Nate Hornbrook

This is great! Thank you so much!

How does one figure out what books speak to his/her area?

(I live in Central Virginia, by the way)

Brody Ekberg wrote:
Nate, I’ve had this same idea recently as well! I have never done landscaping for money though, just work on my own property. I’m curious, where are you located and how is this coming along? Please keep us updated!

Thanks for asking Brody! Everyone's comments are really helping me think this through. I live in Lynchburg, VA and after taking with several people in my area, I have come up with a plan. What do you think?

I would do a soft launch selling and building herb spirals. Herb spirals are inovative in my area and I think they would be easy to sell as beautiful and efficient raised bed gardens. As I am building relationships with clients, I hope to sell other ideas to them such as edible landscapes and food forests and rain water harvesting etc. My dream job right now would be to have mostly local clients that are so close I could walk or ride my bike to their house and we create a friendly neighborhood community around growing and sharing food... but not sure how realistic that is yet.

We bought a house in August and so we are just getting started growing a food forest and herb spiral at my own house. So I don't think I'll be able to quit my job this year and fully launch a business but instead it'll be a side hustle for a while (unless demand for my services explodes).

What do you think? Am I missing anything?

Bonus question: would a door-to-door survey be a good idea to measure the interest in my neighborhood or should I just go door-to-door selling the herbal spirals?

One of my goals for my family and I is to learn how to forage. But my first hurdle is figuring out where to forage. We live in a city and our property is a postage stamp. What do you think? How can we find places to forage? I have a couple ideas but I wonder if the veteran foragers on permies could help me figure this one out.

Bonus question: what are your favorite foraging resources?

Trying to brainstorm fun nature play stuff for my kids. For example, I just made a sweet nature play area in our backyard and thought it would be cool to see if anyone else has a nature play setup for their kids. Although the weather is getting less and less favorable, my kids are getting lots of use out of this natural playground made very simply. Kid-approved!

This natureplay area is simply an assortment of stumps and logs placed in creative ways that promote adventure, experimentation, and imagination. The trick is to make sure the stumps and logs are secure enough that they won't roll while kids are climbing running and jumping on them. My four-year-old calls them our lava islands, because we like to pretend the grass is lava and we have to avoid falling in it while maneuvering the logs (what's up with kids and the ground always being lava??!!)

Are there any other ideas for natural building for kids?

Hello, all! I have this growing desire to start a permaculture landscape business. What I mean is: I want to start a landscape company that makes urban (or not so urban) residential landscapes more sustainable and edible. Currently I am working as a landscaper. I've never started a business before, much less a permaculture business. I wonder if there is any demand in my area for edible Landscapes, food forests, restoring the soil, composting, water harvesting.

Has anybody done anything of this sort before? How did you get started? What equipment did you use? How did you find clients? Did you have to educate people in order for them to want something other than an ornamental landscape?

Worms won't eat them and chickens can't have them. But we love 'em! So what am I to do with my onion scraps? What do you do with your onion scraps?

George Yacus wrote:

If you are considering adding a chicken system down the line, and there are no vehicles/pathes to worry about, I would consider the humble mulberry tree.

Thank you for the fantastic tips George! But what do mulberry trees have to do with chickens? (I'm getting chickens this weekend!)

Hello fellow growers!
I'm a beginner food Forester! Just received my first two loads of wood chips! But all the choices for fruit trees are overwhelming! I want all of them but my yard is only 8,000 square feet. Would you be so kind as to share what you veteran gardeners would recommend if I had to limit the amount to three or four? And why? How easy are they to grow? What other uses do they have?

FYI, I live in Central Virginia, zone 7. But I am curious about other zones.