Kelly King

We have limited room in our email and big files tie things up.... thanks for asking.

Yes thank you. I'm always interested to hear what folks find they are REALLY using from their food forests or other permaculture plantings. Sometimes I am surprised to find that something I think of as a minor food someone else uses extensively.

At this point for us the largest harvest probably are the wild edibles I forage... Wild Leeks (Ramps), greens like- stinging nettles, dandelion; Milk weed is a prolific producer here and in season we have it every other day for about 3 weeks (leaving plenty for the monarch butterflies); wild mushroom - variable but can be prolific (I also have mushroom bolts I've inoculated, a little more reliable); glean apples, from neighbors yards and wild trees (much of that preserved as Hard Cider - yum). Most of the plantings hazelberts, apples, pears, gooseberries, currants, grapes, hops, hardy kiwi, plum, blue berry are all tiny trees and plants and will move into production over the next 2 to 8 years.

We have good luck overwintering Kale here and are able to harvest from under plastic into December and January - under the snow. I usually cover at least one patch of younger plants in the fall, hoping for winter harvest... works about half the time. This year mice and moles or something moved in and beat me to most of it. Kale from the freezer is one of our mainstays and this year I dried kale for the first time. I have a gallon jar of crispy Kale leaves. I remove a few every week into a smal jar (to keep it crisp and avoid opening the main jar too often) and keep by the stove. I crush a handful into all kinds of dishes, especially a quick Asian soup I throw together for lunch. The moisture from the food usually is enough to reconstitute the greens.

I also leave all my Kale plants in the ground a the end of the season. In Vermont they die back completely to the ground but often I get a number of plants sending up sprouts in the spring from last years roots. I leave the best and most convenient of these (sometimes even transplanting to another spot) for early greens - they are out earlier than we can plant in the open and can take a frost or even a freeze in the spring. By the time the annual plantings of greens are coming along, the Kale has bolted (these 2nd year plants don't have large leaves.. they're fine for an early harvest but don't produce much volume) I let it go to seed and then as I need the space I pull the plants and shake the seeds all over the garden area. I have volunteer Kale everywhere, it picks its best spot and I let it go there or transplant to where I want them. I haven't "planted" Kale in 5 years. For me learning to leave it so it can self seed means that it is practically a perennial.

Favorite way to eat kale? Fry a little garlic in olive oil, throw in chopped kale, toss to coat with oil and then splash in enough water to steam, salt well. Ahhhh.

-Kelly

Hi Carl,

I am an enthusiastic cook and am excited to see what you have to share with us.

My question is: What would you say are the 3 or 4 foods you'd encourage someone in Zone 4 (northern Vermont) to plant to fill cupboards with food? Both in the short term and the long term - two separate list probably.

What do you find yourself preparing the most from your permaculture plantings? (Most often OR most volume).

Leaning towards plant based because we are currently lacto-ovo vegetarian (though we very well may move towards adding some meat to our diet in the future, but currently don't have animals).

Thanks,
Kelly in Vermont

Hmmmm very interesting. I know this connection between Christianity and Permaculture won't speak to everyone. But it speaks to me. Fits right in with what I've been thinking about lately as I shift my focus to my homesteading.... lots of pieces of my own Christian walk are beginning to blend into what I'm thinking about as a permaculturalist. It is wonderful to hear that other folks are seeing the connections too. Again, I know it doesn't fit for everyone, but for me it is helpful to see how people bring the rest of their lives into their permaculture work. I've seen folks who bring permaculture into their Social Justice work, into their Homeless Prevention work, into their work as Educators, into their Migrant Worker support, into their work towards Empowering Women, into their Animal Welfare work etc etc etc. Seeing connections that others have made can help people connect what their learning through permaculture to the rest of what they care about. Thanks for a positive presentation of a Christian perspective (different than mine, but still enlightening).
-Kelly

Congratulations Cj! Let's hear it for Vermonters... is it a coincidence that you won on Town Meeting Day? I think not.

Edit: Should have been clearer, congrats on being chosen "project of the week" winner!

Hey Cassie,

Nice job and thank you. I am going to confess right now that time constraints mean that I haven't read all the comments so far, so please forgive me if I repeat or don't take into account something others have shared.

I agree with the folks that encourage you to continue, but I doubt many of us have any idea how much or why it "takes so much time", cause you make it look easy!

Would you consider continuing to do one every other week or every 10 days or so? That will help those of us who have ADD, and can't afford to spend much time on the forums (cause "Oh, I'm just going to check this out while I eat my lunch" ends up being 4 hours later and all the homestead/writing/family things I was supposed to have done have gone down the tube.) You give us a boost, point us to interesting stuff and keep us enthused.

If you slacked off a bit on these vids you could spend the rest of the month maybe creating a introductory video about a certain Brick of Permaculture each month, with links to the best videos, forums, articles, books on them - aimed at Muggles (Normies) and NEWBIES. These could become a resource that folks could point people to when they do a "talk" at the library for unsuspecting souls who they plan to infect with permaculture (like I'm doing next week - yay!! so excited - hence the time constraint... must focus on preparing for that).

If you took one topic every few weeks, or every month you'd have a little library of "accessible" stuff to help folks who don't have enough basic info to take advantage of the forums yet. I don't think they have to be much different than what your doing for us... just focused more on just one topic and you'd explain things more for folks who don't know the lingo. And you'd shelter folks with delicate systems from "colorful" language until they've built up enough strength from all that good permaculture food to be able to handle "you know who" :-)

Your youthful enthusiasm and genuine joy in sharing what you love is infectious and I hope you will continue to share it both with the community here and the outside world.


Now... to finish writing my presentation!!!

-Kelly in Vermont

Does it bug anyone else that spellcheck doesn't know the word permaculture??

I loved getting a chance to see inside the tipi, nice job. I would LOVE to see more of it. Did you have any other footage of it or just the one pan? I was hoping to see it from the door so I could get a feel for how you'd lay out something like that. And maybe just more of the RMH feed and barrel etc.

I think you're the perfect person to do these, you've got that youthful spark that helps make everything seem more fun. Keep it up.
-Kelly

Cassie,

Thanks so much for making these videos... the quick update on what's up is great. I feel like it really helps me stay in touch with the Permies community, even when I can't let myself get into the forums. (Cause I find myself linking from one to the next and the next thing I know an hour has gone by.)

I found the quick overview great... it let me see everything all at once. I look forward to the updates with more info in them.

You are indeed getting better... with your vlogging but I have always loved your excited, youthful, joyful attitude. It is refreshing.
-Kelly in Vermont

Welcome David,

As I sit here eating my bowl of Kale and Potatoes I look forward to hearing what you have to share. Here in Vermont we're learning to stretch the season with double row covers - it is snowing and 30 and I still have kale and broccoli growing under cover - last year the cold hit too hard too soon and we didn't get much, but the year before we were picking kale into early January. It is hit and miss but with Global Weirding we figure it is worth trying, some years we'll get lucky and have winter greens and others we won't.

-Kelly

Morgan: This was the first year planting into the hugel and I didn't think it produced that well. This spring I'd added the additional layers of small brush, manure and topsoil then later in the season planted potatoes. They didn't get enough light (need to remove a few more trees) and I've got them in late - so the fact that they were not super is not surprising. I think the urine put on over last winter, will help get things going down inside the hugel.

Abe: I may combine your idea with my hugel and put a thick layer of leaves on one part to dump my buckets on this winter.... I may just use some brush instead of a pallet under the pile.

Another advantage may be that the urine may deter some of the critters burrowing into the hugel... anyone have any ideas on that?

-Kelly