

I do have to train them every week or so during the spring/early summer.  Which is extremely simple if you are only growing a few vines(I have 3 rope trellises setup).  But if you went into mass production for a cash crop it might get tedious.

I use the method in the picture from John Polk.  It works great.  What I've done is stuck a bamboo pole in the ground tied a rope going to the top of the bamboo poll(maybe 5 foot) at a sharp angle.  Then from the top of the bamboo a second rope goes about 12 feet to the top of a clothes line post.  Interestingly it seems the hops prefer to produce on the more horizontal part going to the clothes line post and not the vertical one going up the bamboo.  I don't have a better pic than this on me.  But it is pretty much exactly the method depicted in the image above

Find truffles in wild, plant compatible tree next to them(truffels are mycorrhizal).  After a year or two move tree to your landscape and it should now be inoculated with truffle goodness.  You can buy inoculated hazels online but almost everything I read about them claims little to no success.  Best to find a truffle known to work well in your area for inoculation.

In the scenario you envision you're going to need a high quality fence.  Someone starving with kids to feed would make short work of any organic matter separating them and a bushel of apples.  10k for 3-5 acres is going to be hard to find.  Unless your ok with it being pretty remote.  If that's the case how do you manage land so far away? 

I have about an acre that I'm creating as a sort of food safety net for my family.  The land is 2 hours away which makes my management of it tricky at times.  Often when I am there I think about the what if's of the future.  The only way I can envision keeping my landscape secure is with neighbors buying into it.  If you give your neighbors some of the harvest or let them pick on occasion, they immediately become shareholders in your edible landscape.  They would then have a vested interest in keeping away any would be thieves.  Of course the flip side is what happens when they tell all their friends and extended family about their access to your land .

The Russian Comfrey(bocking 14) I'm growing does have the tiniest spines that will stick in your fingers if you're not careful.  They are so small I often times don't even realize I've been 'stuck' until later in the day when something rubs across where the spine is stuck in my skin.

Wordy is right.  These easily could have been 1 book.  I read through them both and enjoyed them, but there's way too much fluff.  As someone already pointed out the plant lists and things are great.  I love the top 100 permaculture plants in volume one and all the into at the end of the 2nd volume as well.  I just wish it was compressed into 1 book.

I'm not well versed on your climate, I'm sure it's harsher than mine(southern PA).  But here's a few things I like to plant in shade(dappled)...

pawpaw
ramps (wild leek)
ostrich fern
ginseng
goosberry
mulberry


Just some ideas..

This sounds like the same argument I keep hearing again and again.  Can Permaculture compete with a conventional agriculture system.  This all depends on what end result your comparing.  If you are simply judging yields of produce conventional farming is going to win.  I'm sure I'll take some flack for saying that.  But you have to keep in mind the advantages they have with fossil fuels being a corner stone of their process.  The comparisons I've seen for the Permaculture side, cite that forest gardens can produce more biomass.  Sure but all biomass isn't edible.  If your judging all the uses and utility a food forest has it will win hands down.  But until cheap energy is no longer cheap comparing how many people these agriculture methods can economically feed, permaculture isn't going to come out on top.  Though I don't know about you but I didn't plant my forest garden to simple make as much produce as possible.

IMO juglone is overrated.  I planted a bed with 8 tomato plants right outside the reach of one of the branches from a grove of black walnuts and all of the tomato plants grew and produced fine.  But it's hard to predict where the trees roots are underground.