Froggi VanRiper

I completed this project last month, before learning about the badges, so I don't have progress photos. Is there another way to affirm the project?
My neighbor moved and left me a pile of old twisted 2x4s and lapboard siding. It was just what I needed to make a sturdy firewood rack.
My stove takes 10" logs, so I have to have them custom cut. I built the rack 24" deep so it can support two rows of logs with a little room for error. This side of the house has a narrow path between the house wall and the fence, so I mirrored the roofline. This will allow me to drape a tarp or some salvage roofing panels over the area when the rainy season returns, to keep the whole storage area dry and still walk comfortably through the path.
I divided the ten-foot long rack into three sections for more organized stacking. I also secured it against the fence with strong construction screws, which had the double benefit of providing safety and compensating for the torque of bendy salvage lumber.

We are a couple with farming experience, looking to start our own market farming operation next year. Hoping to stay within an hour's drive of St. Louis Missouri. Do you know someone with 4-5 unused acres that we could lease and work? We'll have our own home, a small travel trailer, that we'd like to park on the site. Thanks for reading!

The question constantly comes up in both pro-permaculture and permaculture-skeptical literature.  Finally, here's a chance to generate published scientific data on yield/land use for permaculture food producers! 

If you have a mature permaculture operation, and produce lots of food (especially for sale to the surrounding community), I'd love to talk to you about including your operation in my thesis research.  I hope to generate a case study on at least 3 solid operations.  The result will be a sustainable development MSc thesis, which will hopefully be published in a scientific journal. 

I'll happily work with producers on any continent.  If you get in touch, I can explain the methodology a little more thoroughly.  It will require significant record-keeping, but I think the benefits (global awareness, and hopefully scientific validation for permaculture and forest gardening yield sustainability) will be worth the effort!! 

Thanks, fellow permies, for your help!

Hi again!

Wow, message boards can often be a crapshoot, but this place is full of knowledgeable, helpful people.  Isn’t the permaculture community fantastic!  I am trying to address all your wonderful suggestions in this post, but I’m sure I’ll miss some – there were so many thorough responses!

Okay, my bachelors (almost 9 years ago) was in biology, with a focus on natural resources.  I was a high school bio teacher for 4 years.  My hope in studying sustainable development was to contribute to the establishment of a more ethical, sustainable way of life for communities, from a resource-use perspective.  Sadly, as Gary points out, the term ”sustainable” is so subject to interpretation that I have found the overall course to be quite the opposite of inspiring.  This program seems to be full of politicians jumping on a terminology bandwagon, and making lots of ”compromises” in the name of ”progress.”  The only upshot is that I am free to do just about ANYTHING for the thesis. 

I know the need to be realistic in my goals – I have budgeted a year for my research – and the challenge now is to choose ONE of my interests to study.  I am interested in everything related to living an (indefinitely) sustainable life on this planet, and plan to be involved in all these topics in my future life, but I can only pick one to study. 

What I can say, to help us narrow the discussion, is that I want my topic to be applicable to a scale above that of the single homesteader.  All realistically sustainable future scenarios still involve communities comprised of of farmers and non-farmers.  (But not on the industrial scale, like today.) 

I could either do an experimental thesis or a modelling thesis.  The first would actually compare physical systems with different variables, and the latter would involve getting numerical data on different farm or community parameters and compare it on the basis of something like the sustainability coefficients we have been discussing.

My current location is south-central Sweden, and there are no mature Permaculture farms around me.  This has been a significant handicap.  But I could remove the handicap by returning to the States.  This is now a consideration that I am willing to entertain. 

Comparing growing techniques on model plots would be achievable if I found a farmer willing to participate (I am not a landowner at present), but I would also have to frame it in terms of applicable knowledge for the larger issue of sustainable development.  Same goes for l8bloomer’s very clearly defined, achievable suggestions.  I would need to frame them so that my course leaders see them not just as an agriculture or horticulture question, but an actual development question.  This could maybe happen with some brainstorms and modifications...

Sustainability coefficients for just about every nonrenewable or depletable resource have been developed by scientists around the globe.  I would not need to do this myself (unless I disagreed with their methodology), I could just collect data on actual resource consumption in a farm, municipality, or other system and compare it against these already-established frameworks.

The calories-to-calories idea is a fabulous one.  My problem thus far has been that I have no access to a mature permaculture operation for optimum comparison.  However, if I could connect with farms in the states who are willing to participate, I am willing to come home.  I think it’s high time.

Any brainstorms on how to frame a theoretical study on the maximum scale for permaculture?  This is a very good question. 

Briggs’ idea (to analyze the true price of conventional ag, and attempt to put a value (either in terms of energy or money) on the environmental costs of manufacture and disposal, and then compare the adjusted cost of conventional ag to permaculture) is theoretically very achievable.  (And very interesting!!)  I just need to find a mature permaculture operation and another mature farming operation that would be willing to allow me access to their input and output records.  Any takers?

And BTW, duane’s link is very inspiring.  That is one articulate farmer, with his ducks in a row.

We're making progress!  This is good!

Thank you guys! 
I have really wanted to do a practical comparison of the viability of permaculture farming compared to "traditional" agriculture.  What I have to consider is what approach to take. 

I tend to steer away from monetary assessment, because the economic framework we exist in at present is completely unsustainable, and therefore an unreliable indicator of sustainability.  For example, it is often cheaper to import a few bags of concentrated fertilizers than to haul tons of poo; to operate mechanized equipment than to employ people; to mechanically lay disposable plastic sheet mulch than to hand-broadcast straw... but the only reason these cost less money right now is that the environmental costs of manufacture and disposal are not built in to the price.  We are maxxing out the earth's capacity to serve as a "sink" for pollutants and solid waste, and drawing down reserves of nonrenewable substances.  If remediation costs were built into unsustainable resource use, there would be no need to even think of the necessity for financial comparison between the two models.

(This is not to say that a financial study proving the viability of permaculture over other methods wouldn't be VERY valuable, if permaculture came out ahead.  If it could actually compete against a conventional farm despite the handicap factor, that would be fantastic.  But the playing field is slanted in favor of mechanized agriculture from a strictly dollars and cents perspective, and the results could be quite misleading.) 

Anyway, to test the question of which one is actually more sustainable, I would factor in the various sustainability coefficients that other scientists have developed for fossil fuels, mined phosphorus, CO2 emissions etc, and then compare the two systems based on physical yield. 

This would be a no-brainer in terms of results, and almost need not be studied, but for the catch:

The whole reason conventional wisdom favors mechanized agriculture right now is not only related to short-term cash.  It is related to human population.  With human population so large, the crop yield to land area ratio has people thinking we do have to "borrow on the future", using nonrenewable resources to maximize yield, and hoping a scientific or technological discovery will bail us out before the system runs out of resources.  It's called technological optimism. 

But the way that permaculture maximizes yield by using spatial and temporal layering is encouraging - it has me thinking that I could actually prove a yield-per-land area advantage for permaculture and compare that to population size for an overall sustainability assessment.  But the assessment would have to be carried out in every different growing zone for meaningful global results, since varying latitudes and climates have very different growing capacities.  I could only practically do this for one growing zone, in terms of the time available for my current study.

Anyway, feel free to weigh in on the dialogue, and keep the ideas coming!!

I have read that chamomile is a good companion plant for onions.  It is low-growing, so it doesn't compete for sunlight, and it provides beneficial insect habitat as well.  You can broadcast it after you have set the onions.  (I have no personal experience with this, just got it from reading.  Maybe try a small test plot this year, and see what kind of results it yields?)

Hi, fellow Permies!

I am nearing the end of my masters studies in Sustainable Development, and it's time to define my thesis question so I can start researching this summer. 

Do you have a question you always wished someone would find the answer to? 

Do you have a permaculture principle you wished someone could validate to the larger scientific community?

This is a BRAINSTORM thread!  I will definitely have some constraints on what is practical and achievable within my budget and time frame, but I still want to hear everyone's ideas. 

And if you have a farm and want to host a hard-working volunteer while said volunteer does groundbreaking research on your PC operation, that would be even more dandy! 

Can't wait to hear some ideas!