Anne Miller wrote: When I suggested removing the sheet rock to look for the cause of the mold, I never thought it would result in this ...
I really appreciate your concern, Anne. It was definitely the right call to dig deeper. While finding a persistent leakage was discouraging, at least I'm not just painting over a bigger problem.
Yes bracken tolerates a very wide range of soil conditions (which makes them so successful) The one thing I believe they can't take is permanently waterlogged soil. Wet and draining is OK, or they wouldn't take ovet the sheep paddocks round here so well. I suspect if it is too hot and dry they won't like it either, and they are happy in a lot of shade in hotter climates than mine. Even here they grow pretty happily under my spruce trees.
Gen X here. I begun my permaculture journey with books. Then I found Permies, and spent many long nights just reading, reading...lurking for ages.
I'm also on Instagram, and the #permaculture - and the algorithm - brings interesting stuff in front of my eyes constantly.
I'm also in the GTS (Going To Seed, Discourse group) and Telegram groups Hugo is talking about, and even found permaculture connections on Substack.
It's obvious Hugo was the great connector to the adaptation gardening groups, thank you!
A quick analysis:
- books: static, but I tend to hoard them like treasures. Having the physical object at hand has something very satisfying about it.
- Permies: my online family haha. It took a while to get used to the forum structure, but now I get it, it has a quality of permanence PLUS the dynamic community aspect. Very nice!
- Instagram: pretty pictures, lots of inspiration. But extremely fleeting, I don't have any sense of community there, and it's a source of potentially unrealistic expectations (with 'homestead burnout' as result)
- GTS & Telegram groups: GTS is out-of-my-league nerdy, but intriguing, I dip my toes there and read and try to learn, but the language is landrace-speak. I took the online course, but still, I'm simply not experienced enough yet to participate as much as I'd like to.
The Telegram group (Adaptation Gardening, focused on Europe) I'm in is vibrant, and has its own community thing going on. I've found some great connections and there's certainly a strong sense of community.
To circle back to the original question:
I think the younger generations hang out at Discord, Reddit, Tiktok etc. Anyone feeling at home on those platforms could post there and link back to Permies.
I'm doing the same on Instagram (to some extent) and Substack (much more). So...cross-posting? And generally being helpful for anyone with questions.
The housing + land problem is a bit like finding the ideal spouse. It seems nearly impossible, until it isn't. Just keep on going on
I've noticed guano being brought in. I've a TV aerial strapped to my chimneystack, much appreciated by pigeons and magpies. The moss directly below is especially verdant and green - and very inconvenient to harvest!
I came across a guy trying (with modest success) rice in NE Scotland. He was using his paddy pond for ducks in winter.
I have permanent mounded garden beds and fields and pastures here in previous tobacco/grazing land in Central NC. I handle the two spaces differently because it’s hard to mulch 120 acres no matter how many loads Asplundh brings you.
In the gardens there’s two types of amendments: good and bad. Anything I think is good gets put on top. If you don’t mix it in it’s hard to do damage: mulch, compost, hay (no persistent broadleaf sprayed stuff - that sets you way back), ash, charcoal, whatever. Every year gets better and better. Just be patient and go for the small wins. Keep it fun so you keep it up and don’t be discouraged if some years some things fail. I don’t overreact with pests or deficiencies and usually they correct themself.
Big scale is so different, spread as much good stuff as you can, but also don’t be afraid to do a few applications of P K when you get started. Bring some levels back up and then stop “mining” the soil, and it starts to cycle again. Keep in mind how abused most land currently is. You’re not starting from Step 1, you’re at Step -100.
Another thing I want to mention is very strategic sub soiling. You can do it wrong but if you do it right it does so much good. It’s a good alternative to swales if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life making turns on a tractor.
Y’all are loving Mother Nature and bringing life back into the world. Just keep going!
Usually there are properties with houses that are less desirable though real estate agents do not offer those as the commission is less as the asking price is less.
If my goal was like your of starting a food forest I would want an orchard even if the trees were olives.
My suggestion would be to compare the price per acre for raw land vs an olive orchard. Which is the best deal per acre vs what amenities are available? Amenities would be water, electric, sewer plus out buildings, fences, etc.
Most of what I know has already been said here, but I want to underscore the idea of pantyhose/tights as a fabulous base layer. I often used opaque "guaranteed not to run" dress tights rather than pantyhose, and more often running tights under my pants when I had to dress for snow (as a former cross country runner, i always had tights around).
Another thing I really can't say enough about is arm gaiters. On the inside, covering your shirt sleeve up to your wrist, a tighter pair of knit gaiters (I often buy used little girls' fleece tights and cut them up for this, but recently I bought a pair of "compression sleeves" that work just as well), or on the outside a pair of waterproof gaiters, if you are going to be doing something wet.
Theoretically I moved to South America to avoid these sort of situations (after spending my first 25 years in very snowy places), but they come in handy even in not-life-threatening cold.
Re| Brush
I have several brush piles through out my 26+ acres which I make in clearing land. I chop them down enough to make a tidy pile and just leave it be. After a season or two I pull out all the branches that have not broken down into a new smaller pile or combine with others and sift the rest for great compost . By doing this season by season I have piles always ready to harvest compost. Low effort letting nature do it's cycle thing.
Our last rehome/rescue to 'the end of the road' was a pup Marema. Her energy is all nervous, very in your face, relentlessly playful. Our older posse, especially our female Anatolian, Beksi the self medicating LGD, https://permies.com/t/274138/Smart-LGD-Beksi-Anatolian#2863800 ,had a hard time tolerating her energy.
Her name is Kitka. I asked my Finnish brother in-law for the translation to 'pain in the ass'. The answer was Kitka, which is 'trouble' more or less. For a quite awhile the first year, she was kind of without friends.
Beksi hates squirrels for whatever reason, and me tolerating them around the house is a no go. Too much destruction/mischief. Beksi comes running when she sees the air rifle come out. The squirrels never even hit the ground, she snatches them out of the air as they tumble, dispatches them if they have not yet expired.
She then scrubs her snout in the snow or grass to cleanse the stain. The squirrels then get toted off to I'm not sure where. Our property has a 'Pet Sematary' full of deceased squirrels somewhere.
Kitka drags branches or driftwood into the yard and chews them puppy style. One afternoon she was tossing and chasing a small black branch. I went to have a look, it was of course the mummifying, hairless, slick black corpse of a squirrel revived from Mr. King's Sematary. She would toss it, chase it, throw herself down in front of it, waiting for instruction, then grab it, toss it, chase it, bark at it. Her new friend was the most compliant, willing playmate she had. Whatever instructions the squirrel had, she gave it her full attention, paws crossed, waiting. I buried the poor beast, of course, after an afternoon of joy.
We lost our two older dogs this summer, the patient LGD master Marco, our Marema. His son, Nebo a Pyrenees mix, I had to put down two months later because of fast moving cancer. Both very good, work focused outdoor guardian types. Both a bitter bit of business. I think Marco's heart gave out. He went for a walkabout with the other dogs, as was his habit, clunky and slow but steady. When he didn't come back we of course worried. Three days later I saw a white shape across the lake. I canoed over knowing of course it was Marco. We choose to believe he went down to the lake, maybe not feeling well, and laid down in the water, knowing I would find him and bring him home.
We like our number at five dogs, all larger, because of predator pressure. Coyotes, black bears, cougars, no problem. Two big Anatolians run them off. Wolves and grizzlies, more trouble, but good sized dog pack will have no real trouble likely. We have agreed to rehome another Pyrenees from here in Nevada. 3-4yrs old, horrible abuse in his puppy past, but pretty well adjusted. Can apparently climb a 5-6ft fence. The owner, someone we know here in town, having trouble keeping him home, would like him to go to a place where being confined to a small yard, auto traffic, chasing coyotes solo, are not problems.
We brought him home for a night to see if we all got along. Sitting reading, I heard a very familiar noise. Getting up quickly, I found that Sebastian, the Pyr, had opened the front door for himself, and was going for a walkabout. Called the owner, " Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, he also opens doors! Sorry. "
Nudges the handle up or down, then pulls the door open. We found he will also stand up and put his weight against it, in case it opens out and not in.
James! Look at some of that greenery you're getting going there now in your stretch of Texas. Nice, man.
How have things been going this last half year? Any particularly new changes or "nudges" to your land? Or mostly letting rains and time have its effect now for a while?
Broadly I agree with Anne that brand name is not important, but rather the tractor specs are what is important.
Except for one rather important point--spare parts.
At some point your tractor will break and need a replacement part. At that point you will likely go to a dealer or some parts supplier. And here is where things get tricky.
John Deere and Kubota are the two giants in the playground in this department, having a robust supply of parts even for tractors that have been out of production for years, even decades. In particular, JD is the best. You can still get replacement parts for JD tractors that were built before thinks like the three point hitch and PTO became standardized. Their spare parts supply is over 100 years old! Kubota's supply is only a little less robust. In either case, getting a replacement part is not a difficult thing to do.
But there are a lot of smaller tractor companies (Branson, Montana, several more) that had a promising start and just could not compete. If you owned one of those and it needs that specific spare part, it might be really difficult to acquire. And if you don't get it, well, it becomes a nice lawn ornament. About 15(?) years ago, Cub Cadet made a VERY impressive foray into the subcompact space by introducing a model that had things like a 3pt. position hitch (not just up & down, it stays where it is adjusted--very nice), a 3-range transmission, a fold-over ROPS (why didn't anyone else think of this?) and a much improved lighting package. Honestly, it was probably the best subcompact tractor--at least by feature set--on the market. Unfortunately, Cub Cadet did not stay in that space and does not keep an inventory of spare parts. Anyone who needs a specific spare part--think about another lawn ornament!
I am definitely NOT saying don't buy anything other that JD or Kubota, but just consider the spare part issue down the line.
No idea what it has. The machine sits in the sewing room. … along with the other machines. I have not looked at the parts that came with it. My wife is trying to trace its lineage. She figures 1924… but that is a long way from a firm date.
Weeds, Guardians Of The Soil was written after the dust bowl, I believe. Areas of the country had topsoil lost completely to erosion. The idea behind using weeds to reclaim the damaged soil is valid. The only thing that would grow in those highly eroded soils was weeds.
https://savoursoilpermaculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/weeds_guardians_of_the_soil.pdf The root system of some weeds is unbelievable and the vitality they add to the soil is substantial. Weeds in my garden are welcome, just not right around my growing crop. I cut off the tops of the weeds before they set seed and let them continue to improve the soil. Weeds are my cover crop. When I dig potatoes, I pull and bury the green weeds between the hills for a nice green manure for next year. This year I early spring seeded oats on half of my potato planting area and then planted the potatoes into the oat cover once the soil had warmed. I had to cut down some of the oats to daylight the potatoes and eventually hill them. But the earthworms in that area of the garden were more numerous and the soil improved by the oat cover. Th potato crop was very prolific and pest free, as good or better than my planting without the oat cover. I will be using an oat cover crop again this year wherever I can make it work. Harvest as much sunlight as you can and improve your soil while doing so. Your intended crop as the overstory, weeds and covers as the understory.
We buried Gracie under the canopy of a quartet of trees. When she sat on her porch, she always looked out on these trees--they were on the edge of *her* yard and marked the boundary of the field area--a place where she loved to go and run wild. Even better, the trees just grew up volunteer--I never planted them, I just did not mow them. It will be nice and shady in the summer--a perfect place for her to rest.
I have a neighbor who is also a sub at school--and I consider her to be my personal sub! She has a business on the side involving pottery. I asked if she could make a headstone with Gracie's face on it and she thought it was a wonderful idea and enthusiastically agreed.
As always, a craftsman of the highest order. Your solutions are creative and efficacious, Bogdan. With every step and project, you are helping others keep their sanity in a war zone
Thanks for keeping us aware of your good work, this helps me keep my faith in humanity.
Added two additional pictures of the underside of the crust per edge case comments.
There is no "recipe" for the toppings, but I used tomato sauce, red pepper flakes, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and banana peppers if that's sufficient.
Thanks again.
18 lbs/acre. I think I will mostly leave things as they are, if anything I might use the bulb auger/triple phos and potash or just wood ashes around the few plants that don't seem to be doing as well I they should
Most cities I've lived in, have a system in place for disposing of harmful plants. Depending on the plant and the risk to children, you can drop it off at the location, or they will dress up in space suits and remove it for free.
Might be worth asking at the place where you take old lightbulbs and batteries to be recycled.
I like the idea, and if I didn't have cracked vertebrae and MS, I might even try a few of these on the ground..I think I might find a way to raise a base this idea could sit on once I'm on my own land..
Eric Hanson wrote:Carmen,
My thoughts are that the char might extend the life of the wicker a season, maybe two. I suspect that wicker will be lucky to survive one season on its own without a little bit of help.
Anything after that first year is just a bonus. At the end of the time at the location, if you wanted you could tear out the walls and burn them if you felt it necessary. In no way do I expect that the wicker will last very long unless truly drastic steps are taken, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.
Steve Thorn wrote:What would you recommend to a new gardener as the easiest vegetable to grow?
While not the 'sexiest' vegetable, turnips are bulletproof. I can just chuck some seeds out by hand on some dirt and forget about them. In a few months there are big purple topped globes sticking out of the soil! I'd say radishes and beets are very similar in results in my growing area.
I have some tenacious tomato volunteers that have been popping up year after year, small and delicious. I don't plant them so do they count?
Charolett Knapic wrote:Bridgit and I also trade one day a week with each others land projects. It helps keep us motivated and actually get things done. We shape our land, build infrastructure (though it's a little crooked sometimes), process fruits, veggies, herbs, and animals together. What ever needs done, we try to do it ourselves. Otherwise, we call for help.
I love this idea - I'm sure I'd get more done if I had someone here regularly to a) help and b) notice that I hadn't made the progress I hoped for during the week. Having more people in a close radius means that although there will be more trouble makers, there is likely to be more permie minded people too (even if they don't know it yet!)
Thank you for sharing Charolett.
I went to a university with something like 40,000 students. I list the most useful skill I got as "navigating a giant bureaucracy." There have been many times that getting a action or information out of a government agency or major corporation would have been impossibly exasperating if it hadn't been for spending nine years at a giant uni.
Second most important skill was learning to write. I was literate when I entered college, but it took several years of writing to their high standards before I feel like was actually a decent writer.
Third was using the library, which includes several subskills: 1) make friends with the librarians, 2) ask the reference desk anything, 3) use the hell out of inter-library loan, 4) access ALL the scholarly journals for free that now cost an arm and a leg to get at, 5) walk around the stacks and just explore, 6) use microfiche (no idea if that's still a thing), 7) in the early '90s when I was in college, card catalogs had been put online, but sometimes when you couldn't find something, if you went to the paper card catalog, you could, 8) etc.
I still don't regret having gone to college, but the calculus today is different.
Probably the easiest thing to do is to make a temporary one and observe what works for your lifestyle and climate. That's what we did and I learned a lot about gardens I never expected. And a lot about my situation that makes the "right way" of doing this kind of bed not work. But it works for others. There is no universal truth in gardening.
If it works, take what you've learned and build a new one. If it doesn't work, take what you learn and build something better.
That's probably why most of our garden beds are 5 to 10 years before being dismantled and redesigned. We're always learning and as humans age, the environment needs to adjust to our bodies if we want to keep doing the same thing.
I'll probably make another wattle keyhole bed in a few years. This time, make the uprights out of stronger stuff instead of half rotten sticks. I liked the height of the garden and I especially liked the quality of the soil when it was a few years old. I have an idea of making smaller ones and growing veg and such, until the basket is full. Then planting a fruit tree in the middle. When the fruit tree is too big, build the next garden, letting the old garden self seed veg and eventually a food forest happens.
Julie, you have an interesting adventure in front of you.
Here are some thoughts I have.
- try chickens instead of sheep, they scratch the soil instead of compacting it.
- rainfall collection is still viable, first flush will not take much, and you can catch that as well.
- If you get dew in the area that is collectable.
- Would windbreaks help at all?
I used to work a bit with stained glass and now mainly work with enamels. My old tabletop kiln died after ten years of hard work, and so, I needed to get a new one. This one is much easier to program to do different mediums: enamel, glass fusing, metal clay, etc. Because of that, I've been thinking about getting back into working with glass and doing some fusing. There are many videos on line about how to recycle glass into molds or shapes or slumped into other shapes. The interior of my kiln is only 8.5"x12" which limits what I can do, but I've been watching videos about making snowflakes and other window ornaments and small vases. With the price of "new" glass, this is very intriguing to me; I could then sell them and perhaps save up enough to get a bigger kiln for just this purpose. I have a glass smasher or frit maker in my cart as I type this!
Here is a painting that started off as a different painting. Somebody bought a painting at a thrift shop for a dollar and then added something to it:
The first painter clearly liked landscapes. Especially with some ocean in the background.
The second painter clearly had a different vision.
Some people like the original better. Some the hybrid.
I ran this site your way for a while and eventually got tired of accounts like "Goat Fucker7". I decided to take the site to a new direction featuring real sounding names.
I think of it as a sort of artistic choice.
Everything you are saying is true. And everything I am saying is also true.
Jay Angler wrote:...
Story time that relates to "finding a known place subsequent times."
...
Landmarks are a valuable resource, but it's important to use many cues, because some landmarks can change dramatically.
Thank you for this story.
I totally agree: landmarks do change. The same place can look very different in different seasons, even in different weather, or if you come from a (slightly) different direction than you did before.
haha. It took a while to get used to the forum structure, but now I get it, it has a quality of permanence PLUS the dynamic community aspect. Very nice!
