Tatiana Trunilina

So we moved to a new place, it's a rental, and there are some garden beds installed by the previous tenant in the backyard. Since we are in mid Texas, raised beds are the worst idea for the hot and dry climate here, because the sun beats on the beds from three sides, kills all the microflora, dries them out, etc. So I normally do beds that are level with the ground or even slightly below to preserve moisture and cooler temps in the summer (as a result I usually have much better harvest in the toughest months than most people). I don't wanna put in too much work and resources into this property since we are renting, but digging up the beds and making them level with the ground is a possibility I will probably consider. For now, what can I use to insulate the pallet wood beds from the heat in July and August that's cheap?

I should mention I'm a short and weak girl but I can swing a hammer.

T Melville wrote:

Tatiana Trunilina wrote:I will give the forage time to grow to 4 ft before introducing the sheep. Some sorghum and sunflower can grow very tall as well. Brassicas will give more body per plant, too.

Worth a try, but based on watching my sheep, they seem to rely on their vision a lot. I've put them in tall grass and weeds, and seen them act uncomfortable until they got to shorter grass and could see what was around them again. They could start at the edge and graze / browse their way in, but I don't know how well they'd like it. Maybe that would all change with familiarity. Leaving them in the tall stuff until it feels like their turf, maybe they'd adapt. If you try this, please let us know how it works out.

Yes, I'm thinking of planting in zones throughout a single paddock for variability. Tall robust annuals with climbing legumes on one side, plain old grass with alfalfa on another, and wildflowers on yet another side, or grass +wildflower together.

I will probably also have llamas in there with the sheep as well, so they may appreciate the taller plants.

S Bengi wrote:I recommend making a total of 30-40 paddock and then moving the sheep daily, to me this is the best type of mob-rotational grazing. this would give each paddock a full 29days+ to recover and for pest eggs to hack and die thus breaking the pest cycle.

Your county ag extension will usually have some info on the stacking rate for your specific area. They usually list a cow+Calf pair as 1 animal unit, this is equivalent to 5sheep+10lamb. If you were to do dwarf sheep you could double that stocking rate. Assuming you are going to hay/grain feed in the winter and give supplimental hay/grain feed djring the rest of the year I would put 5sheep+10lamb on that. I would move them to a new paddock in the morning/6am and give them hay supplemental in the afternoon/6pm. Assuming you didn't want to give any hay supplement I would only stock 1sheep+lamb pair per acre. Each sheep+lamb pair eats about 30lbs of forage or 6lbs of dry hay per day. Moveable electric fencing would help with you to sub-divide your current paddock. I would keep the sheep+lamb togather and not separate them or their forage. The 1male for 5 females I might keep togather or separate or better yet just rent a male.   https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/publications/livestock/determining-carrying-capacity-and-stocking-rates-for-range-and-pasture-in-north-dakota

1 acre of 4 ft tall forage will give me 9,600 lb of total available forage (according to this site), which will feed 320 sheep+2lambs for a day. It will feed 10 sheep+2lambs for 32 days, assuming 1 sheep+2lambs eat 30lb per day of forage.

I will give the forage time to grow to 4 ft before introducing the sheep. Some sorghum and sunflower can grow very tall as well. Brassicas will give more body per plant, too.

I'm thinking about a rotational grazing grass fed sheep foraging operation in deep south. Right now thinking about 1 acre square paddocks, 8 total paddocks in rectangular formation with a long alley in between for moving sheep between them.

I'd like to prepare a plot of land and plant forage seeds for sheep to thrive on. The soil here is absolutely horrendous, so we will need to employ heavy machinery to make it a green paradise for the critters, which will sell for good money around here.

The forage qualities desired:

- large diversity & superior nutrition
- anti-worm and anti-parasite herbs
- heat and drought tolerance (can bermuda grass be friendly with other varieties?)
- deep taproots that till the soil (daikon radish & peredovik sunflower are on the list)
- winter vs spring vs hot-n-dry-summer-slump greens


And if anyone has a paddock design idea, please share it! The main purpose will be meat production. The fence will be semi-permanent.

How often to rotate?
Differentiate paddocks into lamb forage vs adult forage? Or just plant every paddock the highest quality and let everyone forage together?
Tree shade vs mobile shade barn?
Water supply? Pipes underground? How to keep the water clean in the water basins?
Number of sheep in the above design?
Is deer stealing forage a problem? We can potentially shoot and eat them. Or invite people for target practice & charge them money. We got lots of deer here. We can just simply raise the fence height and make it sort of opaque.
Maybe sheep varieties? I kinda have an idea, but welcome to any and all advice

Dear permies, do you have your very favorite book recommendations to learn about permaculture in sequence from the very basics (learn terms/lingo and fundamentals) to advanced permaculture (applied to various situations/climates/purposes)? I'd like to get into the theory, science, and practice of permaculture, but my knowledge is very superficial. I'd like to learn about permaculture foundation, like its ideology/philosophy, benefits to humanity and sustainability, to practical design and planning. I'm especially interested in arid climate farming with water management techniques.

You can take it in any direction you want: money making farm, food forest for individual use, urban garden, etc. The list can be 3-10 books of the very crucial books you think are essential material to get from zero knowledge to buying a plot of land and starting your own kickass permie farm.




I understand that there is a 100 book review list, but it's too large a list to go through, and the books are listed best to worst (as I understand) and not from beginner to advanced.

That moon calendar is awesome! Thanks! So logical and convenient!

Philippe Elskens wrote:

Tatiana Trunilina wrote:MC Word is probably best for this. They do have calendars in templates, but you can also delete stuff easily like extra days and trim months down to 28 days. How would you name the months though?

What's MC Word? When I google it I get 'Microsoft Word' and 'Mac Word'...

Not sure yet about the names of the months. Couple of possiblities:
-number from 0-12   (=Human calendar)
-number from 1-13
-January -> June - Sol - July -> December   (=International fixed calendar)
-Archimedes, Brahe, Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein, Faraday, Galileo, Hippocrates, Imhotep, Jung, Kepler, Lavoisier, and Mendel           (=Tranquility calendar)

Microsoft Word

MC Word is probably best for this. They do have calendars in templates, but you can also delete stuff easily like extra days and trim months down to 28 days. How would you name the months though?

Tyler, that's just part of daily life here. We just keep adding base to the driveway every year or two. Planning to cement it later when we have a chance. I guess we're so used to it now that it doesn't even register on my mind as a "well schnapz look at the road!"

And yeah, rain harvesting is already in the plans, but thanks for the resources!

There's an article out where you can check out how weather in a town nearest to you will change: https://www.vox.com/a/weather-climate-change-us-cities-global-warming It also shows precipitation levels. In my area, precipitation right now peaks in late spring and early fall, and is lowest in the late winter and late summer. It is a normal sight to see brown grass in August in this part of Texas (Edwards Plateau) unless we have a hurricane wander in once in a while. The pattern will change in that the total precipitation during high-rain months will remain the same, but will be lowered dramatically during low-rain months. So, the wet months will probably remain the same, and the dry months will get dryer. In addition, there probably will be more weather extremes, such as prolonged flooding and prolonged drought. Edwards Plateau is very hilly, so flooding isn't much of an issue here as in, say, Houston where water doesn't have anywhere to go. Although the flooding a couple years back washed 100+ houses off their foundations in a neighboring town with a 30 ft flash flood wave. So, unless you live near a creek bed, you're pretty okay, maybe only cutoff from roads and stuff. But we all have wells here, so if you got your own electricity, you'll be okay.

I'm thinking of buying a large piece of land in the future for farming. I'm planning to create something like a combination of a food forest and plots for cultivating monocultures. The area I have my eyes on has a more or less flat region like a valley, and a range of hills that aren't very high, but it's still a way up to build a house there. I mean, it's possible, but expensive. I'd like to have a combination of hugelkultur beds and swales to capture the rain water in the dryer months, but also have a drainage system for when it gets really wet, and make it so valuable soil is not washed off with the flood. Is there something in permaculture that already has some sort of tips and tricks for dealing with weather extremes? When it rains a lot here, in our area there's a lot of rushing water, and it destroys everything in its path: roads, houses, gardens, etc. Can anyone recommend a book or diagrams?

Mike Jay wrote:Good question Tatiana.  The challenge is that while many engineers do attend nerd conventions, a lot of non engineer nerds do as well (I believe).  I guess non-engineer nerds could also be viable partners.  I'm mostly familiar with the engineers...

I'm guessing any event associated with Star Wars, Star Trek, Comic con, science, board games and face-to-face games (dungeons and dragons, Magic the Gathering, etc) would be a place to start.  "Gamers" of the online persuasion could be a possibility but I think the ratio of engineers to non engineers would be less favorable in that community.  I'm not sure if these would fit your definition of "fun" or "less fun".  For the people you meet, they'd be likely very fun so you might be stuck with a Trekkie forever.

Of course, getting a job in a place that has an engineering department would grant easier access.  But that is a higher hurdle to entry.

Putting the words "engineer" in a dating profile could help engineers to find you.  For instance, "I'm an introvert but I think I'd like to date an engineer, rocket scientist or performance artist".  

Hopefully Greg or another engineer chimes in on other ways to find us or have us find you.

Thank you! This is actually really helpful! I like science!