willowdale Hatfield

Hooey.  The anti-sheet mulch argument is one of many stupid arguments that ignore the environmental impact of shipping every freaking thing everywhere multiple times inits lifecycle.

1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle

The recycling stream has loss and requires considerable energy input to move the material from my place to the recycling center and from there to a reprocessing center. Recycling centers typically throw out what is less than perfect for their process. Don't get me wrong I do recycle what I can't reuse or outright avoid buying. But I recognize that recycling is not the cure all some folks make it out to be.

When I mulch with cardboard I am both reusing recycling, and using only human power to do it. I'm also improving my soil forpermaculture which will capture more net carbon than shipping that cardboard all over the world to save some fraction of the original input of pulp.

I just attended a weekend forest gardening workshop with Dave Jacke and I was absolutely blown away.  I also realize now that there was a lot more subtlety in the books than I realized when I read them the first time.  I had been really enjoying Crawford's book prior, because it was so much simpler and clearer (I still like it), but there is depth in Dave's book, and specificity, and data, that doesn't exist in one place anywhere else.  I bought a second set, actually, so I can keep one at the farm and have one here at the apartment.

If you have a chance to attend a talk or workshop with him I *highly* recommend it.  He's a superb teacher.

He talked about Robert Hart, and his assessment was not at all negative.  He said even though Hart made a lot of mistakes, he was able to eat out of the garden for the last three years of his life without doing any work in it, and how many annual vegetable gardens would allow that?  He also said that Hart just did what felt right, even though he himself said he "didn't know much about plants," and we should take a lot of encouragement from that, because we can now draw on lessons from him and from all the other pioneers. 

I definitely feel encouraged, and energized, and much clearer of my goals than ever before. 

Ludi, thank you for that link.  Geoff Lawton is really inspiring. 

I think controlling the flow of flood might be as important in my case as in freshwater flooding.  I always thought of swales as something for people who have relief in their landscape -- I'm on flat tidal plain.  But of course it's not FLAT flat, and over the years I've come to know the high and low spots.  I'm going to revisit that information in the Permaculture Design manual. 

I can have sacrificial areas that are planted only in salt-hardy natives (which includes many useful plants).  I'm also focusing on incorporating improved varieties of natives throughout my design, and finding markets for those fruits and products rather than growing what everyone else already sells.

I just discovered my state (Virginia) forestry department sells bicolor lespedeza seedlings starting at $20 for 10, cheaper in larger quantities. 

Any references for farms vulnerable to coastal flooding?  Salt water poses its own unique challenges.  As sea level rises I worry about this affecting more areas of my farm.  Should I saturate the soil prior to storm surge?  Building dikes is a possibility but once flood waters intrude it's most important to get that salt water off the land fast.  I'd love to know how other folks have dealt with this.

Blackbird wrote:
I recently (this year) contacted several stores including a health food store (located in a large city) about selling my varieties of goat milk soap made with certified organic oils. I never heard back from most of them.

Selling is the most under rated skills, and it's miserable work for folks who don't relish rejection, but I firmly believe this is where we can make a big difference in our bottom lines. 

For example, Blackbird, with your soaps, it might pay to take samples of your soap to the stores you want to sell to.  Make sure your packaging is *beautiful*, maybe wrapped in pretty fabric with a punched label attached in raffia.  Take the sample with a brief flyer with benefits of the product, your prices and you contact info.  Find out who has authority to buy, and return when you can talk to that person.

A whole-hearted sales approach will not work with everyone, but it will work with *someone*.  Sales is a numbers game.  Every rejection takes you that much closer to the first sale.  And you'll get feedback from the folks who aren't interested as to why they're not, and might get ideas about another product that would sell, or someone who would buy this one.  You'll also be setting yourself apart from all the other folks who sell soap.  You become an added value to the product.

Best wishes to you!

I lived in a communal house with four room mates, and it worked very well.  In our weekly dinners with a larger community, though, folks outside a central core tended not to volunteer or help pay for foods. 

It has to do with the size of the group, I think.  In a larger group people lose that sense of being visible and accountable.    And yes, it does take someone to call folks out. 

In larger communities I guess they do what we did in our small group, which was have regular meetings and talk about everything, so everyone remains conscious that none of of the things we enjoy are actually "free".

I let the game warden hunt on my land.  We've not been troubled by trespassers much since that started.

Maybe that's not an option for everyone, but you certainly should get to know your game warden very well, and call him immediately when someone's out there.  They're committing a crime, and he's the law.  There are usually state and federal game officers.  Get friendly with both.

Dunstan chestnut is an American hybrid bred from a disease-resistant American progenitor, and it's supposed to be delicious.  I'll be putting in bunch of these at some point:

http://www.chestnuthilltreefarm.com/Chestnuts.html

The Chestnut Hill folks are great.  Informative website, too.  They're in Florida so they have good trees for southern growers and mid-Atlantic growers.

Gary, I'm actually on the Eastern Shore of Virginia -- for some reason I can't get that to show up on my posts. 

The only alder that is native to my area is Alnus serrulata, "a 12-20 foot multi-trunk deciduous shrub."  It's good for streambank stabilization, and flood resistant.