Welcome David Goodman (aka David The Good) author of Grow or die

Photo Source: David    

This week David Goodman will be joining us to talk about all sorts of different topics regarding gardening!

There are four copies of his brand new book, Grow or Die up for grabs.

David will be stopping by on the forum over the next few days answering questions and joining in discussions.

From Tuesday through this Friday, any posts in this forum, ie the gardening for beginners forum, could be selected to win.

The winners will be notified by email and must respond within 24 hours.

Posts in this thread won't count, but please feel free to say hi to David and make him feel welcome!

Welcome!  Good to have you here.

What are you holding in the photo?

Hi, David...always look forward to your posts here...great to have a staff member with books out also!

What a great title, will be buying this book - one of my big concerns, when things fall apart, how I will get enough calories for me and my family to survive...

Also what do you think is the most important thing in starting a new garden?

David,  Please address the complexity of long-winter survival from gardening, where one wants to eat, but also to save seeds for next year's crops.  The best solution I have come up with as a Wisconsin USA resident (where in some past years we had two seasons, winter and summer, separated by only a couple of weeks) is to buy a winter's worth of Sprout
Seeds able to produce 3 quart per day x 6 months, for eating some and growing some indoors under grow-lights for more produce, more seeds, and/or earlier baby plant planting.  But I add into this saving dandelion, purslane and a few other totally edible weeds-seeds for eating and saving seeds.  The rest of my food focus shifts to trapping, pellet(ing) a few nasty squirrels, while I watch (and not yet harm, but instead preserve) the rabbits that birth their babies in my yard.  But I also intend someday to grow meat rabbits, and probably from the baby rabbits birthed in my yard.  I would love to read your book, and have not yet read a survival gardening book. But I am in both in a long-term personal interest position (nagged to death, so to speak, by the problem of survival eating during long winters), but I am also in a nation wide-span professional educator network of about 3,000 other professionals like me). I am able to share and advocate information exchange with other professionals (who can share with still others, who are not professionals in my profession, but are at least hearers, if not also supporters).  It is a wonderful network that right now is top heavy with old-timers (hence, lots of gardeners who know far more than I do (which is why I sprout), though many are also age-declining Depression babies).  Still, it would make for good forums in local areas that span rural, remote, and city.  Sometimes "like-minded networks of educator-professionals" who lead local networks in their home areas presents the very best opportunities for disseminating important information, even across the country.  How many people or professions can do that?  The best of the groups will be "like-minded professionals", even if their professional work is not, per se, in gardening or horticulture.

What is your solution to being displaced? If we have to leave our home and don't have access to major infrastructure. I.e.  Water, storage equipment like refrigeration, and fertility.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Thanks!

R Ranson wrote:Welcome!  Good to have you here.

What are you holding in the photo?

Thank you. That is one of the best calorie crops in the world: Dioscorea alata, also known as the "winged yam." One of the true yams, no to be confused with sweet potatoes, those danged orange imposters.

Tastes like a huge 30-50lb Idaho potato... or a little better, to my taste buds.

I wrote a profile on them some time back here: http://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/how-to-grow-yams/

Judith Browning wrote:Hi, David...always look forward to your posts here...great to have a staff member with books out also!

Thank you, Judith. I'm honored to be a part of permies. Long before I was an author, I was here learning and sharing with others.

Kevin Lessard wrote:Also what do you think is the most important thing in starting a new garden?

Access to water. After that, choosing good soil or being able to improve it enough to bear a yield. Then, picking the plants that suit your climate, rather than picking up seed varieties from a far away company that may or may not fit where you are. Finally, a source of nitrogen and other nutrients to maintain growth.

Mark Yates wrote:David,  Please address the complexity of long-winter survival from gardening, where one wants to eat, but also to save seeds for next year's crops.  The best solution I have come up with as a Wisconsin USA resident (where in some past years we had two seasons, winter and summer, separated by only a couple of weeks) is to buy a winter's worth of Sprout
Seeds able to produce 3 quart per day x 6 months, for eating some and growing some indoors under grow-lights for more produce, more seeds, and/or earlier baby plant planting.  But I add into this saving dandelion, purslane and a few other totally edible weeds-seeds for eating and saving seeds.  The rest of my food focus shifts to trapping, pellet(ing) a few nasty squirrels, while I watch (and not yet harm, but instead preserve) the rabbits that birth their babies in my yard.  But I also intend someday to grow meat rabbits, and probably from the baby rabbits birthed in my yard.  I would love to read your book, and have not yet read a survival gardening book. But I am in both in a long-term personal interest position (nagged to death, so to speak, by the problem of survival eating during long winters), but I am also in a nation wide-span professional educator network of about 3,000 other professionals like me). I am able to share and advocate information exchange with other professionals (who can share with still others, who are not professionals in my profession, but are at least hearers, if not also supporters).  It is a wonderful network that right now is top heavy with old-timers (hence, lots of gardeners who know far more than I do (which is why I sprout), though many are also age-declining Depression babies).  Still, it would make for good forums in local areas that span rural, remote, and city.  Sometimes "like-minded networks of educator-professionals" who lead local networks in their home areas presents the very best opportunities for disseminating important information, even across the country.  How many people or professions can do that?  The best of the groups will be "like-minded professionals", even if their professional work is not, per se, in gardening or horticulture.

Learn to save seeds, for sure - but then, look back in time.

What did the tribal societies subsist on? Grow the same. The book Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden has good information on cold-climate gardening you can build upon. Raising meat makes sense: as you move further north, food production via plants becomes much more difficult and animal foods become more important. In my region one could live on wild yams, mangoes and coconuts. In Alaska, the Inuit traditionally subsisted on seal, whale and other hunted species capable of living in those harsh conditions where gardening is a wash. Eggs, fish, wild berries... that's where you end up. In your case, I would concentrate gardening on high-calorie roots, winter squash, and grains such as flint corn that can be stored long term, then branch out from there into highly nutritious greens such as kale.

garrett noble wrote:What is your solution to being displaced? If we have to leave our home and don't have access to major infrastructure. I.e.  Water, storage equipment like refrigeration, and fertility.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Thanks!

A good bug-out bag is probably a good idea for starters, but I strongly believe in learning wild foraging from local experts. I could wander through Florida and feed myself from the woods with a little work since I know the edible shoots, roots, insects, mollusks and other sources of calories. It wouldn't be as pleasant as an enchilada platter and a Dos Equis... but I wouldn't starve.

Welcome David,

I enjoy watching your videos on youtube. In fact just recommended your channel on a thread about permaculture channels on youtube.

David, let us know if you will be in Georgia anytime soon.  I would love to hear your ideas on dealing with heavy clay, high temps and high humidity when gardening.  

David Goodman wrote:

Thank you. That is one of the best calorie crops in the world: Dioscorea alata, also known as the "winged yam." One of the true yams, no to be confused with sweet potatoes, those danged orange imposters.

Tastes like a huge 30-50lb Idaho potato... or a little better, to my taste buds.

I wrote a profile on them some time back here: http://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/how-to-grow-yams/

Thanks for the link re: yams - looks like something I'll have to try.  Do yams need to be cured like sweet potatoes for storage?

Devin Lavign wrote:Welcome David,

I enjoy watching your videos on youtube. In fact just recommended your channel on a thread about permaculture channels on youtube.

Thank you, Devin - that's very kind of you. I've been having quite a bit of fun with the channel. In fact, in today's video I was killed by a gigantic plastic dinosaur while wandering through the cocoa orchard we maintain. Permaculture force perspective?

John Alabarr wrote:David, let us know if you will be in Georgia anytime soon.  I would love to hear your ideas on dealing with heavy clay, high temps and high humidity when gardening.  

Pretty similar to Tennessee. The greatest success I had was with deep mulching. After about a year, the soil breathed a lot better and I could finally grow some decent potatoes. The late summer is really rough, though - not much you can grow without some water. We had a 30-day stretch once with no rain in late summer and 100+ temps. The clay of my front yard was all cracked like a desert. This is why I love long-term perennial ecosystems and a lot of tree and plant cover.

Bryan Beck wrote:

David Goodman wrote:

Thank you. That is one of the best calorie crops in the world: Dioscorea alata, also known as the "winged yam." One of the true yams, no to be confused with sweet potatoes, those danged orange imposters.

Tastes like a huge 30-50lb Idaho potato... or a little better, to my taste buds.

I wrote a profile on them some time back here: http://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/how-to-grow-yams/

Thanks for the link re: yams - looks like something I'll have to try.  Do yams need to be cured like sweet potatoes for storage?

Not quite like sweet potatoes, in that they won't ever get sweet or really improve in storage. I prefer to leave them in the ground until I need to pull them. As perennials, this works well. Once pulled, they keep for weeks on the counter. Even if you cut them in half, the cut portion will usually dry and heal up without rotting.

Hi David,

I have watched most of your videos.  I especially liked the ones of your forest garden tours and the ones on grafting wild plum trees.

Michelle Bisson wrote:Hi David,

I have watched most of your videos.  I especially liked the ones of your forest garden tours and the ones on grafting wild plum trees.

Thank you very much. I am a grafting nut. Those trees were a marvelous surprise as a root stock.

I've invested in a much better camera and editing software now that the channel has taken off and I will be posting a lot more videos in the future. Folks like you keep me going.

Hi David,

Where are you living now?  You sold your property in central Florida and I thought that you moved to Naples Florida, but you talk about hills and mountains and there are none there so wonder if you are in the Caribbean or Central America.

Please share a bit of your story since you left Central Florida.

I am trying to document a bit of our story here with our ]Go Permaculture Suburban Food Forest[ a cold climate in Québec Canada.

We go to Florida every winter so I have an interest in subtopical food forests as well as.

Michelle Bisson wrote:Hi David,

Where are you living now?  You sold your property in central Florida and I thought that you moved to Naples Florida, but you talk about hills and mountains and there are none there so wonder if you are in the Caribbean or Central America.

Please share a bit of your story since you left Central Florida.

I am trying to document a bit of our story here with our ]Go Permaculture Suburban Food Forest[ a cold climate in Québec Canada.

We go to Florida every winter so I have an interest in subtropical food forests as well as.

We moved to the equatorial tropics so I could research agriculture in a brand-new climate, plus get out of the US... too great of an opportunity to miss. This is my fourth climate shift for research. First South Florida, then Tennessee, then North Florida and now the rainforest. I should move to Missoula next!

Very interesting!

Next location, you are welcome to come to Québec Canada where we can even get snow in May. A very cold humid climate!

Welcome.

I liked your book grow or die.  The compost one looks good to.

Ray Bunbury wrote:Welcome.

I liked your book grow or die.  The compost one looks good to.

Thank you, Ray. My publisher loves Grow or Die because of the topic and the sales, and I am fond of it as well; however, I'm quite partial to Compost Everything as well since it was really fun to write... and to research for. About 10 years of insane composting experiments went into that one.

Thank you all for a fun week. I don't have nearly as much time to hang out here as I used to... you all have reminded me again why I love permies.

Catch you online!

Thanks for your imput this week David!

Come back again for week long discussions!