Vitor Bosshard

Tom Mann wrote:

Rick Alexander wrote:Great post! Love this kind of stuff. I strongly believe that ancient civilizations were much more advanced and sophisticated in terms of living in harmony with nature, and retained the notion that their very survival was contingent upon them stewarding and regenerating natural ecosystem.

I also believe they had a much deeper understanding of water itself, a knowledge that only began to resurface in modernity with people like Viktor Schauberger. The concept of living water, and looking at everything in nature as cycles.

In permacukture, we all know the concept of succession and how natural plant death can lead to conditions perfect for the growth of a different, possibly more desirable species.

The ancients used this knowledge accross every domain of life. Very impressive people's lived back then.

Thank you for brining up Victor Schrauberger here. One of the thoughts I had was wouldn't these fields be prone to flooding? Large swales are fixtures in every modern day pastures and fields given rain will cause flooding. But holistically managed grazers report standing water no longer being an issue, rather, the deep roots create storage for water underground and natural reservoirs filling up and swales becoming unnecessary.

I've often seen earth works in the permie-sphere used mainly in managing elevation in sloping land. But these Celtic fields are found throughout in low-lying/flat regions like the Netherlands. One might start to consider that managed correctly, earthworks in flat zones slow the flow of water stop run-off and perhaps have some type of energizing effect on water as it percolates into the earth like Victor Schrauberger talks about. Could a sloping/hedge in these pool-shaped fields paradoxically manage water better than merely flat surfaces? Draining into swales accelerates water velocity taking with it the top soil. The undulating land being sort of a energizing effect where water circulates throughout the ground/plant complex rather than laying stagnant after a large rain event or sloping away creating a knock-on effect on later cycles of plant growth.

I'm not quite following everything you say here, but it seems to me you have a mistaken idea of how swales work. Swales are rather shallow, and they slow down water rather than accelerate it. Another counterintuitive fact is that on almost flat ground, you'll get way more bang for your buck with swales: the same amount of construction effort (volume of earth moved) holds back many more liters of water.

To give a perspective from people who are space limited, this year I grew 3.5 kg of various things (tomatoes, peppers, kohlrabi, beets, even some potatoes) on about 3 square meters of my balcony.

It brings me joy and builds my skills. And I get a few very delicious meals out of it.

Herbs are very easy and a lot of bang per square meter. I have a pot of mint, some cilantro, and small patches of other stuff planted between my veggies. Basil and arugula has all been pesto'd and is done for the year.

My fall crops are beetroots, fennels, carrots and various leafy greens (lamb's lettuce, winter spinach). Some tomatoes and peppers are still going. Right now is also the time to put garlic into the ground for overwintering.

I hear that strawberries can overwinter in pots, but it's the first year I'm trying this.

Potatoes also do ok in pots, though they do grow a bit out of control in a small space.

Watering is a constant headache with containers. You go from dry soil and drooping leaves to waterlogged in an instant. Get as large pots as you can manage. It's better to have many plants in one pot than a collection of tiny pots.

Jojo Cameron wrote:
I did go to A-n-E, but the waiting time was 12 hours, and I gave up after 6, because I had work to do, and they'd put me as 'Not very urgent'.  I took that as a good sign.  It also meant I could have been there indefinitely, because anybody in any of the three more-urgent categories would've been seen before me.

The problem is most likely a combination of too much caffeine/sugar, plus stress, plus the weakening effect of whatever it was I had last year.

I have a hawthorn twig I'm going to make tea with, because it seems it can't hurt.

I also spoke to a Polish healthfood shop owner, who said, "If it's the heart, it's probably stress-related.  If you're gonna die, you're gonna die, regardless of how many supplements you take, so stop making things worse by getting stressed, and appreciate the present moment!"  This was refreshing, and mildly shocking to hear from someone who makes a living selling supplements and healthfood!

Things are in flux a bit much to go to the doctor, but I will at some point.  In the meantime, I'll try some of the non-controversial herbal remedies, like hawthorn and St. John's wort.

Thanks for the tips!

Hi Jojo,

I sympathize with your situation. I have chronic heart disease, which was over-medicated for years, leading to side effects that are worse than the disease. I am definitely much more skeptical of mainstream medicine than I was a few years ago. There's nothing wrong with helping the heart mostly through stress reduction, healthy eating and so on. I'm doing all those things, while trying to find some minimal regimen of medications that work for my situation.

However... the symptoms you describe do sound worrying. Other than the obvious thing our minds jump to (heart attack), it could also be thyroid problems, pericarditis (an infection of the tissue around the heart), a lung infection, or some sort of post-viral syndrome (since you mentioned a flu-like episode a while back). I had a friend who noticed something weird going on with his heart and it turned out to be thyroid problems.

None of that is very likely. The most likely thing is that you're fine! But these conditions are serious enough that even a 5% chance of something like that merits a visit to the emergency room. I know things are tough in the UK right now with the NHS being understaffed. If not A&E, then maybe you have a family doctor who you can call?

Good to know that this works for several years. I also cut the plant back to just the stem with a few leaf nodes. The stem itself does a little bit of photosynthesis, so technically you don't need *any* leaves.

Peppers are usually considered to be annual plants, when grown in climates with cold winters. They go dormant at about +10C and die at 0C as far as I know. But the plants can survive much more than one season, and produce fruit continuously as long as conditions allow.

Has anyone experimented with this? Either in a mild climate, using a greenhouse, or taking them indoors?

My own experiment has had a mixed result. Last year, I took inside a single Jalapeño which had exceptionally good fruits, and transplanted it back outside this spring. The plant is very thick stemmed and vigorous compared to my newly grown peppers. The first batch of peppers was about 1-2 months earlier than my other plants, but the fruits were incredibly spicy. I'm now harvesting the second batch of the year, and the fruits are a bit meh in flavor and also extremely mild.

I could explain what I see as follows: the plant got a bit of a transplant shock in spring because I started fertilizing it too early (while still at the kitchen window), so it was already full of fruits when I put it outside. Stress increases spiciness. Then in the summer, I think I overcompensated and held back too much with the fertilizer. That's one possible explanation; the other is that the plant is just lower quality due to being in its second year.

I'm interested in this because my balcony really doesn't get that much light (only afternoons), and plants always take longer than other people say. My favorite peppers are various types of ají (capsicum baccatum species) that I learned to love in Chile. They seem to grow even slower than capsicum anuum. In my case, the ají is just flowering now, way late into summer, even though I started the seedling 4 weeks before last frost. My growing season is just too short! I'm guessing the only way for me to grow this species at all would be to give it a much bigger headstart with a fully mature plant. That's an experiment I can try next year.

Also, it just seems like a permie thing to do

3 species, all from my own garden:

- Gartenmelde (amaranth related, grown for spinach-like leaves)
- Jalapeños
- Small bush tomatos

The Gartenmelde was left to dry outside before taking the seeds, which come wrapped in pods. The Jalapeños are part of a small landrace experient . I left the tomato seeds in water for a few days, to separate them from the gunk. This only worked half-way, as the seeds still stuck to the kitchen towels in the end. Oh well, I can still use them of course, but I'd like to learn to do this properly.

2nd round of potatoes this year. Started from sprouted store-bought potatoes. Planted three in a pot, I'm really pushing the limit on pot size here, as I have very little space. one potato at the bottom and two more further up (already mostly covered in the photo, sorry!). Propped the stems up with a bit of wire mesh to make better use of the vertical space.

leaf mustard, ciboulette, cilantro, basil. Ciboulette came out a bit anemic, don't know why, it was a fresh seed packet and I watered everything properly.

My balcony is super small, so I decided to plant a tomato on a pot on top of the storage cabinet, letting it hang down. I've seen traditional methods of planting tomatoes on top of a wall or cliff spilling down.

Unfortunately have no photo of the planting. I weighed down the pot with a bed of rocks to make it storm safe.

The plant seems happy in its location, it started flowering.