Elijah Bowman

Sepp Holzer's bone salve ~ https://youtu.be/o4xVKVc4NYQ

https://permies.com/t/26068/wild-harvesting/people-eat-field-bindweed-Convolvulus

I have observed Fragaria vesca (wild strawberry) often growing in a natural guild in the calcium, phosphorus and potassium rich dark soil under juglans nigra (black walnut) trees. A wonderful synergy can be obtained by growing a polyculture including these plants because the walnut's juglone secretions suppress competitive grasses and the tree also accumulates key nutrients that the strawberries require to thrive.

I have used DE and Bentonite clay mixed with a bit of salt to help prevent that problem with new members of my flock during the hay to pasture transition. I don't feed corn but I feel this would still be applicable.

Karen Layne wrote:I'm thinking that they want me to vacate so they can move in. I can just picture them sitting on the couch with their feet up, drinking sweet tea.
Here we call them wood borers or carpenter bees. They are the same as Masons, right?

Im no expert but carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.) drill holes, while mason bees (Osmia spp.) require holes drilled by other wood boring insects for their nest sites.

Last spring I built a very simple mason bee hive by wiring a bundle of 8" bamboo tubes together and hung it under the eave of the shed near my garden, by the end of the summer 75% of the tubes had been filled by native mason bees.

It depends on your resources and site, but if you plan on double digging you could cut out the shape of your keyhole garden and then cut the interior sod into manageable shovel sized pieces and then turn them over with a garden fork. Alternatively you could deep mulch the area into the mandala shape. If so be sure not to "lasagna" layer but to instead create a diverse patchy mulch that will favor soil micro-climates. Personal experience shows the latter to be less strenuous but a combination may yield the best results.

http://www.bamboogarden.com/


You may find this website useful, I discovered them through Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier.

My girlfriend and I operate a 12 acre permaculture homestead located in northern Adams County, Ohio. We have been employing management intensive rotational grazing with our sheep, chickens, and ducks and are developing large areas of food forest in order to build our property's soil fertility and biodiversity. Both of us also enjoy learning and sharing skills such as flint knapping, mycology, jewelry crafting, botany and animal husbandry. Our long term goal is to be a highly productive example of sustainability for the inspiration of others and for the nurturing of our family. I would love to visit your site and meet you all... I also don't mind operating a shovel.

We are a small group of homesteaders and naturalists located around the tri-state area. We are seeking to develop a community of like-minded people with whom to share knowledge, resources and goods. If you seek teammates in the quest for sustainability please let us know.