Suzette Thib

Firewood!!

Nathan Elliott wrote:It looks like I will have some reading to do!

I would say the book that inspired me the most, like two other people on here, is Walden by Henry David Thoreau.  It inspired in me my curiosity in the natural world when I was 15.  I have interests in the natural sciences because of it.

But if I had any other books to mention it would definitely be Samuel Thayer's four books.  Especially his essay Eco Culture: Tending to Wildness in Incredible Wild Edibles and his Field Guide to Central and Eastern North America Wild Plants.  That book contains many plants that most people don't talk about that would make great plants in a permaculture setting like 3 of my favorites: Glade Mallow, Bitternut Hickory, and False Mermaid.

Reading excerpts of Thoreau and Emerson in high school definitely struck a cord with me. I had almost forgotten how much I loved reading their work.

For me, Gaia's Garden has been most helpful. Although I agree with Su Ba. I wish that there were lots more before and after photos in Gaia's Garden but it has been a wonderful reference and helped me to push through with confidence when it really doesn't look like the garden will come together (can I even grow anything?! = me lamenting in early stages). The can-do attitude in Ten Acres Enough is really inspiring and I tend to revisit that book every few years. Gardening books are so wonderful. It's my two favorite things all rolled into one!

The only plant this I am aware of that works with crawfish, is rice. My uncle would grow rice, then harvest in late summer, and then the crawfish through autumn and you start getting your first small crawfish in January, usually. Then by May they are finished and you put in rice, and so it goes.

After I plant carrots I spread a thin layer of, more fine than not, mulch over the top. This helps to retain the moisture.

Rebecca Branham wrote:My carrot problems here in the PNW has been slugs eating the young plants.  I've found seeding carrots during time periods of lesser slug activity helps.  And adding bonemeal helps solve the not filing out problem.  I can have lovely greens that don't have much underground.

When you trim your split ends, save the bits and sprinkle them around your seedlings. The slugs hate the hair getting stuck to them. Learned this from Parkrose Permaculture on YouTube and it works really well. Not perfect but drastically helps keep slugs away from seeds that want direct sowing.

I lived in 8b/9a for over three decades. My experience with the hibiscus family (roselle - we called them rosella -  and okra are in this category) is that they do best germinating outdoors, in the ground (not as transplants) and for me that was usually May at the earliest. Sometimes June and they would produce until killed by a hard freeze or we overwintered them indoors and they kept going the next year.

Laying down all cardboard. Mulch on top. Trench compost in place - cardboard and mulch on top. Three years time noticeable improvement. Can't imagine how wonderful after a decade...alas we have not let our feet rest more than four years in any spot. Maybe one day and then I can have more wisdom. Good luck!

Anne Miller wrote:My problem is with paper stuff.

Financial advisors say to keep paperwork for seven years.

Then what do I do with all that paper?  I don't have a shredder and I don't want to send my personal financial stuff to a landfill.

I have had this problem - did a little burn pile now and then or then I just straight up composted them.

Gumbo and roasted sweet potatoes!