Michael Dougherty

Outstanding work.  I appreciate the thought that goes into what you do (plus the hard work). I love chickens, I am limited to 3 here, I used to have 40.  Miss the big flock.

I agree with all of this. I raise a mexican heirloom squash that loves heat and works very well in drought.

Perhaps it would be useful to catalog these varieties somewhere on this site. No need for us to reinvent the wheel. I think some of these varieties are out of the way.

I don't think variety choice alone will do it. The arctic warming pattern threatens our existence. It is that bad, I hope people will look at this. I have been following climate issues since the 70's and this shocked me.

It is pretty easy to become numb about climate shift, THIS IS VERY DIFFERENT. The study suggests that methane release could result in a climatic phase-change. This is also sound science, not quackery. We are not talking gradual change, we are talking exponential change. Here is another very good, 12/18/12 link: http://www.ecoshock.info/2012/12/climate-arctic-thermostat-blows-up.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EcoshockNews+%28Ecoshock+News%29 Please take the time to digest this, it is very different.

Here is what I am doing with my gardens. They are built 12 inches deep (below ground) in hardpan, with a rotting log base. I fill the bed up at least 12 inches above ground. It is enclosed in a framework made of cattle panels. I created a roof with reinforcing mesh and row covering to block light. This seems to work pretty well, but I need more heat barrier. I am looking at aluminized shade cloth 60% shade for next year. I realize this runs away from the idea that nature offers everything one needs.

I have also experimented with using buckets in the woods with half-day shade. All day sun kills my tomatoes. Buckets let me test micro environments. A serious organic farmer friend of mine told me his tests indicated that the sunlight was 30% more intense than just a few years ago. This seems to square with my efforts and results.

Insects are drawn to my gardens because everything else is dead from drought. My 30 odd free range chickens kill the grasshoppers. My neighbors without chickens cannot grow a garden for the grasshoppers.

I had a terrible year with the garden in 2012 even though I adapted about every way I could imagine. In my rural area traditional gardening has failed now 4 years in a row. I had the only produce in the area, but it was a fraction of what it would have been in a normal year. I am sure this is climate extremes.

I will keep pushing on this thread. I believe we are on the edge of major crop failures and food insecurity in 2013. Will we figure this out? Dunno. But if I fail it won't be for the lack of effort. I think about it constantly.

Please look at the climate links, this is new data and it is alarming. It is likely much worse than you imagine.

The last 2 years of climate distortions are making gardening/farming very difficult in our area. The biggest problem is drought, followed by extreme heat.

The last couple of days I ran across some content on climate change that is alarming and points to more extreme variations in climate. http://a-m-e-g.blogspot.com/

My question is this. What can we do with these fluctuations? Sunlight has become far too intense. Heat is shutting down our gardens. The projections are for still more heat.

I am working on some designs for shading and cooling my gardens. I am working with a modified hueglekulture design with beds based on logs and built up from there and that definitely helps with the drought.

I am curious if anyone has puzzled through abrupt weather changes and what to do. I am not talking about seasonal swings, I am talking about cool weather one day, and the next 2 weeks of 100+ heat shutting down the garden.

The link I posted speaks to the behavior of the jet stream. Apparently arctic changes are changing the amplitude of the jet stream, sending it both farther north, and farther south. Almost as bad is that it is slowing the movement east and west of the waves in the jet. This creates the extremes we are experiencing.

This is the challenge we must meet going forward. Permaculture responds to many different climates, but I think it presumes pretty normal conditions in whatever zone. We face something different now. Here it is zone 7 one week, then zone 10 for 5 weeks.

I think the design challenge is this: can we create nimble garden designs that respond to deeply uncertain climate dynamics? I don't feel anyone is thinking along these lines yet. This seems like a good place to start. It appears that the science says that going forward things will only get more difficult. We must figure this out.

Michael Dougherty
Compton, Arkansas