Hello all! I'm from the Grayson County Kentucky area. I have always *heard* of permaculture, but it wasn't until this last year that I thought much about it.
What really got me looking into alternative gardening techniques was my dismal failure of a garden this year. Between the freakish early seasons, to the freakish drought, to the "lawnmower-deer", I was only able to grow enough to can up some potatoes and squash, and that was it.
About a half a year of researching and question-asking later, I find myself here!
I have a 6 acre parcel of land (about 3 is field, 2 is grass and 1 is forest). The forest has a dry pond that needs sealing (or leveling, not sure yet). We've (my hubby and I) been clearing out some of the ice damaged trees and overgrown grape vines so we can see what we're looking at. I know I have some cedars/pines, red oaks, white oaks, hickories (even a pignut! xD), sassafras, maples (not sure if sugar type), and a few persimmons... and that's about all I know of so far. We don't have any perennials growing in the dwarf tree layer or the shrub layer yet, but hopefully next year I'll have some more green Fed money to lay down for some.
I found a neat site for wild cultivars here:
http://www.oikostreecrops.com/store/home.asp ...This site makes me act like a kid in a candy store! xD
I don't even have any animals yet, but I plan on raising chickens first. Not even sure which breed I want to try yet... I know I want to raise my chickens in rotational runs though, with a stable coop in the middle attached to 4 or 5 runs like so:
http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/ya/download?fid=Inbox&mid=2_0_0_1_64148_AIvsHkgAAR%2FkUGTVpwiK8ndBF2k&pid=2&tnef=&YY=1350661248636&file_name=Chicken%20Coop%20with%20Runs.png&appid=YahooMailNeo
(Hope the link works...)
Well that's about all right now... Now I'm just focusing on finding (cheap) outlets for all the things I'm going to need in the future.
Hope you guys can put up with another completely hopeless newb!! xD
