Amanda Carranza-Ballew

Hello Max, and everyone else who has posted here. I know it's been a while since your original query, but I think I'm at a similar place to you - I'm in my twenties and beginning to explore my direction within what I'm learning about permaculture, but I don't own any significant portion of land (yet). I'm also very interested in living in an intentional community with other like-minded people, giving surplus back to the larger community, living as sustainably as possible.

My husband and I live in Story City, Iowa, about 10 minutes north of Ames, and we have almost 1/2 acre that we are just starting to develop. If you are ever in our area, please reach out!

Hello Grant! I live in Story City, IA, and first learned about Versaland last year when I initially discovered the whole amazing world of permaculture. I was so excited to realize that someone in Central Iowa was already doing agriculture the permaculture way on any scale, much less the large scale you all have at Versaland.

As my header states, I am actually a complete newbie when it comes to anything agriculture, but the thought of building a homestead and farming through permaculture has captured me and I know it's what I need to work towards and do for the rest of my life. (I would love to tell you the full story someday, if I ever have the opportunity.) My husband and I just bought a house on about 1/2 acre in Story City and I'm busy preparing a small fall garden and also the (hopefully) much larger spring/summer garden for next year. I'm also saving up so I can attend/take a PDC as soon as possible, so seeing the possibility of winning a ticket to the one at Versaland in October made me so excited.

I have two questions for you:
1. For someone (like me) currently working very small scale, but with the goal of working large scale someday, what is one thing I need to make sure I understand and master over the next several years while I work towards the large-scale goal?
2. If you are ever in the Des Moines/Ames area, can I take you out for lunch? I would love to have the opportunity to pick your brain for an hour or so about how you got to where you are, why you do what you do, and just in general discuss the state of agriculture in this great (though at times frustrating and confusing) state of ours.

Thank you very much!!!

This may be a really stupid question, and I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to it, but I wanted to double check here.

My husband and I recently built a privacy fence around part of our yard for our dogs, and we have some left over pine (pickets, 2x4's and 4x4's).

I read earlier in this thread that pine works well for HK beds, but this is treated pine. Is that safe to use? If not, is there anything in the garden I can use the treated pine for? (Like a compost bin?)