William Bronson

Just planted out some pepper starts, and they are already showing signs of  nitrogen deficiency.
The leaves are all turning light green.
These are in large 25 gallon sub irrigated planters, a long with  some tomatoes,so the perfect setup for nutritional deficiency.

I have plenty of rabbit dung to top dress, or dig in, but will that be available fast enough to save these peppers?

I'm considering  watering with pee water, or moving the peppers, or both.

Any idea if pee water would make more nitrogen available more quickly ,than the rabbit poop?

Nicole Alderman wrote:
I think for many urban poor, especially those who come from generations of urban poor, (which includes my husband and a lot of African Americans) the first step is not gardening, but teaching them what real food is.

Too true.
I've been to  local food banks where the produce goes unclaimed .
There was no limit-I took everything I could carry.
The other patrons asked me what I was going to do with carrots, turnips, greens and rubarbs.
I explained as best I could, but...

My sister teaches classes called " Cooking For the Family" .
Here clients are intercity poor of all races.
A charity sponsors classes on how  to cook from scratch.
The idea is to teach them to save money  and improve health through better eating.
I've taken her class, it's excellent.
But when she us dealing with folks who add cups of sugar to their pasta water, it's an uphill climb.

I garden in a city lot, tires are not as bad as what's already there.

That being said, I only think of them as structure.
Stack them and fill them for colums, cut the treads out for fencing,etc.

I am in need of a "driveway" if sorts.
Tires with one sidewalk removed can be used as a "geomesh" to stabilize soil.
I am considering parallel paths two tires wide,filled with rubble, soil, etc.
Fixed to one another and the soil beneath.
Cheap.

There is a tradition of basement homes,that is homes that start as a basement, with a traditional roof on top.
Later, the roof is raised and a first and second floor are added.

A walk out basement with the walkout side facing south would be a conventional description of an earthbermed home.
I'm not a fan of the added engineering needed to cover a roof in earth.
I would rather spend those resources on a metal roof,insulation,etc.
A roof fed rainwater tank could give water independence  and thermal mass.

For hand built homes, berming can be a structural and earth moving challenge.

I would have to say that most of my family is two generations away from being sharecroppers,and still struggling to establish themselves within the system,not looking to escape it.

I'm still trying to relearn what my grandparents knew in terms of self sufficiency.
They came North as refugees, political and economic,and their children became doctors, dentists,teachers,profesor, but most importantly educated and middle class.

In addition to that cultural orientation,there are the practical obstacles of resources.

I garden in my own front yard. Many Black people don't have any yard.
I cook from scratch. Many of us had two working parents who turned to packaged foods to get by.

I failed at college. I worked dead end retail until I got my act together and became a craftsman.
Even as a trained electrician I did not have the network to ensure work.
Lazy drunks kept their jobs as I was laid off.
All capitalism is crony capitalism.
But I do have my family,who had made it into the middle-class, and they support me.
Not everyone has this.

I gave finally landed a middle-class job with extreme stability and great benifits.
I'm 47.
I no longer believe  in the system.

As I write this I am reminded that there are parallel journeys in the Latin and white Appalachian communities,among others.
We are still struggling mightily to get into the system.

Success is more stuff,better stuff, and the path forward to more stuff to our children.
We have the same affliction as the white majority, but fewer of us have made it into the system proper to realize how much of a trap it is.

My failure to become successful in the system is why I turned to gardening.
Laid off again, and desprit to feel I was providing for my family, I remembered "helping" my grandfather in the garden.
I had land,  so that plus seed and labor meant I could at least try. I was hooked. I saw a way to be free from the system.


So,rambling over.
Black people need to see permaculture as gardening,and gardening as a way to be independently wealthy.
Along the way they will rediscover why wealth is important.
Wealth is freedom from want.
Permaculture is a way to that.

My daughter spent way too much if her own money on a raspberry start,because she saw it as a golden goose that would feed her deliciousness forever.

That is why I'm in this. Freedom from want for family.
A universal message.

I was going to suggest a used trailer instead.
That is still a viable option, a 5th wheel or other such trailer will be move in ready.
But cost wise, the Polar sheds seem competitive and then some.
Your profile says you already live on a farm, I suppose you are wanting for your own space.

What do you want/need in terms of a kitchen/bathroom of your own?

This sounds like an amazing undertaking.
I'm wondering if a Sep Holder style earth bermed barn could be built using those cedar trees.
Maybe a still would let you turn gypsum water into potable water?
Check with the state, there are agencies that give away trees,or sel them for cheap.

I have one super healthy peach tree,one indomitable mulberry tree,and a handful of thriving black berries bushes.
Would soil from around the roots of any of these be good for inoculation of blue berries?

Thank you Bryant,I was worried about getting a dreaded "air potato" by another name!
Your familiarity with it is reassuring.
Did you use only the actual yam or did you also use the aerial tubers?

A side note, the foliage of sweet potatoes are edible, does that apply to yams as well?

I've done some research, and I think in addition to this plant, I will buy a variety of true yams from CAM and Jungle Jims, and plant them, just to see what works.

It occurs to me that you could place a pump at the deepest point and use that groundwater in the future.