M. Phelps

beautiful boulder!
i have a rather large collection of rocks
there is a funny cartoon if you search for rock hoarder
i can relate

i use hardware cloth
1 cm (ish) square welded stuff
any i cut rectangles and bend them into a cylinder linking some of the barbs with tin snips
i bend out every other sharp bit from where i made the cut...i cut on angles
i cut some on the middle sections of the cylinder and bend them outwards
sometimes you come back to check on the plants and anything beyond the mesh is eaten
hardware cloth is more expensive than chicken wire so often i would make a larger one of chicken wire
along the lines of laying it flat... i almost did this because of squirrels digging in my pots
i was going to cut circles with space for the stem and bend barbs upwards

i have a hardy kiwi outside right now... it has seen -15c  and snow but it is mild right now
i was thinking of bringing it inside when the temps are about to dip again

the place looks great!
Jen's laughter is contagious

wow all the snow melted!
still plenty of snow around here

it sure is scenic there!
thanks for all the updates

also at first i thought of a steep pitch south facing
which i will encorporate
but by the time it gets warm enough to bring plants outside.. the sun is very high in the sky and some plant may want to stay in there full time
either way all years worth of sun angles need consideration
i thought of something like teepees on top of the berm which have many layers of poly (mine is vynil) such that they insulate well
i plan on building mine upslope from a pond and on the north side so i will not have to cut down trees to keep the sun from being blocked over time although a marsh would work as well
i also thought of using roll up motors which roll up and down insulation once the sun goes down
a bc company sells the roll up controllers which are either on a timer or temperature dependant
more too... research first build later

i plan on building something similar just up the road from you

i figure it will take many techniques combined to make it work

from what i have been reading it is better to build up than to dig in
set up drainage and then start mounding earth
jean pain compost heating
earth bermed south facing but also built up enough that snow could pile up 10 feet without blocking the light from coming in
vaccum insulated tank with hot water pumped in all summer
rocket mass greenhouse heater
and there are more
brain is not working at the moment so i will type more later

i had to look up skijoring
sounds like fun!
so would snow kiting count as skijoring since you are "motoring" up hills etc?

some examples of pros snow kiting:




winter has never been the same

snow kite
build a luge like toboggan course in the backyard for my nephew
shovel lots of snow

this is what i call the downstream pond



this is the beaver dam holding it back


actually there is another tiny pond below this dam and then it drops another few feet

this was what the upstream pond used to look like


and the dam between them , you can see the downstream pond behind the dead trees


unfortunately that dam washed out and has not yet been rebuilt
there is only a small puddle and a meadow for now
at one point on google maps the upstream pond appeared to be about 4 acres

i would like to use some of the meadow material to make an earthbermed greenhouse ... and to make chinampas..
so when it is rebuilt it will be deeper and have the chinampas along the margins
beavers need the depth so they dont get frozen into their lodge so they should benefit too

much nicer looking bunch than my first:

actually i did have one a couple years ago which flowered indoors but then died
but this is my first bunch which should be edible


Tim, the variety Mart has is "ice cream" which means it is most likely musa namwa

if you have the real blue java it will have blue fruit right from the get go

reports from texas say that the namwa is slightly more cold hardy and better tasting than the blue java
although both rank well for taste and cold hardiness