Jay Angler

Walter Byrd wrote:  I have clay soil, and it tends to become "hard pan." I also have lots of wood chunks. At first I put lawn cloth under my beds, to keeps weeds down. But it did not stop the weeds, and limited how deep roots could grow. I took out the lawn cloth, but the "soil" was clay and became hard as a rock.  

Another big help with my clay soil has been biochar. There's lots of info about different ways to make it here: https://permies.com/f/190/biochar

It lightens the soil, and holds onto the microbes. It works well along with adding lots of organic matter, so it isn't a "one or the other", but more like stacking functions by using both.

Dennis Barrow wrote:This spring I found an apple core in my green house I must have left last fall.  I planted the seeds in some pots and now have 4, 2 foot tall apple trees!!!
Now I need to figure out where I want them.

Well done! I hope you find good homes for them with other people if not on your own land!

One of the things I love about apples is that it's not too hard to spread the harvest based on ripening times. Ripening times can be shifted both by location of the tree, and the variety of apple. I have one that ripens early in late July. The next ripens in Aug, and the third ripens in September. All three trees produce far more than I could possibly use, so I'm working on a couple more trees that should produce late in our season and store better.

If Dennis' 4 trees produce too much all at once, grafting is a great permie skill to practice!

r ransom wrote: I think if I can learn this style of drawing with the paint and building details instead of planning it all out first, it would improve my painting skills a lot.  Although, knowing me, it would probably need to be in two layers .

At the same time you practice that sort of skill in an effort to stretch your skill set and skills, I think you need to be kind to yourself and consider that many painters do "plan it all out first" even if it just on a sketch pad, or scraps of canvas where they practice the parts they think will be challenging, before tackling what they hope will be the finished painting.

Many art museums are proud to display the "charcoal planning drawings" of famous paintings by famous artists. I've even seem planning drawings of cartoons done by cartoonists before they tackled the page itself!

Dave Lotte wrote: My house is smiling at me.

This is one of the important benefits of using real wood. Instead of a monochrome of colour and texture (think "Millennial Grey" ), you get variations of colour, texture and design, all naturally produced!

I have a cupboard door which looks like a billy goat!

Walter Byrd wrote: In the worst of those beds, the soil is just inches about the ground. I am thinking: why not just tear down this excuse for a raised bed, and make a mound. Seems like it would be way less expensive, and less trouble, than these raised beds.

Those beds have likely been improving the soil beneath the bed while the wood edging was slowly decomposing - job done!

I made a bunch of raised beds specifically due to my age - I needed to reduce my kneeling, and I felt I didn't have time to improve the packed clay under where the beds were to go.

However, I have been disappointed.
1. Despite putting punky wood in the bottom of the bed, I need to be sure to keep on top of the watering or the top would dry out.
2. Both Canada thistle and Morning Glory (which is a nasty weed in my ecosystem) could grow from deep down and invade my bed even when I tried hard to stay on top of them.
3. The wood sides need a lot more maintenance than I had hoped. I thought I'd made the corners strong enough, but alas, that is not the case.

So I think you should give your plan of mound growing a try for a season or 3 in your ecosystem.

However, one thing an edging of some sort does, is remind people *not* to walk on the beds, but only in the path. Walking or kneeling on garden beds will compact the soil. There are all sorts of ways you can help yourself and others see where to walk and where not to walk - creativity wins here!

One way I have found to improve my clay soil, is to dig a pit. 1 1/2 feet deep is about as good as it gets on my land, but I've seen people quote 3 feet, and only a foot to 2 feet wide. Fill it with punky wood and goodies that will attract worms. Use it as a temporary "compost bin", topping it up with kitchen waste to keep the worms happy. This will allow rainwater to infiltrate deeply, which will encourage the worms to be active, and given a few years, they will do a lot to turn compacted clay into something that at least thinks it can grow veggies.

Personally, I would resist any suggestions that anyone rototill clay soil. My friend did that and the soil just settled back into concrete in less than a season.

Any chance that Central Hall Road is funneling the sound down to your house?

I tried very hard to convince Hubby that Penny Lane should have some curves to both break up the wind and the noise, but alas, he's one of those "straight and narrow" types. Luckily we do have a dirt berm between the lane and the noisy road.

Here's an example of one of the finished rugs, and one of a rug in progress:



There are more pictures of using the loom and the rugs that were made on it here:
https://permies.com/wiki/167633/pep-textiles/rug-PEP-BB-textile-wood#2442164

Nice work! Making rugs like this may take time, but you know you're getting a rug without a lot of artificial fibers which is hard to find these days.

Humans are not all built the same way - that helps make us interesting!

Despite not being large, and definitely not overweight, I have a butt that sticks out. This makes the dart approach to adjusting waistbands very useful for me - it gives me the space I need across my lower hips, while bringing in the waist so the pants stay were they belong.

I am prepared with some pants to use a drawstring or some elastic at the back, but that doesn't work with a heavy waistband.

r ransom wrote: Maybe if i start with a smaller hole?

A smaller hole should be fine. The question is "risk" vs "reward". It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't need a hole at all. I suspect you would get enough gas leaking out of the crack around the edge. I almost tried that with my "candy tin" but it's much smaller than an Oxford Tin.

I suspect the worst that would happen is the lid would pop up and you'd loose that round of charcoal. You could do the first burn with some wood you didn't care about, as a test?

Pearl Sutton wrote: So at BEST they have the height of the counter to the cabinet. BUT the problems I had last year stemmed quite a bit from pot size and dirt depth, so I have a bottom watering planter that's 28 inches by 16 or something like that and they'll have at least 6 inches of dirt (maybe more) that I'll have them in, so they'll get even less head room. So plant height and continual pick matter most to me. The rest I can work with.  :D

Yes - I have both read and experienced that most veggies want a decent depth and breadth of soil to grow in. The big advantage of peas is that they're groupies - much more so than beans. Peas actually *like* having pea friends to climb and share root space with.

Please post pictures when you get them going. I have tried growing indoor winter lettuce, but they really want way more light than my grow lights can manage. I should maybe look for short harvest peas and try them as an experiment. In my ecosystem, November and December have heavy clouds and no light, so something green really helps!