Hi fellow central Oklahoma permies. This is my first post on Permies.com, and I just found this site a few days ago. I live in southeast central Oklahoma, at the very top of Pontotoc county, just north and west of a small community known as Byng. I grew up in the woods and around livestock and have gardened for as long as I can remember. I've been experimenting with my own versions of sheet mulching, hugelkultur and composting from a very young age, and just recently, in the last couple of years, even found out that permaculture was a thing. My Dad and Granddad and Great granddad were all unorthodox agriculturalists. We just have funny ideas all the time about how things could be done, cheaper, more naturally and more efficiently. None of us ever liked fertilizers and refused to use pesticides. My Dad tells me my Great granddad, who was an ag prof. at OSU, oddly enough, had the strangest ideas of all, just some really unorthodox notions.
When I was in my 20s I traveled Asia, and got to see how things are grown in India and China. This made me both more and less afraid of using urine and human feces. I now know how it can be done well and how not to do it (got dysentery twice). I also brought back a bunch of seeds for my favorite Chinese vegetables. For the past three years I have been adapting Yard long beans, bitter melon, winter melon, Shanghai greens, 2 different types of onions and 4 different types of cabbages to the Oklahoma climate with a good amount of success. I've collected a ton of seeds (especially Chinese cabbage seeds) if anyone wants to try.
