Earl Aarsrood

Welsh Harlequins are reported to be calm and almost as good layers as the Campbell.

All I've ever gotten from a soil map is that I have really shitty soil, which is something that I already knew from digging in it (2in of topsoil on top of glacial clay. yuck).

It can be really useful for figuring out where you might wish to locate elements on your property or for planting this or that.

www.pfaf.org is really useful for finding plants to grow on your soil

Is this position still open? I have a good friend who I think would be a great fit.

Thanks for the replies. Its good to see were not totally off our rockers here. Theres already a wire which runs concurrent with the pipe, so electric isnt a problem, though it will require buying a pump that can be dropped in. The roof would need to be guttered for an aboveground tank where we can run rock/drainage tile to the old pipe to usd the current one. Well have to talk to the septic people about the Regs, that could really monkeywrench the whole idea.

Were replacing a wastewater tank with a septic system, and the old holding tank is no longer going to be used. Digging the thing up is going to add a lot of money to the project and we'd rather not just abandon it if we don't have to. We were thinking about replumbing for it to collect roof runoff for watering the garden. Were obviously not stupid enough to drink from this tank, but it would seem like this tank would still need to be cleaned before watering food plants with it. Any suggestions? It seems like this should work well enough but were worried it could turn out to be a really bad idea.

Thanks.

S Bengi wrote:Fuzzy kiwi grows from zone 10 to 7, and hardy kiwi grows/fruit from zone 7 to 3. SO zone 6b is pretty much the warmest winter that it can produce in so you are in luck.
I would also get the Issai cultivar they are 10ft dwarfs vs the usuall 100ft ones.

Keep in mind that 'hardy kiwi' is a common name for both actunita arguta and a. Kolomikta, which is also called 'arctic kiwi'.

Yes! This has been done by a number of orchards. A few of them near me produce their own ciders and one of them also produces butters, and jams. One of the family run orchards has a separate winery for making fruit wines, though technically its a separate business for legal reasons. Often the laws do require things a like a certified kitchen to produce cider, juices, etc so you would want to make sure your on top the man's regulations before just jumping into it, but for those that can make the jump it's a very helpful investment.

Also, totally envious of your climate.

I would think that the only limiting factor for you with that temp range would be winter sunlight. However, with the correct amount and type of glazing material, you might be able to successfully use water for simulating a tropical type environment. The walpini design will eliminate a risk of frost in your climate and the summer daytime temp could reach over 30* with regularity. Water storage would even this out a bit but maintain evening heat. With such high winter temps, I'm not sure I'd bother with sand mass or other such long term heat storage. It'd be a lot of trouble for minimal gain.

The mosquitos can be controlled using BT, but I'm not sure how permaculture friendly that is.