Jay Angler

Ellen Morrow wrote:I  The YouTube video that was my inspiration said the pots needed to be dug up before frost since frost activity would break them.    Has anyone had experience of this?

The ollas use "capillary action" to wick the water from inside that pot, through the wall of the pot, and to the soil.

Water expands when it freezes, thus breaking apart the clay pots from inside the walls.

Ecosystem is everything: a) frequent freeze thaw cycles will be more damaging than few cycles,
b) a dry or almost dry pot, won't get the same expansion pressure as a saturated pot,
c) just digging up the pots won't help - they need to have time to dry before freezing, and stay dry for the freezing weather.
d) and they need to be stored where they won't get broken!

So this is a major issue in some ecosystems.  I have tried similar just using a plastic bottle so I'm watering under the soil surface, but plastic solar degrades to fast, so I no longer do that either.  Having punky wood in a bed seems to be a good way to help even out wet/dry cycles.

So that's why I was ranting to a friend this morning. I thought it was just because Hubby left town, dumping me with a huge mess in the field that was putting me in a fowl mood... (yes, fowl, as in too many birds with dirty infrastructure!)

John, pretty please could we have an update on how your experiment has been going.

Yes, if you have acres of land, this may not be practical, but even then, sometimes a person wants to get a few specific trees to not die while getting established, and ollas seem to fit Mark Shepard's updated approach, "strategic, total, utter, neglect."

Have you read about Olla pots?

John upcycled material to make his: https://permies.com/t/224939/experiment-ollas

Old tech is sometimes the way to go. It might make a big difference when getting plants established. Ideally we then wean the plants off artificial irrigation, and find ways to infiltrate what natural rainfall occurs. However, I've seen how many tree babies die in their first 2 years of life in my ecosystem. If you can't plant 100 seeds to get 1 tree, giving babies a couple of years of help is the approach I would try next!

M Emmy wrote: My aunt made nice flower gardens and just intermixed food plants with them so you really couldn't tell what was there.  

At one time, people who grew vegetables must be "poor" - it was all about discrimination, appearances, and pretending that the military pays people a working wage.

That prejudice has broken down in my region to a large part, because of concerns about toxins in our food supply.

However, books about "edible landscaping" have also helped a lot. With the combination of permaculture and edible landscaping, and choosing veggie varieties that look pretty ( Scarlet Runner bean flowers are awesome, and can cover a trellis that's against a boring wall!) it is possible to grow quite a lot of food without plants being in rows on the front lawn!

People, I do think we need to consider creating a system so that at least someone knows if you didn't make it through the night.

Something like a deal with someone in a similar position, that every morning you will send them an email or text, and they will send one in return - good both still breathing...

This is doubly important if you have animals who aren't in a position to care for themselves. Dying of thirst is one of the most cruel ways to die, and your animals deserve better than that.

True story: My Aunt had just lost her license due to the onset of dementia. She was still managing in her own home as her son and daughter were nearby and supportive. They arranged for a friend to pick her up for an outing. She didn't answer the door. The neighbor had a key, and they found her dead on the bathroom floor of a heart attack. This was *totally* unexpected. She was very active, and still played badminton with other seniors.

So as much as Pearl is happy not to be found until after the buzzards are done with her (I believe the Romans used buzzards to deal with corpses in some places were there wasn't space to bury people.) for most of us, it is kinder to others to have a system in place so that someone will raise an alert when you're done with your corporeal body.

I have read two of his books, and they are incredibly relevant to my ecosystem. Well written, information dense, and timeless.

Reviews and information can be found here on permies:

https://permies.com/wiki/44007/Earth-Care-Manual-Patrick-Whitefield

https://permies.com/wiki/47650/Forest-Garden-Patrick-Whitefield

The experience I've had with mini hugels  and raised beds with punky wood in the bottom is that covering the hugel or filling the bed with just compost+/-manures doesn't seem to grow things that well. However, when I made a point of tossing in even relatively small layers of our clay soil, the garden did much better.

That may have something to do with my ecosystem, but I think a big part of the, "put the wood on the ground, then dig a trench beside it, tossing the dirt onto the wood" actually makes the system work better. I don't have an explanation for this, but the next time I build such a thing, that is what I will try.

I also recall Sepp Holzer saying at one point that it won't work as well if you use too much wood compared to soil/compost.

S J you are not the only one who's managed to kill comfrey. Considering the weather we've had this year, my first guess would be insufficient water while it was getting established. Mine gets some supplemental water during our summer drought.

However, there is a difference between 'dead' and 'died back' - are you sure they won't pop up next spring? As Nancy wrote, knowing a bit more about your eco-system would help.

I do find they're a heavy feeder in my ecosystem also. The two spots I lost plants early on, had too high a ratio of rock to soil.

Now that I'm more experienced and was able to start with larger sections of root, my patches all put out a few fall leaves, so I know they're alive for now... the deer pressure has been huge this year, and once they discovered that comfrey was edible, they've been quite hard on it.  I may have to find a way to fence it.

bump!