I immediately see in pfaf what practical plants does not mention:
"Climbing over rocks, 1200 - 3300 metres in W. China[109]. Moist open places at elevations of 2100 - 3200 metres in Nepal[272]."
That makes me go directly to the "suitable for" section, to find out "It prefers moist soil."
Andru, why did you suppress from PP some useful info like habitat and range?
It is so easy with the habitat to have a great idea of the suitability in one short sentence!
And another info on the net tells that it is deciduous ...only in cold climate.
The datas will have to be crossed between more sources I think.
Even if they are not opened sources.
And if the content of an encyclopedia is shared,
I think the design could be shared as well,
and as in permaculture,
it could be worked upward a lot,
in order to spare time afterwards.
Well, sure I know you share your work BEFORE it is finished,
but I think the permacultural design of a wiki (designed to be widely used & practical)
could be worked in common to go deeper into the practical side.
If you ask us now & here for participating, this is not to hear what you already know,
nor to do what you can already do,
this is to get something new.
Let's say, here, can we tell what we expect first from such a website?
- Yes, the tool you work for: enter a lot of different criterii in the search tool, great.
- I also want a site that gives ONLY and specifically useful plants, edibles, medicinal and other uses (toothbrush and toilet paper too!),
and this you do too, great.
- I also want to see some important features at a glance.
- Then I want to select the ones that are for MY climate.
So I need the rain pattern, mm/year, the place where it is native, its type of habitats etc.
I 1st want to get to KNOW the plant, so that I can FEEL if it will be happy here.
(adaptation is a later topic, if I really want to introduce a plant that does not come from a similar place to mine)
- Full sun or shade comes after, as a full sun in Alaska is not a full sun in California.
- If all the wiki tells about only useful plants, then I will look at the great things I can expect from my "guests" afterwards!
This is the easiest part of the quest.
I guess the development is not finished, the search is not working properly either.
Have fun and try!
Advices to use it:
On the 1st page you would get only 9 answers.
-> So go directly to the search page.
-> open each plant in a new window, as you loose your search when you go back.
Example: I look for a deciduous + climber. -> There are 38 plants showing up in the page,
Now I know there are 34 actinidia at least!
...so I could look for only 4 other plants (letter A ).
Then you have to chose other criteria to narrow the search.
-> Do not use the heat zone, it shows no plant yet.
-> You have to get used to the USDA criteria, as it does not work upwards.
vitis lanata shows up only if I enter 9, and not with 10.
(and I do not know where is our vinis vinifera.)
I used the USDA to "get rid" of 30+ actinidia that were filling the whole page.
-> If you look for zone, let's say 10, clic on 10 and then also on 9, 8 etc
Then I added "well drained", and I still had quite a few plants to look at, great, 14.
I added full sun, 11 plants.
Moderate water... 11... low water... all gone, ok, go back to moderate...
-> Oops, do not use the soil texture, nor the environmental tolerance, they are not yet in the DB.
Now I visit my choices! I have selected 7...
(vitis I already know and some poisonous ones are out)
I am missing the photos (size, covering capacity), so now I am going to use wikipedia & google again.
I also need to know where the plant come from, and the heat tolerance.
Their use is not enough for me, I first want to check adequacy.
Paulo Bessa wrote:The Moringa is not from the legume family !! It is related to the cabbage family (Moringacea family, order Brassicales). Therefore I guess it does not fix nitrogen, so it might be actually nutrient hungry (like a cabbage), despite the fact that is grows natively in poor and desert soils.
Right for the family!
Can you try the same as me to see if it works as for me?
And tell me...
I dilute urine in water to feed the tree, and they seem to enjoy the extra "food"!
About taste, I have the same... Pepperry yes...
Radish is a brassica too! I mix it for cooking and did not notice the taste.
The relationship is obvious for me, as I noticed the change quickly with a gluten-free diet.
I notice a quicker change when I eat some gluten!
What makes me stronger to keep with my diet is to stay in a good mood.
I have notice the problem with sugar, so I do not anymore eat sweet food.
A great help : get rid of your internal parasites with plants!
I do not advertise, so look on Internet....
Parasites MAKES you WANT to eat what THEY want!
You are not addicted to sweet taste,
parasites can make you want to eat junk food!
Well, this is my conclusion...
After I got rid of them, I could no more finish my plates, as my apetite had gone down (best way to pay for the treatment!)
And I was just feeling "yuk" even with the idea of eating a treat, any cake...
You are brave Tom! Wish you the best!
If you introduce some grains, they should be only fermented or better sprouted.
Only leavened bred for example. Yeast is absolutely not good for bred.
I am waiting for the book so I hope I will find it ok to read!
It is a pity, I hate when things are repeated and not clear...
I am surprised some people find it hard to do, and that you have to freeze.
I do it without even having a fridge!
I just boil the pot every day.
Monday I will finish the meat/bones I made Friday!
I have bought sourkraut, and I will learn to make it next week with a neighbour.
I was off sugar yet for a long time.
YES it would be difficult for children,
because they are given candies,
and they cannot understand why one would like to deprive them of what they like.
I discover GAPS, and it matches my own conclusions!
I have been instinctively on this diet when I let myself follow my instinct and not what was dictated by some good-intentioned healthy diet.
So much meat, so much fat?
I could eat meat for breakfast and I love butter.
Marrow is a delicacy, and fat the best part of beef, and cheaper.
Then I realized that I had a problem with gluten...
I worked in an ecological camp with a vegetarian whole-meal diet.
In less than a week, I was a carpet...
A health practitioner suggested to me to stop gluten... and I was sure in less than a week...
So, I understood why my stock of spaghettis lowered only when someone else was at home...
I understood why I had always been against this tendency to eat whole-meal bred and rice.
But why my gluten-free own-producted potatoes stayed all winter in the cellar ?
I just wandered what was the problem with other starch products...
My belly and my nerves (so my mood) were much better, and then it went down again...
Actually, it goes down when I have little opportunity to eat meat.
I can maintain myself with almonds and sprouts, but I HAVE TO eat meat, no way.
Then I discovered that the omega 3 shortage comes from an excess of omega 6...
so I dropped sunflower oil... (sunflower seeds are ok for me)
Now I use coconut oil for cooking, I eat butter, I use olive oil, and I eat a lot of chia.
That is even better than linen.
I want to cultivate a plant for oil, I forgot the name, of the mustard family.
My favorite meal here is to put all my veggies in a cast-iron cauldron and cook them on a fire with a chicken or some fatty beef.
I can eat this all day.
It keeps with no fridge. I heat it every day.
Then, I thought about what might be a mistake in some permacultural practices...
The famous food forest!
Fruit juice are too high in sugar, and fruits are better because of the fruit fiber,
but a fruit is too much sugar.
Berries are much much better.
These can be eaten a lot, and they are rich and concentrated in anti-oxydants.
So I mainly look for nuts and leaves in this forest, and other tree uses.
Have you ever seen a natural forest giving so many fruits all the time?
Do you think monkeys eat bananas and other fruits all year long and all day long?
No...
And they eat insects when they eat fruits. Who dares?? ...
Well, fruit fly worm in oranges, yes I do... At least when small and I do not look...
Getting used to... !
Oranges are also home-grown.
I can have bananas (tiny fruits but they mature), and I think they are healthier than many fruits, I can stand them well and I don't know why.
So now, I want to have a food forest that matches my diet, and a forest full of edible animals and eggs!
Chicks, guinea-pigs, quails... Bigger will be difficult to feed here. But I can get raw goat milk/cheese around.
Yes I will grow some grains, and no more care about processing them, as they are great for chickens!
Yes I will eat some grains and roots sometimes, when I will be better. Amaranth and corn are not so hard to process and keep.
My food forest will have moringa, marula, ramon, pigeon peas, acacia... I already have a lots of avocados, great. I have mangos and papaya, great. I can hardly have pineapples but I will try. Also, I will have neem (not for eating!), yellow sapote, almonds, figs, pistachio, cashew, strawberry guayava, guayava, olive trees, pomegranate... I also have kaki, plums, mulberries and apples. I was going to say that now I have no more fruits in August, but the preakly pears start producing! I have fruits all year long, but really, this is not the first aim I see in home producing. Let's concentrate on our needs in proteins and fat, as they are the most difficult to fulfill.
And essential.
Cajanus cajan... We call it guandul!
A friend of mine do them and is happy with the result, and I will, I have elected it for my dry climate, so your can try!
They are given as ok for 600mm/year and can grow with under 400mm too.
I though USDA 10 was a minimum and 10°C/50°F, so I would be pleased to correct my datas with your real experiences!
Thanks
Nathan Selikoff wrote:Hey all, I'm also in Orange County (Orlando). I've read that Moringa, classified as a legume, has some nitrogen fixing capabilities, although it is not considered a nitrogen fixer. It has a lot of other desirable characteristics, however (good for animal fodder, chop & drop, edible nutritious leaves, grows fast, living fence, drought tolerant, responds well to pruning and coppicing).
I can send "Chamaecytisus palmensis" seeds, tagasaste (mentioned in the pdf above), if some like it and you cannot find it. Widely used in Australia in dry areas. Almost non invasive as the seeds sprout after fires! It lives long, loved by goats, light shade, 2meters (taller than Paul...) since I planted them last year.
I also have moringa, and yellow leaves problem, that went out (the problem, not the leaves!) with pee... I supposed it lacked the right rhizobium bacteria....
So, fixing nitrogen is not so sure with legumes!
The main aim is about guilds...
Sure, everybody comes to the same difficulties for applying the rules of plant interactions,
and only the 3 sisters is very well known, and the companion planting does not give ready-made guilds.
So I hope a good cooperation will happen between people who were brainstorming on their own!
Yes I have, but I want to use my Spanish address for all this stuff, I separate... I am an emigrate...
Some sites offer the choice to connect through other accounts.
For the rest, I just could not make me understand in English, but is is not important. I just suggest that people can know what they will find in those websites that are cited as resources.
Well, yes I know how I can explain: if you are linked in practical plants, won't you like that they mention that in this site, yours, people will be able to map their garden?
It is proposed to log in through google only... So I cannot add my hotmail address... Or else I would have gone and explore!
Your home page explains your specificity: drawing a garden map and find people in the same climate.
But it does not have a resource page to explain what you can expect to find, from your plant pages, if you click on USDA links, or now, what you can expect to find in practical plants! I cannot contribute in a foreign language for me...
No way to decide without knowing your climate, soil etc!
So the first thing is to find which places/people have the same climate as you, and then you can copy my info if you have a frost-free climate!
(if not, forget about patchouli I mention!)
wikipedia, USDA DB and practical plants do not have the same goals.
And you might add some more links...
I would suggest that you do a page to present your resources, so that everybody knows what can be expected from this site. For example, when I search, I do not anymore bother to open a window for a USDA link, I will never find what I need on this site !
We all know about those famous charts with the companionship...
But not everyone will tell you to sow beans when corn is 5" tall.
Some plant go well with a second one, that goes well with a third, that goes bad with the first!!!
And it is never taken into account the simple 2 lists that should be done (and never saw):
which hate water on their leaves, which love it, or don't mind.
And in MY place, I must find guilds of what loves sun HERE,
like capsicum that do not grow in the shade,
(even tomatoes need some shade in full summer heat...)
and what I can (have to) do in the shade.
So why the job of telling you practical answers does not seem to be done by those who teach the great principles of permaculture?
Yes it depends, but then it could be detailed.
I will never go to a course for this reason.
The great principles can be found in books.
A course should be practical, so for people having the same needs in he same kind of places.
So, let's do something that will help on Internet.
For the sources, I have already said in practical plant forum that I have a list of DB about plants...
Some extracts are used by seed sellers, and this is a big job of opening windows because of them !
1) Find the info elsewhere and fill the plants pages. That is what you did with pfaf.
Now, you need other DB to go on for missing plants.
For this part, yes, it will be "another plant reference site"
2) Then there is the job to design guilds...
Then the question is how are we going to decide about it?
You presented the example of the 3 sisters.
I can tell what I did last year:
I sow mungo beans for a try, and I added millet in the same lines, because it was also a try, and also my local carrot.
The result was great, because millet did not grew well, and I did not have to wonder how I was going to fill the gap between plants.
I 1st collected the mungo, it dried, and left room. Then I harvested the millet, then I had a great patch of carrot all winter long.
It is really great to have links and that each site has its specificity.
Ed, the idea to make plans on line and find gardens with a similar climate is also great,
and I hope you can both link your works!
The main problem I have on Internet, when I look for plants that suit my place,
is the amount of pages I have to open and check for...
and sometimes they give the same information.
I have found an Australian site that gives pfaf text, and nothing special to give more.
Andru wants to give more, and what is most specific in his project is:
- the search engine with criterii
- make guilds
I got angry in my search, and I just thought to write to all plant sites I bookmarked,
and tell them to agree and share the jobs!
This means accepting to drop part of the giant goal of having ALL in one site.
Each site would have its specificity, and then, the nature oriented people would give a good behaviour lesson on how to cooperate better than what is seen increasing on the net.
Gluten free, yes, but paleo? coconut and almonds do not grow in the same place...
A paleo should be what we can harvest at the same time and in the same place... or else, it is beyond prehistoric possibilities!!
Half joking, but a reality!
(and i use both coconut and almonds, and only almonds come from my place... sigh....)
After avoiding wheat, I found out that it was also better to avoid all kind of sugar. After years gluten free, some digestive problems were coming back... Might not be only gluten for some people, but also the carbohydrate part!
I think sugar is not part of paleo anyway! fruits yes.... fruit juice no...
I use some whole lemons for salad seasoning, instead of only juice.
I have noticed a special good taste,
and a special consistency if there is a lot of the white stuff! (pectine?)
I do it in electric blender, and then add olive oil, avocado...
and raw nettles for a green sauce!
Really, lemon peel has improved my recipe, that was with only juice at the beginning.
this green sauce with wild edibles is also a great dip...
Don't cook honey, you kill all the good things in it...
Whole cane sugar is the best, better than maple sirup for example, that has been cooked long.
But ALL sugars are addictive. And even when you use stevia, your body is supposed to react with insuline, mislead by the taste.
Also, no fruit juice even fresh, only whole fruits, to avoid the sugar peak and pancreas work.
sometimes you have to treat for parasites who are the ones begging for sugar! So it might not be a psychological need, haha!
I am completely off sugar except fruits and dry fruits like figs or raisins, and I eat bananas.
I eat coco powder with banana or with avocado, or with coco oil, a great spread!
I have the problem... And once I tried a gluten free bread, and reacted too!
That is yeast... I can eat bread only if made with the fermented leaven!
And only with some spelt. I have no problem with the "petit épeautre de Provence" !
It is very poor in gluten.
Fermentation with leaven is VERY important, it replaces sprouting. Both are good for making the grains fully healthy.
Hi guys!
Great, I have been doing this for myself too, though it is not on the net but in docs on my computer.
pfaf is great, but very "british oriented", and I am in a special climate, at the same time Mediterranean and dry subtropical.
I am pissed off with information that always bother with cold and never with heat! We should be able to search according to our climate, and even usda zones are not enough, as they say nothing about the kind of SUMMER you have! It is based on winters...
I also laughed as I understood the goal!!! I have a awesome place for permies, as I have
- nice good earth,
- and also stony places,
- a rubble slope
- a tropical place facing west and down a rocky cliff
- shade under avocado trees (and they have allelopatic leaves...)
I also suggest to take into account winter rain or summer rain, though some plants can adapt, but never know...
And that would be great to compare climates. I have done it for my place, so now I know which plants from south Africa I can plant, or natives from which parts of Australia.
I live in a place where almost no material for recycling can be found,
and it just does not look possible to do a rocket stove without finding those marvelous garbage!
I can buy chimney's inox pipes for the smoke circuit to heat, but how will I do the chamber?
Has someone done rocket stove with only materials such as bricks, refracting bricks and cement, stones, lime?
(and I do not have clay here... sand yes!)
Kevin's solution is just not sustainable, with all this packaging! And when I think about all the cold seasons plants I cannot grow here, well I focus on what thrives here, and there are a lot of miracle plants for all places. And a well adapted plant is so much less work!
I would not advise to grow moringa where it cannot grow, well, at the limit ok, and with the adaptation's power, they will grow hardier, then give seeds to some one just a little in a colder place and so on.... why not make a chain, a relay? Each one passing the seeds to someone in a little colder area, and so achieving a slow and progressive adaptation...
Then I will tell about my experience, as I have moringa. Well, they get yellow even in a warm place... and I guessed they lacked nitrogen!! Hard to belive for a legume? But do I have the right rhizobium for this legume to nodule with? May be not... and so I started to water my moringas with diluted urine, and t definitely worked out. I will post pics...
I also find they week for wind. The trunks move so much!
What's about eating, well I would not spend my time grazing on it! I prefer the chenopodium and amaranthe leaves... Quite strong taste, so an aditive into the salad ok. And harvest the new leaves, the tender ones, before they get harder and yellow.
I find them good for giving a light shade, as they do not have much leaves when young at least. And if they do not nodulate welll in ones' soil, then they do not bring nitrogen...
Anyway, I have some more growing in pots, so I still like it, though I do not call it a miracle, it is just part of the garden, and sure you can find wonders if your weather is not warm enough.
If growing in pots : tall pots, I use the plastic bags. The tap root must not be disturbed, and must not twist, and it is longer than the seedling...
I can say I am blessed by a very good weather allowing me to eat my avocados and even some bananas!
Hard for mangoes, but I get a few in november.
I am blessed but I have chosen it...
But we are still in a 15 months drought... Drops but no rain.
Many people around live ecologically, cultivate, repair old houses the cheap way, have solar panels and/or wind mills.
But I will tell you about my place and what I have been doing for one year.
I am in a zone 10 place not far from the sea. It is steep and we cultivate in terraces like in the Andes, but smaller.
No tractor possibility (that is why there is no real commercial farming)
We should get 400-500mm of rain/year. (=14'?)
My aim is to increase the % of food coming from the land.
My real problem will be cacao and coconut!!!
That would be my 2 choices to keep from abroad...
I would be very happy to exchange ideas of crops and tips with people from California or Western Australia, or Western South Africa... Some parts of Chile should be quite alike too.
And no photo was taken from a plane!
Then I will present you my growies, and also the home, as I have started a topic about my rocket stove kitchen / mass heater...
There is a main home, and then I want to do some rooms around the place. I already have 1 ready (better while renovating the main one!), and I can do 2 more at least.
And here is the first plan of the kitchen side, proposed by someone who do it (though he never mention it as rocket stove)
There is a big earth/rock wall on the right, as I live on the side of a cliff.
The wood charging is on the right, then there are spaces for 2 boiling pot, warm place for after cooking, and oven + exhaust.
So I want to change the plan for a vertical fire place on the right, and a pipe going through the wall, behind the kitchen, and the heated sofa on the other side.
If this is not possible (technically, for gas-proofing), then I can still have 2 fire places there...
The black bucket in the photo represents where I wanted to build the mass heater.
The kitchen with another stove was planned exactly on the other side of the wall...
Now, I want to build only 1 rocket stove in the kitchen,
brake part of the (fortunately) unfinished wall,
and have the heating mass heater more or less where the bucket is.
I would like to heat and cook with 1 stove, but in a warm area zone 11, no way, I will not heat in summer!
So I try to go out of the project to build 2 stoves....
QUESTION:
When I cook in summer, I will need to CLOSE the pipes going to the mass heater!
Preferably on the 2 sides of this stone/cement wall (now I have found lime)
Of course, there will be also a pipe circuit on the kitchen side, I do not wish a rocket that goes high in the sky... )
And then, when the gas comes back from the main room, it will go out in the same outside exhaust as the kitchen's.
Xisca Nicolas wrote:
The plan for the rocket stove kitchen is not a problem, well I think....
I separate it from the kitchen stove so that I can still cook when it is over 100°F outside...
Doing 2 stoves is crazy in a little place with little cold and no frost!!!
(well, the plan was not mine, but I decided to search myself...)
Pics:
This is the main room, view from entry.
The kitchen will be on the right, on the other side of the wall.
The stove should have been where the black bucket is.
Now I want to brake the wall enough for the warming pipes that would come from the kitchen.
Same, but taken from the other side of the wall, from the kitchen.
You just see the part of the wall I want to brake for correcting the mistake.
As you see, the room is small, so it is not necessary to have the burning stove there.
I prefer to have more heat in the kitchen,
that will be half opened.
And I prefer to have only ONE stove to make, and later on to light!
Xisca Nicolas wrote:1) How long can be the pipe between the combustion chamber and the "place for butts"?
I have always seen that it is side by side...
Can I cross a room (10')?
Will I have more smoke?
(the ground has not yet been made so I can dig...)
After some thinking...
Just tell me if there is a mistake!
I suppose I can also warm the floor and cross the room...
I suppose the pipe in the ground should not go down the fire level.
I suppose the smoke can go horizontal, but that going down is too much asking!
They are called kachel stoves. You will see a plan on this link.
they were just huege and usually made at the same time of the house, as you could heat a wall between 2 rooms.
They can be 2 tons...
With so little insulation as with logs, I guess you have to put 2 stoves if they are not big, so that you can make warm beds in the 2 rooms...
Also, you can consider making a warm ground. As the heat goes up, and as the ground brings better insulation than log, you can have a warmer room.
You just make the ground as you would make a warm couch...
The only thing I hesitate, is to know wheter or not the smoke can go DOWN.
I mean: is it possible to have the stove at ground level, or do you have to dig it so that the pipes under the floor are at the same level as the stove?
How funny is permaculture...
-> not moving the soil on one hand, no plowing...
-> and moving dirt with tractors on the other hand!
I have heard that BRF must never be buried, because...
-> all organic matters should be put ON TOP of the earth...
(like in nature process...)
-> and then other people bury logs....
-> I was told that all cucurb would rot if fresh manure was buried under dirt...
(because of the fungus disease that would spread)
-> and no problem to bury wood and manure! ?
In my place, almost all people have fungus problems that kill avocados and orange trees...
will they develop happily?
but I am gifted with a non clayey earth... (except that water is going away...)
But sure I will try, I already have the wood and a pile of branches.
I just have no soil to take from elsewhere, and no machine...
I cannot help, but can help you precise what I think is necessary to understand your question.
(for when people come back from holidays!)
Do you mean if you have to do one upstairs, or is your problem to heat the 2 rooms?
(for heating 2 places, you will see my idea in a post I am going to open!)
Also, can you tell about the outside temperatures you will have and the bad or good insulation you have?
My stove in south spain will not need the same requirements as yours!!!
).
)
