Andy Ze

Another side project... Putting a plastic box under our water spigot to capture the drippage. I planted rosemary, basil, and mulberry here. Very focused on food production.

Here's the humble beginning of our Miyawaki forest. You're looking at a few fig, apple, and red oak trees that were established, mixed in with pomegranate, mulberry, and a large Mexican white oak planted recently. It's not exactly following the Miyawaki Method but pretty close. Total size right now is about 3x5 meters. Miyawaki says it should be 10x10 minimum.  Luckily we have a bunch more saplings from the Arbor Day Foundation on the way so I can at least double the size.

The planting guess pretty fast. If the saplings are small, I can do 3 per hour.

The white plastic and the liquor bottles are from ideas my wife saw on Tik Tok. They actually work pretty well. There are terra cotta caps on the liquor bottles to regulate the water flow.

I put up with watery Starbucks coffee in order to score 40 pounds of coffee grounds. I can get as much more as I need. Along with a rotten pumpkin and a few other things, that's our compost source.

Wow, I just came across the Miyawaki thread about growing a forest really fast. We need a visual barrier to block out some apartments going in. This is just what the doctor ordered.

https://permies.com/t/44498/grow-forest-fast

I think we'll do a modified version, working with my own hands and my own schedule.

Photo update. The biggest success was getting my wife on board. She started this mushroom tent and her own rooting compound.

Sunchokes did great. The okra plants look healthy but no flowers yet. Any ideas why? They've done great before. The basil and figs were big winners.

There's a picture of a black compost bin here because it sucks. Never buy one of these.

Finally, I'm proud that we watered the garden 100% from rain water this year.

My wife threw some Genovese basil in the ground without doing any research and it turned into a big victory. Central Texas. Makes sense with the Mediterranean climate. There's something about snacking on a basil leaf that just seems extra healthy.

Cool. I have a smaller version of your setup. Much smaller, it only charges phones. However, one thing I've learned over 3 years is to cover unused ports or you'll get a bunch of dust in them eventually and they'll fail.

B+ on the rocks. A if you can make a crescent moon, A++ if it happens to frame the actual moon. That would be some Mayan shit.

My experience with sunchokes made me much more positive on the idea. They are so darn easy to grow.

Garden update. Acquired 6 buckets, planted them with blueberries, sunchokes, and potatoes. The sunchokes are growing great already and I learned about them on permies, so thanks for that.

2 of the buckets were found randomly in the middle of a field. No idea how they got there.

The orchard is doing great. A lot of the trees have gone from knee-high or less to waist-high or more. The figs are still the champions. Plant figs if you're in the Austin area!

Oh, and all of the water has been harvested rain so far. It's working.  👍

The longest-lived person of all time consumed a lot of olive oil. She put it on her face as a beauty treatment. 125 years. She also liked a bit of wine and chocolate. Personally, I'll stick with olive oil. It's cheaper than a doctor.