Vansana from Laos is joining you

My name is Vansana. I am living in Laos with a tropical wet/dry climate. Originaly I am from Austria. I am planting rice here, raising chicken, guineas, gees, ducks, silkies and some rabbits. We have 2 Dogs, 2 parrots and a mongoose.

I am working to establish a food forest and planted already lots of trees in my big garden.

I like the idea of permaculture but I am not a permie yet. My 4 banana-circle do very well and I see that I have some sucsess with biochar. Most of my permaculture knowledge comes from searching the internet and my practical experience. I did sign up for a PDC with Mr Lawton last year but decided to discontinue after 2 weeks.

I hope to get a lot inputs from you expirienced permies here and might be able to share some of my ideas with you too.
Currently I am planning to dig a pond near the house, I also want get some solar panels on the roof, so Pond and Solar are right now my Nr1 interests.

Welcome, Vansana!

I did sign up for a PDC with Mr Lawton last year but decided to discontinue after 2 weeks.

I like the idea of permaculture but I am not a permie yet.

You do not have to have a PDC to be a permie. you just have to love it and to try to practice permaculture as best you can. A PDC allows you to be a certified Permaculture Designer, but not having a PDC does not stop you from designing for yourself, or your friends, from whatever knowledge you have gained. If you have all those animals and are growing rice, making biochar, have 4 banana circles, and are planning food forests, ponds, and a solar system, well... you are more of a permie than you think!

Most of my permaculture knowledge comes from searching the internet and my practical experience.

mine too.

You might want to go to the Alternative Energy forums on this site, for the solar, and the ponds forum for the pond question.

One thing to consider when putting a pond near the house is that (if it is not a sealed pond) it might raise your groundwater level and this might not be desirable near the house foundation.

Welcome to permies!

Any chance we could get some pictures of your mongoose? I am so jealous!

Vansana wrote:
I did sign up for a PDC with Mr Lawton last year but decided to discontinue after 2 weeks.

I completed his online PDC in 2014, and have mixed feelings about it... Lots of good information, but so much of it whiteboard/lecture based, where I was hoping that footage of actual sites would be used to illustrate the content as he lectured. Left me baffled, since he obviously does go to all those sites in order to make his online videos... I was keen to complete a PDC, and did learn from it, but felt that it could be much more than it was.

Have you got a copy of the Permaculture Designers Manual? It is very well worth reading, and much cheaper than a PDC!

Sounds great! Yes, I want to see the photos of the pet mongoose, too!

Is there any danger that a pond could breed mosquitoes that could possibly carry malaria, dengue, zika, or other diseases? Su Ba from Hawaii had a good comment on a recent thread about Zika, where she talked about her participation in mosquito eradication efforts in Hawaii. It sounded like the most important and effective measure was to eliminate all standing water, even tiny bits, where mosquitoes could breed. And it sounds like having fish or other insect eaters in the water may reduce the mosquitos but not eliminate them completely.