Ashley Cottonwood's SKIP & Homesteading Blog

Hello Permies!



My name is Ashley Cottonwood and I'm a long time Permies lurker and recent staff member. I'm a huge fan of Paul's work and have been bitten by the "permaculture bug". This thread is to share and document my journey to becoming a homesteader, a permaculturalist, and my journey through SKIP in order to become PEP1 and eventually PEP2 certified.
I'm located in British Columbia in the Kootenays. The sites that I work with range from zone 3 to 5.



A Little Background...

I graduated from university and moved back to my home town; I had a hard time finding work in my field so ended up working in the tourism industry and living the "ski bum" lifestyle. I felt stuck! I had all this knowledge and no way to apply it, I loved spending time in nature yet could see how my lifestyle was actively destroying the very thing I loved, I wanted to contribute to my community in a meaningful way but didn't have an outlet. My friend suggested going to a PDC; I spent a few months on Salt Spring Island at the Seven Ravens' Permaculture Institute and my life flipped upside down from there. Even on my way home from the course I picked up a box of chicks and was hell bent on starting a composting program... regardless of the fact in lived in a trailer park that most definitely did not allow hens or large piles of bear attractants!

Since then it has been 4 years. I now run an organic market garden, small scale poultry operation, and compost program. I own a "half-acre homestead", rent 5 acres for my business, and help my sister manage and develop her newly acquired 5 acre property. I'm a class E certified poultry operator and raise a small flock of heritage meat birds in addition to my own personal backyard flock of layers. I have a background in genetics and would love to start developing a landrace of multi-purpose birds for the area.



Where I'm Going...

My current projects include re-working my compost program to address the issues of micro-plastics and latent pesticides. I'm working on converting my traditional market garden to more of a "permaculture farm" to experiment with increasing biodiversity and resiliency; I want to become more profitable while doing less work overtime. Luckily, the landowner is also on the same page! She is a permaculture designer and works hard to develop her property into a biodiverse oasis. I'd like to switch from raising meat birds for other people to teaching people how to raise their own micro flocks and process them on their own. There is a growing movement to allow micro-flocks in urban spaces in my community.

My goal is to try and become as self-sufficient as possible on my little 1/2 acre so one day I'm able to take on 10 to 100 acres! I plan help my sister design her property so that I can help her flourish while continuing to increase my own knowledge and experience. My dream would be to create a permaculture demonstration site, similar to Wheaton Labs, with my own personal flair and interests. In the pursuit of land I'm working on being PEP1 certified by the end of this year!



I welcome you to share in my journey; to help me with your own experiences and wisdom, to learn from my mistakes & triumphs, or to simply enjoy cute photos of chicks in tea cups!

I know I'm still very inexperienced; I've chosen a path of throwing myself into the field and seeing what sticks rather than working under someone who is a master in their craft. This might be outrageous but is a decision based on my personal circumstances rather than a belief that I'm better off on my own. So please, feel free to comment, ask questions, and share your own journey!

I admire your resilience in finding land to work on even though you don’t have acreage of your own!

I’ve been trying to help some friends with their own land with what limited knowledge I have but I don’t ‘work’ the land as if it was my own. It’d be a neat idea to offer to do such a thing if I weren’t so busy trying to design and build our own home on acreage right now.

Yes, I've been pretty spoiled actually. Renting the space has allowed me to "try out market gardening" without huge overhead costs: having to invest in fencing (there is 10 ft elk fencing around the whole property), irrigation & pump, tools and equipment (Jang seeder, hand tractor if I ever needed it), wash station prep area, and established 50 ft raised beds. The owner has decided she wanted to take a step back from gardening this year to be able to spend more time with her family so I have access to an additional greenhouse this season too. She grew up on the land so I know it hasn't been sprayed. She's worked hard to build the soil in her gardens with compost, crop cover, and diverse species planting. The beds are located right next to a pond and the ground retains moisture really well.  I'm hoping to move towards a system that doesn't require irrigation, or very little. She now has a live stock guardian dog. She has mini goats to help keep down the weeds and brush. I pay part of my rent by selling the produce and poultry back to her and her family.  

Overall it has been a great experience being able to have hands on knowledge of what it takes to grow food using a more traditional market garden process. Or even just run a business in general. I mean, there is a lot of work that needs to be done before it's fully formed permaculture farm, but it allows me the space to experiment with pretty low risk and investment. Land in this area is crazy expensive! No joke, a mobile home, in a mobile home park (so you don't own the land), was listed for over $330,000! So I'm very happy with my 'practice' zones until I have the skill and resources to take on more.

May Update

So far the market garden season has been off to a roller coaster start...

We had a week of warm weather (Highs of 25C) and then a recent drop in temperature to -3C at night. Lots of people had their plants got frosted. I was really trying to push my season to get crops in the ground early with mixed success.

Things that did fine outside:
- Spinach (covered)
- Carrots (covered)
- Fennel
- Endive (covered)
- My friends super hard tomato variety (covered)
- Cabbage/Broccoli/Cauliflower

Things that didn't do so well:
- Tomato starts in the greenhouse. I thought they would be fine but it is the second time I've made this error. I think I might have placed my greenhouse, at the property a rent, in a cold sink :? There are two different greenhouses with varying degrees of insulation and all the tomatoes died in both of them with the radishes still happy as can be...
- Squash that I transplanted outside because I started it indoors WAY TOO EARLY. I knew it would end badly but it was better than taking up space in my greenhouse. Maybe it will make a come back, maybe not, either way zucchini isn't a money maker for me. I just like zucchini bread.

I also experimented with trying to get an early crop of radishes off by planting them in one of my greenhouses before transplanting my tomatoes & cucumbers. It worked! The only problem was I didn't have any of my market streams set up to sell them because they were so early! Yay for early crops but I need to make sure I'm ready to sell what I've produced (Newbie fail). So far, I've been selling them on Instagram, which is mind blowing for me. A local catering business also likes to grab a little bit of whatever I have each week to add to her "Wednesday Lunch Club" meals.  I'm going to guess there will be some chicken snacks in the future...




Overall I have sense of some changes that I would like to make for next season. These concepts are nothing new, people have come to these conclusions long before me (There's Paul's voice in the back of my head saying "See? I told you so!")
- Move from Market Garden to Permaculture Market Garden/Biodiverse Beds: Instead of 50 ft of one crop plant a mixed variety and harvest whatever is ready/works out. I'm so small scale that I would have to scale up significantly to make "Elliot Coleman" style market gardening efficiency practices really worth my time.
- Direct seed as much a possible for squash/tomatoes
- Transplant all the things and none of the things: Transplant everything in the market garden beds and direct seed everything in my personal gardens and monitor the differences.
- Soil blocking instead of trays: my friend started a greenhouse this year and used soil blocks and it makes transplanting SO MUCH EASIER! No more stupid plastic trays that break all the time.



This is me prepping my garden beds. I peel away the tarp as I'm ready to establish each row. Helps keep the weeds down and earth worms go crazy under it in the fall/winter. Also makes a good habitat for snakes and voles. I then use row cover to protect from frost/hail/insect damage. The amount of plastic required is... depressing. I would like to figure out a way around this. The system has meant so far that I have very little weeding to do and very few issues with pests & losses to frost, but hopefully I can still improve to reduce plastic.



I get wood chips from a local arborist. He knows my preferences so drops some off when he has a load of chips that I would desire. Last years pile I was using in the pathways only to find out the bottom foot of the pile had turned into beautiful soil. YAY! Free soil amendments!



Apple & plum tress are packed with blossoms this season, hopefully we have a good fruit season. My neighbour said it was suppose to be "a good year for her apples"; hopefully my trees are following their lead.



Made a pig run at my sister's place for our families hogs. It's a forested area with a pond/surface well/wallow that hopefully keeps them occupied for a while. We can expand it later in the Summer but right now they are having fun ripping around. I would like to eventually set up a rotational grazing system for them but that will require some planning and forethought.



The meaty birds are doing well... I think. I find the meat breeds more finicky, it seems like half the things your suppose to do for raising meat birds is more like superstition that actual facts. I'm just trying my best to observe them as often as possible and make adjustments as I see them. This year I had 3 chicks with sinus issues. I isolated them for 3 weeks and gave them extra TLC; not sure if it was viral, bacterial, or developmental. They seemed energetic, to be eating & drinking well, and overall happy chicks but they had the sneezes and clearly a hard time breathing through their nostrils. The internet tells me 101 terrible things that are happing to them. My "chicken guru" tells me you would have to send one away for analysis to actually know what's going on so just give them some vitamins and hope for the best. I have Western Rustics. I tried the Mistral Gris last season but I had a painfully awful time with them injuring their legs when they were 3 to 4 weeks old. I was told it was because I let them run around outside too early... but I want birds that can run around outside early. I would love to breed my own multi-purpose landrace variety one day.



So apparently when I'm feeling blue... I order books! I'm excited to poke my way through them over coffee in the morning. I started a thread for people working their way through the "Building Your Permaculture Property" book here: Accountibility Group & Buddies . I've also been listening to Paul's podcasts as I work away prepping beds and transplanting. Gardening + Podcasts = My Happy Place.

That's all for now folks!

Fantastic job on this blog so far! I can't wait to read more! Thanks for letting us following along!

Hello Permies!

Wow, it seems like I blinked and Summer rushed past me! I've been so busy I haven't had a moment for an update! So here is the long over due blog post!



I would say "roller coater" was very accurate description of the season; it continued to have so many ups and downs I can hardly keep track! With record breaking heat, a lot of my greens bolted before I even got a first cutting! I was left scrambling to to pull and replant, leaving my crop plan a mess. I would say it was less of a crop plan and more like "feelings" about what I should plant and when it might be ready to harvest. In the end, there was no record keeping, just panic.



In the middle of this heat waive, I killed my irrigation pump. When I say "my" pump, I mean the landowners' from who I rent from. Which meant I needed to replace it, and quickly! I spent 3 weeks hand watering a 1/4 acre of market garden beds, greenhouses, and livestock. This meant I had no time for weeding, pruning, or keeping an eye on the vole population that ransacked my beets. Luckily, my husband was able to order parts and fix it with the help of the landowner. What I though was going to be a $1000 fix was $150 ... few!



The heat took a lot out of me physically and mentally. I woke up early and worked until noon to avoid the heat. I suck at working in the heat to be honest; I run out of spoons quick! Mentally I broke when my order of chicks arrived half dead or dying. I was livid. They are transported in the cabs of the shipping trucks to make sure the air temperature is controlled,  so I knew whatever facility they were being kept in was way too hot! The company replaced the dead chicks, but the psychological damage was done.  In addition, I shut down my composting program as I couldn't keep up with the maintenance and irrigation of the piles.



On the bright side, I was very successful with crops that I had struggled with before. I had bumper crops of cucumbers, early season carrots, grapes, cherry tomatoes, and summer squash.  I sold out at many of the farmer's markets and had great sales at a local store in town.



The final nail in the coffin of the season was a predator (species still unknown). Over my wedding weekend (yes I got married!) I had the landowner and her family keeping an eye on my flock. Saturday morning they found 3 dead birds, but didn't tell me because they didn't want to stress me out during my wedding. I returned Tuesday to find that half of my flock was missing, over 30 birds. My meat birds are my main source of profit for the season. I was gutted that my fluffy butts where murdered while I was off dancing. I felt guilty for not being there when they needed me. I'm pretty sure that some of them had started sleeping under their coop at night, and all that was needed was someone to make sure they were shut in at night. A simple fix that was missed because I simply didn't know there was a problem.




So where is the silver lining?

I've decided to move from market garden to permaculture project. I'm partnering with my sister to develop her new 4.5 acre property to a permaculture oasis. That means:
- A have a fun new project to plan over the winter
- I don't have to pay rent
- Way less driving, as her location is closer than the previous one
- We can share the work load of raising animals together (alternate who is feeding & watering the animals)
- I get to practice my "permie" skills with my family, who are thrilled about it!

In addition we have built a new greenhouse at our property (photos to come soon!) and plan to add additional raised beds. The focus at our property will be:
- Building soil (I still have to irrigate heavily when it's hot or else fruit trees die)
- Water capture (We plan to have an outdoor shower and rain gardens)
- Turn our mini-orchard in a mini food forest

We plan to grow & preserve food for our family and sell the excess to the local store.

So yes, it's been a season of hard-knocks but I'm glad to still be here and still whole heartedly in love with permaculture!

So happy for your successes! Even with the bad events it sounds like a very lovely summer :)

And congratulations on your marriage! How exciting!

For me this summer was a very good one for gardening as we had a very unusual rainy June and part of July for my area of Texas but my garden in all of its abundance was left unharvested because I fell really ill :(

Such a pity, I wanted to try canning tomatoes for the first time this year... instead they all rotted on the vine. Perhaps I should just try out canning on store bought produce first before growing it myself.

Thank goodness moving forward you’ll have a sister who knows how to put chickens up at night :)

Hello again Permies!


(Momma bear with onion from my sister's garden which I started from seed)

I wanted to give another update on my homesteading journey!

I'm happy to say I have most of my projects wrapped up for the winter. I was able to put gardens to bed on three different sites: my own property, my sister's property, and the land that I rented this season.

For those of you who are new to my journey, I have spent the last 2 years renting garden space at a permaculture property close to town. This was a wonderful location, with a wonderful owner, but I was struggling to fully utilize the space I was renting while working as a part-time market gardener; it was a lot of work to not generate a lot of money while having to pay rent. I also wanted to establish more perennials but it was hard for me to commit to investing my time and resources into something I was likely never going to benefit from. Not to mention the site was a 40 minute drive from my house; although I would need to make the drive for my 'worky' job it made animal husbandry very challenging.  The land owner and I parted on good terms (we are still friends!) and I knew she was going to use that area of the garden next season for growing her own food. I spent a couple weeks adding compost, pulling crab grass, repairing greenhouses, mulching, and tarping the beds so that the soil would be in the same excellent condition as it was left to me.  I hope next season I can continue to trade my chickens for a side of her beef. I do not have the space to raise cattle at this point in time, and I know first hand how well her cattle are taken care of. Also... cows kinda freak me out! Luckily horses and cattle are in my sister's wheelhouse.

Speaking of my sister, I'm very excited to be working on her property next season. This has inspired me to change my business model. I will be growing food for 3 different groups listed in order of priority:

1) My family & my sister's family
2) My local family members (My parents, other siblings, aunts & uncles, and cousins that all live nearby)
3) A small local store established for selling local food.


(New greenhouse: replaced the deck with a greenhouse on the south side of our home. Made mostly out of the old deck and single pane windows from a reno on my Aunt's house)



Essentially next season I'm going back to my core goal of growing 75% of my families calories for an entire season.  My sister is particularly keen on this endeavour as she is incredibly thrifty and hates spending money on food... or anything; with a new addition to the family her food bills are rising quickly!  My little nephew already eats more than his Momma ;) Her house also has an excellent room in the basement that could be easily converted to a cold storage room; this will be one of our winter projects together! We have already started "Food Prep Fridays" where we work together to create meals for our family. We both have basic canning and dehydrating skills; we hope to maximize our crops next season by improving our food preservation skills.  I big priority next year is to build a solar dehydrator!

My sister also works part-time, so she'll be able to help me in the gardens and in taking care of the livestock. This is incredibly helpful as not only will I have someone to share my passion with, but her lifetime obsession with horses has resulted on her picking up many veterinarian skills and has worked with other large livestock.  She has an elderly horse that is on the property part time. We also plan to raise hogs again next season.

Whatever is grown/raised in excess will then be offered for sale to my extended family. It will be like a mini-CSA program. My family has always been my #1 customers! They know how much love and care I put into growing and raising food so they never balk at my prices or complain of "dirty carrots". I'll be able to sell them canned goods, dehydrated fruits/veggies, or prepped meals that would otherwise have to be process in an approved industrial kitchen. I'll be able to use re-useable containers to package things like mixed greens. They would then wash them and I'd pick them up with my next delivery which would save so much time and plastic!



Finally, the most profitable part of my market garden has always been my greens ( mixed baby greens, baby kale, baby arugula, lettuce mixes). These are easy to grow in this climate and incredibly popular at the local store. I had a bit of a cult following last season based on my baby arugula alone. Because greens also double as chicken & pig feed supplements, they are easy and quick to grow, and actually pay the bills, I'm happy to dedicate some space to their production to continue to test out this more conventional revenue stream. I hope to work with the local store to try and figure out a way that we could use re-usable containers. Not only is this a huge source of virgin plastics in my system, packing plastic bags with green is time consuming and one of my least favourite jobs! It's so easy to pack greens into a yogurt container! However, the health authorities are not a fan of that method ...

Focusing on my own property (1/2 acre) and my sister's property (4.5 acres) will help me transition more to permaculture design and less of conventional market garden design. I'm not afraid to invest in perennials at my sister's property because at least I know my nephew will grow up to eat oodles of fresh fruit and nuts. Not only is permaculture where my passion lies, but I truly believe in this climate, and the size constraints of the properties, that this direction will results in the greatest food density with the least amount of inputs.

I think one of the areas I can also drastically improve on next season is seed collection. Historically, this has been more for "funzies" when I have a moment.

For 2023, my goal will be to try and massively decrease the inputs required on each property, as currently we purchase most of our feed for our animals as well as bedding.


(My half acre homestead - a work in progress!)

I'm very excited to spend the winter reading, mapping gardens, and making crop plans. I will be attending Helen Atthowe's Certified Garden Master Course - Live Stream . I've been taking other classes online through Mother Earth News Fair; their course on raising hogs has been fantastic! My husband has started a photography business that has come in handy! His arial photos will help me plan for next season a give a better send of how the land is change overtime. Hopefully this will also eventually lead to a side business of permaculture design work in the area.

Thanks for reading!

Hi Ashley,

I loved reading this blog/thread. I wish you much success with your plans in 2022/2023. It all sounds great!

Hey everyone!



Just a quick update today. I've made it my 2022 New Year's resolution to do 1 BB a week so I can become PEP 1 certified!

You can follow my SKIP updates and participate in "SKIP Club" here: https://permies.com/t/172553/skills-inherit-property/SKIP-Club-BB-Week

If your interested in SKIP and want some motivation to do BBs I would love for you to join the SKIP Club.

Hello again Permies!



I recently took the Garden Master course with Helen Atthowe and now my brain is just a buzz with new ideas! I have two sites to plan and experiment with this Summer, so my sketch book and I are about to have some quality time! After Helen's course, I've just been obsessing over creating living mulch, pollinator and beneficial insect habitat, and making sure I have a diversity of flowering plants throughout the season. If I didn't have a seed hoarding problem before, I certainly do now!



I updated my post in regards to my mobile chicken coop using a utility trailer here: https://permies.com/t/135923/Mobile-Coop-Utility-Trailer#1367301



In my post, I list the pros and cons of the design as well as things I would like to update in the future. I have pre-ordered chicks for next season. I hope to develop a land race flock of multipurpose birds for my sister's flock; therefore, I'm slowly collecting different genetic lines to help in this goal. I will also be raising mistral gris meat birds in the mobile coop.

I'm so thrilled to be garden planning that I got carried away with seed orders! I will want to prioritize seed collection next season to save my wallet. I'm thrilled to learn more about Joseph Lofthouse's landrace seed strategies: https://permies.com/wiki/162247/Landrace-Gardening-Joseph-Lofthouse

I'm still actively working on getting PEP 1 certified. Hopefully if I get my ducks in a row I can be PEP 1 certified by the end of the upcoming BB 20 event! https://permies.com/t/173713/Spring-BB-event-book-signing



That's all for now folks!

Ashley Cottonwood wrote:Hey everyone!
... living mulch
... ducks in a row
so I can become PEP 1 certified!

OK I'm excited about mulch, and all else I can learn from what you do.

and in exchange for you being awesome and teaching so much I offer support for you in get ducks in a row should that ever be needed. In fact, I've just benefited from your wording. I can now frame my participative facilitation services as services to help groups of people get their ducks in a row (ONE row) so as to be able to coordinate action. Of course sometimes the ducks are all in the decision realm of 1 person, but still a lot of ducks. That I design and host process for, as well, when we find its needed. Honestly most of the time a simple short conversation opens new previously closed doors to possibility. 2nd perspective, neutral perspective, is surprisingly rare. Good for me!

My forever-learning work/joy is supporting folks get their ducks in a row. It's good for everyone. I'm learning so much here, it feels like neutrally (I have no agenda) activating others here to do more/easier of what we ALL want (lived permie values) would be deeply gratifying. a 90-min process unsticks any stuck place.

So, if unsticking stuck places is ever needed, tap me on the shoulder and let's see what we can do.
Meantime, I love your thread, and am warming up to starting my own thread. Spoiler alert - it's multilingual city-based perma-community building.

Its wonderful to read each post, thank you.

Hello Permies!

It's been a while since I posted so I thought I would give an update for what happened in 2023 and our plans and dreams for 2024!

What happened in 2023? Where was I? Well, I made human so I was a bit preoccupied! We welcomed a baby girl into the world in Feburary and have been keeping up with her ever since!



Despite the new babe, we did make an attempt at doing a small market garden this season; however, a very warm spring meant that our first crops were ready long before the farmer's market started and we struggled to keep up with succession planting. So not the best veggie sales this season! We did raise another 150 meat birds for sale and personal consumption, as well as 4 hogs for our families. We set up a greenhouse at my sister's property and had a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers despite not keeping with pruning at all. It was a tomato forest with 10 foot tall plants! We also filled our freezer with saskatoons as the branches were over laden with them this Summer.



We struggled with rodents this season. I rarely see chipmunks, and hardly ever a squirrel in the area but this year they were EVERYWHERE! The mouse population was also booming. We had 80 bed feet of carrots and 40 bed feet of beets taken out by mice and chipmunks. My sister had all her apples and most of her raspberries taken by squirrels and chipmunks. My sister now has 3 absolutely lovely barn cats! The reduction in the mouse population has been incredible! She is looking to get a livestock guardian dog in the Spring; this should help with both squirrels and deer pressure on the trees and shrubs.



We completed a major project of installing a 7.2 kilowatt solar system to our property. The system is tied into the grid so we get a credit in the Summer months when we produce more electricity than we use. We didn't have the system operational until late August but we predict we will be able to produce most of our power needs on an annual basis!



We had a terrible mite problem with our layer flock in January 2023. They were older birds so we decided to cull our flock and start again in the Fall.  We hatched eggs from friends' flocks in the area and have a lovely bunch of backyard mix chickens. I've started to raise mealworms to supplement their feed. I got a small collection of mealworms and darkling beetles for free so I'm currently working on getting my population much higher! I've also started sprouting different seeds indoors for both my family and my feather babies.




I've been mostly working as a stay-at-home Mom though. I've been reducing our costs by using cloth diapers and wipes, finding and sourcing second hand clothes, and doing a lot of meal prep.


For 2024 we are changing our farm plans:



- I'm working on converting the majority of my sister's garden space to perennial berry crops. We hope to sell our excess berries as our cash crop instead of doing a farmer's market or CSA. Our kids also consume berries at an alarming rate so we will stock our freezers for the winter months.

- The rest of the garden will be for food production for our families. We are building a cold storage in my sister's basement. The goal is to reduce both our families grocery bills drastically.

- We are down sizing our meat bird production. It will be mostly for personal consumption and for trading with friends. We managed to trade chicken for lamb, beef, deer, and fish this season, which has been so lovely!

- Rainwater harvesting! We are working on installing water cisterns at both properties to collect rainwater off existing structures for irrigation of garden beds and fields.

- Transplanting and seeding more trees! My sister's property has huge cottonwood trees that provide shade, wind protection, and reinforce the bank of the creek. They are starting to reach their peak maturity and blow down. We need to start planting trees to replace them.



We will also have more family around to help with gardens and livestock as by brother-in-law and his wife will be moving their tiny house onto my sister's property!

Here's to an awesome 2024! I'll be sure to post more updates as they come!

Congratulations on your baby and enjoyed seeing the update!