Roger Engstrom

I have seen people in Senegal and Zimbabwe who have a water well, solar panels, water tank, pump, fish pond with the waterline dripping as it goes to the house and chicken house, led lights, tv, cell phone charger , water for animals and garden etc
In Malawi only solar panels for led lights and cell charging. All other wood burning and hand labor including fetching water

Nitrogen fixing leguminous trees

How to apply biochar to the soil. On the surface only. Notill

Three sisters
Corn or sunflower in the center. Then climbing beans next to corn or sunflower. Next pumpkin or squash to shade the soil. Reduces weeds and cools soil

Some refugees would love the chance and you will gain some very good friends

Leave it as is. Milkweed is the only plant for Monarch butterflies
If you want to use it for pasture only let animals graze for one day per month. They will only eat the top of the plants, trampling some and then allow the plant to rebound quickly.
If you allow the animals to eat most of the plant it will use more of it’s energy to regrow.
See ‘one bite’
If your pasture is large enough it can be divided for grazing rotation. Otherwise the animals must be removed for recovery. Don’t worry about the unwanted plants.
If you have only a couple of animals you can tie them in a different spot each day

NWor Nowhere wrote:Rachael,

There are many ways to till the soil, including "no-till" gardening.  Really what no-till means is letting the worms do the tilling for you.  By feeding worms, you encourage them to spend time there, eating their way through the soil, constantly cycling nutrients from top to bottom, as well as creating water and air channels to feed all of the other critters.  The benefit of no-till is that, as stated earlier, you are not exposing the carbonaceous materials (which, in all their stages of life and decomposition are what make soil different from dirt) to the atmosphere, nor are you breaking up micro-ecospheres that the bacteria and fungi set up for themselves.  If this is just for a report, you may look into the soil building practices of Masanobu Fukuoka, Yeomann (who is the man that Mollison got a lot of his ideas from), and Joel Salatin, among others.  They all have a lot to say about improving damaged soil through agriculture. 

If you're starting a garden, I like to fluff the soil (without turning it over, mind you) with a spading fork.  Depending on the compaction of the soil, and a couple of days after a good rain, stick the tines of the fork in about 3 inches vertically, pull the handle back and watch the soil come up - don't rip the soil or invert it.  Go back to vertical, put the fork in another few inches, and repeat, go back to vertical, this time put the fork in all the way (if the soil is really packed, you may not be able to do this all at once) and repeat.  By the time your done, you should have increased the height of the soil by a couple of inches.  Do it for an entire bed, which doesn't take nearly as long as it sounds, and cover with mulch.  If you're converting lawn, put down a sheet of newspaper 4 pages thick or some cardboard, then cover with a few inches of grass clippings, horse manure, straw, etc.  Never step there again.  You should see a major increase in the tilth (dark, crumbly, earth-iness of soil) with a couple of months.  I used this technique on a bed of river silt in New Orleans once, with very little humus to start.  Within a year, the soil was black to about 5 inches.  I consider it no till, maybe some would argue with me.

Good luck.

Summer sausage is a great way to use an old goat

The Rocket stove is a great idea that was ‘
Shown’
Too many ideas die because they are not ‘shown ‘
I have an idea and I have the machine.
It is open source so it can be made locally.
Gardening is a lot of work. After a few years people give up.
This saves labor and more importantly builds soil structure and health.
Leave all crop residue on the soil surface except tomato vines.
It take 3 years for maximum results.
The coulter cuts through the residue and The cogs welded to both sides prepare a wonderful seed bed.
How do I attach the photo?
If you send me your email I will attach the photo

Fungi understanding as well as soil biologicals are very important. Not immediately so be patient. Subsoiling is very short lived and may not be worth the expense. Organic material on the soil surface is critical to feed the soil life.
The earth worms are the soil drainage workers. Worms need oxygen so they will not be the key in the flooded area. But they will give you the benefit of infiltration from the high area to the ware edges. Each year The flooded areas will decrease