Charles Anacker

In 1966 I met a Yogi by the name of Prince Natan. He had an office on Sunset and Vine. He told me that Yoga was created to give the non-farmers the benefit of the exercise that traditional farmers received when carrying out their farming activities. I remembered this when I read the reference to "farming yoga". I have no informed opinion about this being correct or incorrect, but he was a ™ rather remarkable person who changed my life and redirected my personal path in a much healthier and positive direction. Can farming, practiced wholistically with the properly formed tools be a form of yoga? I'm thinking of Broadfork as opposed to plowing or double digging.

In 1974, the Los Angeles Times, HOME MAGAZINE published a series of designs for multifunctional living that was inspired by the way that the traditional Japanese home made multiple use if their limited space. This was a DIY article showing a western adaption of multiple use western style furnishings that would allow the same room to be used for multiple uses. This was later picked up by a Los Angeles Furniture Manufacturer and put into production in metal instead of wood, but with increased comfort and functions. These may have been the first "Permaculture" Furniture Designs and, perhaps, the first Futon Bed/Sofa. They all were awarded U.S. Patents. It was my first attempt to help "make the world a better place."

I ordered and paid for this complete set but never received anything.

Paul,
I love you the way you are, "warts and all". I agree with you that the Great They "should be the change that they wish to see in the world." I come to permits.com and listen to your podcast because I like what you say and how you say it. No one forces me and I recommend you and permits.com to all of my friends who are interested in Permaculture. You are real, funny, and honest. How many people can we say all three to these things about? Am I always real or funny or honest? Not always, but your example has helped me follow the path of most resistance and have fun doing it. It is always easier to go down hill, but you'll never get to the summit and have the awesome view by taking the easier path. Keep doing what you are doing an evolve as you will according to your own time and inclinations. Thanks for being such an awesome dictator in your pursuit for "world domination"!

Re: Hugelkultur beds on contour lines

From listening to the podcast and reading Sepp's book, it seems that the hugelkultur beds should not be exactly on the contour lines but slightly angled down hill so as not to supersaturate the first bed and leave the others dry. This will allow the water to continue to flow, but slow it down in sort of a zig zag motion and not allow it to punch through the dam and cause erosion. It was also mentioned that cold air flows down hill like a cold gel and can be dammed up by the contour line hugelkultur bed. I've been collecting my wood to build hugelkultur beds, listening to podcast and reading, so this does not come from my personal experience, but it seems logical.

Re: Pill bugs

For all of those who live in climates where it freezes in the winter, mulch gardening works very well, but a according to Steve Solomon in California Vegetable Gardening and other books, who has written extensively about gardening in climates where it doesn't freeze over, the mulch beds become a breeding ground for pill bugs and earwigs. In San Diego, it never freezes at lower altitudes and mulch gardens become those pill bug paradises. Perhaps this is true for other Mediterranean type climates?

I'm glad that it seems to be working out for you. Urine has been called Liquid Gold and for good reasons.

One idea that might work out for you next year is to sheet compost one bed, plant the adjacent one and compost the next one. After your harvest, compost the bed the vegetables were grown in, and plant the one that was sheet composted, but is completed and not taking nitrogen to break down the carbon materials. The advantage of such a system is that you are always feeding the worms in the garden in the sheet composting bed and they will leave their casting there in the adjacent growing beds as well, so you will always be feeding your garden worms and they will always be cultivating your soil, a win-win for you and the worms.

There is not a lot of detailed information about the use of urine in corp fertilization as to how much to use. The ratios go from straight, to 1:1, to 1:5. to 1:20. Most of the information that I have read from technical studies were concerns about safety and suggesting that you stop before fruiting, etc. I don't feel that this is an issue for the home grower, if you are not ill. However, the concern that I would have is that nitrogen produces lots of leaves and all leafy vegetables love it like cabbage, kale, spinach, but the over use of nitrogen can cause a plant to produce leaves and few or no fruit, so it is possible to over do it. One unexpected side effect that I have noticed is that we were fertilizing a nopales cactus and it was doing terrifically well, producing new growth and flowers, but it out grew its ability to support itself and a large section broke off because of the weight of the cactus pads to the strength of the supporting stalk. We may have overdone the nitrogen with the urine?

Check the fertilization requirements of the plants that you are concerned about and treat the urine as a nitrogen fertilizer and not as water and follow the recommendations.

Thanks for your answer about using paper.

I was asking, while I don't have a composting toilet, I do collect urine for my compost and my garden and I shred all of my newspaper, plain paper mail and envelopes, and other misc paper to use in my compost pile. I would think that it would be a great way to get rid of the paper "waste" by giving it a second use and would eliminate the need to try to find or buy sawdust, wood chips, etc.