Bryzantium Langford

I should have asked does that nut tree have tear drop shaped leaves Sir? if so its a hickory.

Looks like a Hickory nut. Green is inedible. You have to get mature ones. The shell will turn black and open along those lines. Inside will be a light brown nut. You will need a hammer to open them or something similar. Taste great.
As for the second I cant tell its not close enough. Maybe blackberries?

Few things Boss. There is a duck/goose forum here.
Tho i dont intentionally graze my geese ill say a few things i think are appropriate.
Also water and shade are a must. Be sure to grab a good foraging breed. African,chinese,whatever.
Unless you breed them id say only get females and then you can get eggs from all of them.
As to how many will overgraze an area in how long sorry Boss thats where experience will come in.
Id use your lawn at the house and try it out.If as you say 25-50 sheep take a week to finish a half hectare...whatever that is.
try a 3 or 4 to one ratio of geese to sheep and try it or give them 3 to 4 times as long. Just a guess tho.
Also do try the duck forum lots of hippies like this kind of thing someone there may be able to help you more.

I don't know what yall are talking about. Where I grew up it was just a thin layer of soil and a 1-? feet of red clay. We grew corn,okra,cantalope,pea's,cucumbers,and tomatoes. Never had a problem at all.
We just tillled the top 3 or 4 inches and planted. Lots of stuff grows fine in clay atleast when its tilled.

I'm in northwest Louisiana. Tho i've never stored seeds wit the intention of 5-10 year storage. The way I store seeds is in 2 quart coke bottles. I dry them well and tho in a quarter cup of rice to absorb the humidity and then store in a dark inner room of my house. Will that last 10 years? Probably not and if so id guess the germination rate to be very low. I'm sorry to say but without power the chances of 10 year storage for most seeds is nil.

Im just guessing but maybe you should pinch off some of the gourds leaving only 2 or 3 maybe. The plant may not be able to grow alot of those gourds at once. Again just a guess.

To OP Did you see him spray? If not id just assume it was run off or blow over from one of his other fields near you. I mean its not like he snuck out there with a small little hand sprayer at midnight to do it if he did. It most likely is just some run off or blow over,might have had a really strong wind on the day he was spraying his fields. If thats a problem you cant accept you shouldnt have put an organic operation next to a chemical on.

Tell me about it Mrs. dAugereau. Everything I read is either about much colder climates or much hotter. This year in my garden I tried to cover the ground between the crop with leaves and water plants to prvent the soil from getting so dry in the summer. BAD BAD idea. That leaf matter became infested with Roly Polies. They ate almost every sprout I had coming up. Learning from that I mixed that plant matter into the top 3 or 4 inches and replanted. BAM worked great even tho my heavy clay soil dries in the top inch everything under that is nice and moist. Plus no Roly Polies.

Thats what Im saying tho I read that idea in most of my permaculture book. Unfortunately it doesnt work here so I had to adapt. Now it has worked nicely with my fruit trees.

Im personally on the border of zone 8A and B. I think the lack of info targeted to us is because if you think about it we are in a kind of rare ecosystem. Most places with our heat and latitude are usually much much drier IE the mediterranean,the western U.S. Or much colder and drier Ie Tibetan plateau. About the closest places we can find are parts of China,Korea,and Southern Japan. Having actually been to Kadena AFB I was shocked at you much it was like home. It has hot and humid. As I was Exiled to Comifornia at the time it was a great feeling. All that said If you are interested in such things Id suggest learning about asian farming techniques as they are probably the best designed to work in our ecosystem. I mean think about the similarities We grow rice in Flooded fields like they do, We grow many of the same fruits as they do; infact we have been teaching china to grow Pecan trees;Most of that area is big into seafood as it has a huge coastline,they have always been big into aquaculture. If you think about it the similarities are really amazing considering we never tried to emulate them. About the only real big difference is we dont have mountains.All that said Masanobu Fukuoka's One straw revolution is about a japanese farmer doing a permaculture like thing. Unfortunately 75% of the book is his personal biography and his crazy asian philosophy.

You talk about building levies. This winter im going to build a chinampa with a levy ringing it,for flood control,to see if I cant go all summer without watering at all. I live on lake Bistineau So water isnt a problem if you make a garden near the water but then it gets flooded in the spring most years and kills anything you have planted. If you plant far enough away to be same from the flooding its all clay and dries like a brick around july and august killing everything if you dont water. On the plus side Since the lake has alot of invasive and natural water plants fertilizer/compost for soil building is free. Thank the good Lord for salvinia and hyacinths.





To everyone who has posted Id love to hear about any gardening techniques yall have developed for this great state.

Making money and farming go hand in hand. Very few people want to impoverish themselves and their families. If there is to ever be a widely accepted future for permaculture it has to be proven to provide a decent living for people,especially the young people who have the drive and energy to try something like this.


That said My suggestion would be to grow what you will eat and find a niche. 1. Are their anyone offering higher quality homegrown food in your community? eg. Heirloom vege's 2. If so what Are they growing and selling best? eg. They sell out of tomatoes every weekend. 3. Can you offer a higher quality version of that product? eg.Can you offer san marzano or purple cherokee tomatoes?
4. If not what aren't they growing? If no one is growing say peppers can you offer cayenne or some of those super hot ones like Bhut Jolokia,ghost pepper? 5. Value added. eg can you offer jams or jellies especially if no one else is offering them.

Also know your market. EG. My hometown would laugh you out of town if you tried to sell $3 or $4 a dozen eggs. Doesnt matter how good they are,because people here have plenty of land if they wanted to get good eggs but have little cash. That said I make my own cayenne products like powder,flakes,dried,smoked. I can sell for $40 a pound all day.

That said the last question is Will you market yourself? eg.Buy business cards to pass out everywhere you go,EVERYWHERE! Have a website offer online ordering. Call ALL the local restaurants, Not just the higher end,especially if you are producing more then your other customers can buy. If you want to be sucessfull you MUST push your business and NOT lose the qualities that made you sucessfull to begin with.

But thats just my opinion and I could be wrong

"Lietaer suggests we move away from single currency monocultures, with their inevitable boom and bust cycles"
First off this former Belgium banker is utterly wrong on these two statements. The boom and bust cycle is a direct consequence of credit as supplied by banks. Credit by definition is taking future earnings to spend today. Well sooner or later the future comes and now we have to live UNDER our means to payback the money.So the cycle ,thousands or millions ape each other and borrrow, Expands and then contracts. Bank are also the cause of income disparity.The basics of the cause is you get X money from the bank but you have to pay X+I (interest). Now in a world were every dime was always in flow thru the economy it would work. Unfortunately,for bankers, real live people have to save for a rainy day or choose to invest and "grow" their money. That takes it out of the economy for someone to earn and pay that interest. So you have the marginal people failing to make the money that isnt their to be made and losing all the collateral So the poor get poorer.

Second. We already had a period like this in US history look up monetary history in the US in the late 1700's and early to mid 1800's.Every bank and state just about had their own currency. Local currencies work just fine.Until you need to go or trade away somewhere. Back then when that happened they could fall back on the world wide accepted currency Gold and silver.And why would it be more sustainable or have 1000 different currencies? It never has been before. History shows this. When two currencies are in direct competition one will always lose and be forsaken. Unless force is used to limit currencies or force people into using it. Plus as in his example why would I want to have my purchasing power be divvied up between 100 different nonexchangeable currencies?

You want sound money? Go back to Gold or Silver. Still the only money to hold its value for 5000 years.
If you want a to create something different. Remember these things money should not be perishable.Should be divisible while maintaining its value proportionately.Provable meaning an outside 3rd party can test it to prove it is what it is supposed to be. And just one for me it should maintain all this whithout a man being involved,if a man is necessary for any part of that that currency will fail. As history shows us.