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permaculture

5 Goals for 2016

Ann Torrence

steward

Posts: 1200

Location: Torrey, UT; 6,840'/2085m; 7.5" precip; 125 frost-free days

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We had this thread in 2014 and 2015. What are your top 3-5 permaculture - related goals for 2016?

Mine:

1) Get the Stefan Sobkowiak-style mulching done

2) Offer a tree grafting workshop

3) Start a landrace seed project

4) Install some water harvesting from our roof

5) Figure out the cidery business plan so we can make a go-no go decision.

That should keep me busy.

Blogging about homesteading, photography and living in a small Utah town | Growing mostly cider apples at Stray Arrow Ranch

Casie Becker

gardener

Posts: 1870

Location: Just northwest of Austin, TX

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1) Finish swales in backyard.

2) Extend main back yard garden beds another 20 feet

3) Learn more winter squash recipes

$) DON'T pull the sweet potatoes before frosty weather

chip sanft

pollinator

Posts: 459

Location: 18 acres & heart in zone 4 (central MN). Current abode: Knoxville (zone 6 /7)

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1. Continue red clover vs. creeping charlie experiment
2. Continue landrace projects: butternut, okra, kale, luffa
3. Grow some dang eggplant
4. Mulch even more. Weed even less.

William James

gardener

Posts: 1054

Location: Northern Italy

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1. Continue on Microgreen business
2. Start growing seasonable edible flowers and baby leaf
3. Buy at least 1 perennial in large quantity to grow out under sapling trees. Thinking of various mints.
4. Start a blog-to-be-ebook
5. Earning some sort of compensation for this huge undertaking would be greatly appreciated, but maybe not in 2016.

Our Microgreens: http://www.microortaggi.it

Jay Angler

gardener

Posts: 5201

Location: Pacific Wet Coast

1976

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1. Build two portable brooders for my Muscovy ducks - 4 would be better.
2. Continue to rehabilitate the weedy area behind the house, planting trees and shrubs.
3. Help 2 friends plant trees, or better yet, tree guilds.
4. Try to build a real African Raised Keyhole Bed - my "fake it" one has issues, but as a proof of concept for my climate was successful enough that I need to take it to the next step.
5. Plant more strawberries where they'll be happy but protected from the deer - maybe around the Asian Pear tree?

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D Nikolls

pollinator

Posts: 1717

Location: Victoria BC

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1) Grow 100 perennials from cuttings or seeds.

2) Finish all current building & infrastructure projects, and start at least one more.

3) Read 40 permaculture related books.

4) Start documenting some of this stuff.

5) Acquire land and partner/s.

'Theoretically this level of creeping Orwellian dynamics should ramp up our awareness, but what happens instead is that each alert becomes less and less effective because we're incredibly stupid.' - Jerry Holkins

Charli Wilson

pollinator

Posts: 513

Location: Derbyshire, UK

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1. Finish reading all my permaculture books (I've got at least 5 of them 'on the go')
2. Build an 'ultimate greenhouse' of some description
3. Blog more usefully and consistently
4. Graft some more fruit trees
5. Decide if I want to gain ducks, and if the answer is yes- then gain ducks.

I don't seem to have filled this out last year.. else I'd have looked if I'd actually accomplished them!

Tyler Ludens

pollinator

Posts: 11826

Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8

1120

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1. Brush dams in the creek
2. Exclusion fencing around as many trees as I can manage
3. Set up composting system with chickens
4. Work on future food forest
5. Grow more staple foods and learn to eat them

Idle dreamer

Steven Kovacs

Posts: 233

Location: Western Massachusetts (USDA zone 5a, heating zone 5, 40"+)

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I'm just starting out so:
1) fix our backyard drainage issue by regrading
2) sheet mulch the prime garden area and put in keyhole beds
3) rip out unwanted decorative hedges and replace them with food-bearing bushes (probably berries)
4) set up a real hot compost pile
5) build raised beds in the front yard

Bryant RedHawk

gardener

Posts: 6746

Location: Arkansas - Zone 7B/8A stoney, sandy loam soil pH 6.5

1445

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1.) Build the first room of the new house, we really need the extra space this will provide.
2.) Get more hog pastures ready and put into rotation, we have the goal of happy hogs and this is paramount for reducing the bought feed cost.
3.) Expand gardens to ten so we can grow more of our own food, reducing the grocery bill is always a good thing.
4.) Get the road more rain resistant to erosion so we can get in and out easier, need to finish the 400 foot long ditch and get the road properly pitched so we quit getting deep ruts with every downpour.
5.) Get the Storm shelter/ Root cellar built and ready for the spring tornado season, should have two years before the next one hits the town but you never know what the earth mother will do.

I have many more on the list, but these are the top five that I am working on.

List of Bryant RedHawk's Epic Soil Series Threads We love visitors, that's why we live in a secluded cabin deep in the woods. "Buzzard's Roost (Asnikiye Heca) Farm." Promoting permaculture to save our planet.

Matu Collins

Posts: 1947

Location: Southern New England, seaside, avg yearly rainfall 41.91 in, zone 6b

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1. Drain the pool and turn the hole into a stable kratergarden

2. Manage the adjacent acre that I now have the use of in a way that pleases the landowner so much that the farmer I talk about in this thread never has access to it again. Build this relationship with the landowner while trying to maintain a relationship with the farmer which is tentatively Not-Too-Bad. Continue to build and nurture other relationships, including return wwoofers.

3. Propagate trees from cuttings and propagate plants from cuttings in larger numbers. Begin to learn grafting and practice on roses.

4. Make some videos of my experiments and share them on permies

5. Figure out if any of the grants and loans available to farmers can apply to me and my plans, especially my plans to plant a pollinator-attracting zone 4 buffer between my farm and the GMO/chemical farms northwest of my place and my plans to build a sunken greenhouse/walipini

“Enough is as good as a feast"
-Mary Poppins

Kate Muller

pollinator

Posts: 323

Location: New Hampshire

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1 Add more fencing. This will be a goal for many years.

2 Finish garden pond and hook up house gutters to it.

3 Plant flower meadow with a swale of shrubs and trees.

4 Sell some of my produce.

5 Clear more of the overgrown vines along the eastern side of the property.

Ann Torrence

steward

Posts: 1200

Location: Torrey, UT; 6,840'/2085m; 7.5" precip; 125 frost-free days

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There are so many interesting projects - I want to see photos people!

Blogging about homesteading, photography and living in a small Utah town | Growing mostly cider apples at Stray Arrow Ranch

Amy Haun

Posts: 7

Location: East Tennessee, 47"precip, 193 frost-free days

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I am new here but definitely have permies related goals for 2016

1) Use the computer to connect with like minded people insead of letting it consume time.
2) Figure out what perennial groundcover plants to add to my blueberry bed.( currently self sown cilantro, mixed clovers, and hensbit)
3) Pick 5 types of perennial plants with edible parts and trial them in my zone 7 yard. (Jujube, partridge berry and goji berry are on the list so far)
4) Consult with local permiculturists and redesign the planting plan for my 1/2 acre yard to include swales and a "zone 1" area for growing greens.
5) Continue teaching local gardeners to move toward more sustainable practices.

Those are the main things. If anyone has suggestions for plants bring them on.

wayne fajkus

gardener

Posts: 3072

Location: Central Texas zone 8a

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1. Buy no meat. Either raise it, kill it, or catch it

2. Plant 50 fruit trees, be it bought trees, or peach pits, or combination of both

3. Create dam on hi side of my dry creek bed to get the water underground

4. Raise and slaughter 50 chickens.

5. Cut all cedar (juniper trees) along dry creek bed. Also those choking out oak trees (growing against them). More importantly, find a creative use for the cut trees- structures, fence posts, trimmings added into dam project listed above.

Sometimes the answer is nothing

Tyler Ludens

pollinator

Posts: 11826

Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8

1120

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wayne fajkus wrote: Cut all cedar

An ongoing project! We use about 50% cedar in our woodstove (nope, no creosote buildup, because it burns hot), put it in buried wood beds, make wildlife brushpiles, every few years get a bunch of them cut down and chipped by the guys who can work much faster than we can, and lately, we've been making brushdams with a ton of it. But there's always more cedar!

Idle dreamer

Randie Piscitello

Posts: 10

Location: Central Texas

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1. finish initial food forest plantings that have already been planned and bought
2. mulch out everything
3. create dragonfly breeding pond
4. learn more about storing excess - dehydrating, canning, etc.
5. hopefully sell some excess to friends to recoup some of the initial costs

Dale Hodgins

Posts: 9002

Location: Victoria British Columbia-Canada

690

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Drywall the cabin, using only stuff that I am paid to remove. Cover with earth plaster.

Finish masonry stove.

Remove all branches within 20 ft. of the ground on all future timber trees. I can do it mostly from the ground, using my Stihl cordless long reach pole saw. Remove most evergreens in vicinity of cabin.

Construct viewing platform by waterfall. It's very steep and slippery. Unfortunately, it's also seasonal. Dries up by May, returns in November.

Plant pomegranate, figs, kiwi, grapes and paw paw.

Su Ba

pollinator

Posts: 1842

Location: Big Island, Hawaii (2300' elevation, 60" avg. annual rainfall, temp range 55-80 degrees F)

786

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1- set up a small aquaponic system for growing my own lettuce so that it is slug-free

2- build a small screen house for growing my own cucumbers and slicing tomatoes (we have fruit fly and pickleworm problems here)

3- build a small greenhouse for growing my own summer squash and sweet peppers (too much wind and lack of heat is a problem for me)

4- expand the sheep flock

5- increase the number of garden beds so that I have more excess food for trading and sharing

I actually have 7 more goals for 2016. One per month. The January goal is to build a new rabbit hutch area in order to move the rabbits away from the dangerous eucalyptus trees. Last year a wind storm toppled dozens of trees, a couple of which fell on some rabbit hutches. So far the new rabbit area is about half done. I'm right on target!

It's never too late to start! I retired to homestead on the slopes of Mauna Loa, an active volcano. I relate snippets of my endeavor on my blog : www.kaufarmer.blogspot.com

I'm not dead! I feel happy! I'd like to go for a walk! I'll even read a tiny ad:

Sepp Holzer's 3-in-1 Permaculture documentaries (Farming, Terraces, and Aquaculture) streaming video

https://permies.com/wiki/141614/videos/Sepp-Holzer-Permaculture-documentaries-Farming