Ben Allan

Selling land in Florida is weird - the masses of snow birds and land developers trying to snag up quality land so they can neglect the plants and mow it all away. Land should be safe guarded these days, don't you think? We would be so grateful for lovers of nature would continue the work we have started. Its been four years of learning permaculture on this property, and now I'm off to travel and help fellow permies along the way. Plenty of fruit trees in the ground, some recent, many fruit bearing (the most delicious, no irrigation, no fertilizer Peach and mulberry fruits you've ever had). We have 60' of head from the top to the bottom of the property with three swales on the bottom portion. Yes, there is slope in Florida - and there's more than just sugar sand here! Thank you for taking the time to check our listing out, we hope to hear from the new care takers soon

If you care, please do share to those who are seeking sanctuary in Florida. It really is a beautiful, abundant place when you find the right microclimate

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/11301-Guilford-Rd-Minneola-FL-34715/45321494_zpid/?fullpage=true

Thanks for this video Paul! So excellent to the berms in action. These next couple weeks, we are establishing three 50' wide (in the center) sun scoops here in Florida. Our homestead is on the only elevated site in the state, giving us strong winds as we watch the rains blow around us during the typical rainy season. We are in a rain shadow. We are hoping to use the hugelkultur berms to capture more heat for tropicals, retain moisture over time and direct the cold winds up and over the center of the berms.

When seeding new earth works during drought periods, is it recommended to seed immediately and wait for the first rains to sprout the seeds? Is it better to wait until closer to the rainy season and then seed? Will this lead to lower germination due to rotting and wildlife forage if rainy season is 4-5 months away? Don't want the soil to runoff but we don't want to waste seed if we don't have to.

Not sure why they would rot without moisture and we plan to use hay mulch to protect from wind and wildlife.

How important is it to get the new beds irrigated? It seems like Geoff does irrigate his new earthworks immediately.

Thank you for any insights

Another anecdotal answer - Sycamores - native, fast growing, first to loose leaves, last to put them out. We get fairly large leaf mold piles from the 7, 18 year old trees.

We have seen that a balance of all microbes coming into the ferment via airborne and probiotic pill seems to be beneficial, although taste and quality will differ. Though giving the ferment a head start using a probiotic makes a big difference in quality and taste. Our ferments without added probiotics via a pill do not taste as good, probably due to the lack of salt we add to our ferments, thus encouraging too much microbial diversity with less of the lactobacillus that create the quality taste. Providing sugar and a probiotic pill to a ferment gives those beneficials a head start and almost ensures the ferment is successful.

We recommend looking into Dr Robert Cassars ferments on YouTube.

Hilton Hotema with his many other pseudonyms has a few books on the subject
Gzus cryst on YouTube and has many Ebooks on Amazon.gzus chryst
Dr. Robert Cassar on YouTube and Earther Academy
Mantak Chia's books are great tools to teach one to utilize the energetic body

For us, personally, using intermittent fasting under Dr. Cassar's terrain modification protocols have been most conducive. We work outside daily (gardening, earthmoving, general labor) and practice Bikram yoga with no energy issues. It does take time to clean the body and build proper energy channels within the body. Start slow, give it time and stay optimistic

Thank you sharing this story Charlotte. We wanted to chime in and share that we too use Effect Microorganisms (EM-1), compost tea and other botanical teas like brewed alfalfa tea (tons of nitrogen for plant growth) and sprouted seed tea (sprout some seeds, grind them up, add them to water for enzymes and growth hormones). We are working on a system to deliver these to our nursery plants more so than our garden beds, since one does not need to spray all that often in the garden. Especially if mulch is present. Yay for the microcosm below!

We wanted to share this video for those interested in the cow manure tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QPYwxJ91A4
Also to share Jagannath's great selection of videos. He has a great system of gardening that more of us can adapt to reduce our footprint in the garden as far as inputs are concerned. We use very similar Natural Farming techniques, in how we use our weeds for teas and mulch, watering only when absolutely needed and have started to adapt his poly-culture style kitchen garden into our processes.

How did it go Logan? We are thinking of using a similar cover crop plan. Any avice after the season?