I’m amused that the dental floss topic has come back to life after first posting it here four years ago! I’ve seen new ideas for plants I could grow and for products I could buy. It’s given me a lot to think about. Thank you everyone who has offered suggestions!

I don’t know if anyone wants an update on this project, but I know that sometimes I enjoy seeing updates on old threads.

I toiled over plans for my orchard, tried to internalize everyone’s advice here, and wrung my hands all last year until finally a couple huge loads of woodchips showed up on my property last fall. I had left my name with some local tree services, and that first load set the plans in motion!

With additional loads of woodchips, I ended up creating four rows, each about 8-12 inches deep, 8 feet wide, and 160 feet long. That was almost entirely done by hand! With wheelbarrows! Even if all the plants die, I got some much needed exercise.

So far I have planted about 20 fruit trees, a bunch of shrubs, and a bunch of berry bushes. I’ve sprinkled in some comfrey, goumi bushes, false indigo, mushrooms, daffodils, and chives. My list of plants that I still need to fill in the remaining gaps and understory is long.

With a late frost, deer/animal pressure, and some neglect in the watering department, I expected a lot more of the plants to die, but surprisingly almost everything that experienced damage bounced back. Overall, the growth has far outpaced the setbacks, sometimes shockingly so.

The great thing about getting a project started is that the momentum builds and soon concrete, pressing action items replace the neurotic wheels spinning in your head. I initially had struggled with choosing between a linear, orderly layout and a more meandering, wild layout. I ended up with the lines, which works well now since we have to mow between rows. The lines also help me remember where everything is located. However, 10 or 20 years from now when the trees are mature, some have become more dominant, and some have died away, I think I will let the meandering paths develop and let the lines erode away. Everything happens in slow motion, which is good, because I’m busy.

Over the summer I grew winter squash and melons on the woodchips between trees. I now have enough butternut squash, Seminole pumpkins, and candy roaster squash to fill a house, so that was fun.

I spent a long time stuck in an office job, miserable, reading posts on this site about other people’s projects. Starting my own project seemed unattainable for all the normal reasons: job, money, kids, time, location, etc. I’m still not living my dream life, but with compromises I feel satisfied in knowing that I am moving forward rather than staying stagnant and frustrated.

I found a new full-time teaching job with horrible pay, but I have health insurance, enough money to pay the bills, and a much more flexible schedule. The whole process of starting this orchard was and still is daunting. I need to figure out how to prune my trees, trellis some of my berries, make and spray compost tea, propagate some plants, and the list goes on. Whenever I get too overwhelmed I just remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect and I am making progress.

This website has been very helpful in giving me ideas and shaping the way I approach the development of my orchard. While everything I read about still seems like a swirling vortex of disconnected information in my mind, with applied hands-on practice the dots are starting to connect. I appreciate all the input I received last year.

Hi Eric. I don't have suggestions for other materials. I just wanted to say that if you do decide to go the cinder block route, you could always just own it and paint them crazy colors. If you have kids, let them paint designs all over them. Then it's an "art project" rather than a cheap way to make a raised bed.

Hi Davis. The market garden hand tool I've seen that works well for planting into cover crop residue does not exactly match the specifications you described. However you may find it to be worth checking out. It's called the Zilli jab seeder, and I found it on the Earth Tools website when I was researching crimper rollers just last night. You plant seeds one at a time by jabbing the ground, and it automatically reloads the next seed. It has a quart size hopper. That may be a little more labor intensive than what you're looking for.

I've had good luck soaking the cucumbers in ice water for several hours prior to pickling. For some reason they seem to absorb the water and firm up. Also make sure to cut a sliver off the blossom end so that it has no remnants of the blossom, which has enzymes that make pickles soft.

Hi Beau. You mentioned dye for textiles, but I've also heard of people using black walnut hulls as a natural hair dye. If you stuck it in fancy packaging with some directions there might be a market for it among people who are into natural beauty products.

Hi Ben. I used to work with a Chinese man who told me all the time that I needed to be eating bitter melon. He was so convinced that I needed bitter melon that he shared some of his seeds with me. He had been saving them for years in his backyard garden and claimed that his variety was much better than the ones you find in the grocery store. I grew them and, just like you, found them to be repulsive. I knew they were going to be bitter, but nothing quite prepares you for bitterness like that. I asked him how he prepares them, and he told me that he scoops out the seeds and core then slices them very thin. Then he sprinkles salt on them and lets them soak in water for 10-15 minutes. Supposedly soaking removes some of the bitterness. After that he adds them to pork stir fry where they are cooked at a very high heat for a short time.

I went home and tried preparing the bitter melon just as he said, and they were more palatable, although still very bitter. Unexpectedly I found that I came to enjoy them in my stir fry and almost craved having that small pop of bitter in there. Supposedly bitter melon is great for diabetes. I do have some blood sugar issues, so maybe he was onto something. I'm glad you reminded me about bitter melon. I need to go ask him for more seeds and actually save some this time.

I now work at a different job with a different Chinese man. We were talking about gardening a while back and I asked him if he was familiar with bitter melon. He said, "Oh yeah, you eat that in pork stir fry." So perhaps try it that way!

I have a theoretical question about a garden location for you guys!

I was just given a large amount of spoiled, unsprayed hay. I plan to lay it on the ground very thick, dig some holes in it, throw some soil/amendments in the holes, and plant my sprawling vines like squash and pumpkin in it. It’s a small, half-hearted, temporary garden. If it flops that’s fine. I just don’t have anywhere else to plant sprawling vines, so I’ll take my chances.

I have two choices of location for this single-summer garden. I have a flat field where half is covered in grass that is regularly mowed like a lawn, and half is a meadow covered in grass, oats, peas, clovers, wildflowers, and who knows what else.

Here’s my question: Do you think the squash and pumpkins have a better chance of surviving bugs and deer if the garden is exposed out on the mowed lawn, or hidden in the meadow?

Peter, "The Hand Sculpted House" lit a fire in me too. That is one of my favorite books, along with "One Straw Revolution."

To answer your question, having a college degree lets you work for other people. It buys you stability. If you did not have a clear passion (natural building, homesteading), then I would say it might be a good path for you. I've worked with many directionless people who were perfectly happy to come sit in their office all day and go home to watch TV while raking in that steady paycheck. It strikes me as odd, but it works for them.

You, on the other hand, have a fire burning in you to learn natural building and start a homestead. I can tell you from experience that if you run away from that passion and follow a more traditional path (college, salary job working for somebody else), that passion will continue to gnaw away at you until you finally cave in and do something about it. Either that, or it will slowly die, which is even worse.

But your question is about practicality, balancing what you're interested in with the very real need to earn money. By the way, that's wonderful that you have no debt and are good at living frugally. You're already doing great.

If you are interested in any state or federal government jobs, then I think the BA may be worthwhile. Unlike private companies, where you can weasel your way into a high ranking position based on (gasp) your knowledge and skills, of which it sounds like you have plenty, government jobs are highly prescriptive in their requirements and do not make exceptions. Most require a college degree. They will also determine your pay based on your years of experience calculated, once again, following a strict formula. My experience working in state government years ago was generally positive. It's very stable and predictable, you get decent benefits, and you're (in theory) serving the greater good. You could get a fun job in an environmental or fish & wildlife department. It would likely have to be full-time. On the downside, the inefficiency and apathy in government can drive you nuts.

If you're not considering a government job, then I don't think the college degree is worth it unless you're confident it will lead to a lucrative, well-paying job. No doubt, if you pursued a BA you would learn new things and gain some skills - a college degree is not as worthless as people make it out to be. However, a college degree is often not worth the investment of time and money as a learning experience. A college degree can be worth the time and money as a hoop to jump through if it lands you in a career you want (not likely based on your interests) or a high-paying job. With a high-paying job, if you continued to live frugally, you could potentially build your homestead up slowly over time, tinker with natural building on the weekends, then retire early and live your dream life (still frugally) maybe starting in your 40's. Delayed gratification sucks, but with that plan you're getting the best of both worlds, especially if you get your food-producing plants in the ground early and have years for them mature while you're still slaving away for a paycheck.

You may want to do some math. Suppose you can find a job now or cobble together enough side gigs that you earn $30,000 a year. Could you live on $20,000 and stash away $10,000 each year? Awesome. Over the next 15 years you will save $150,000 plus interest. Suppose you go to college for 3 years and net $0 during that time - no debt and no savings. Then you get a job that pays $50,000. For the next 12 years you live on $20,000 and save $30,000 each year. In the end you have saved $360,000 by the same age living at the same level of spending. Just crunching the numbers for this entirely hypothetical scenario, going to college makes more sense. You may want to do some research and look at various realistic scenarios in the same way so that you can weigh the cold, hard numbers against the enjoyment and satisfaction you would experience in each scenario.

I wish I had a clear answer for you, but what I can do is tell you about my own personal experiences having college degrees. Maybe seeing how it played out in real life for someone else could offer you some insight to help you make up your mind. Since the day I graduated, I've worked full-time in jobs that required at least a bachelors: four years in state government, seven years teaching at a public university, and now one year at a private organization. In general, my jobs have been pretty cushy and low stress. I've always had enough money, usually more than I need. I've gotten to interact with tons of wonderful, intelligent coworkers from all different backgrounds. I've learned a wide variety of skills, many of which I never would have learned if I were just doing my own thing and not being forced outside my comfort zone. I've gotten to travel for business trips. In fact, I just returned from Toronto last night, where I stayed in a fancy hotel and went out for drinks every night with very smart, kind people from all over the world, all on the company's dime. There are perks to working at a professional job that requires a college degree beyond just a better salary. Most importantly, though, I've gained an understanding of what makes the world run - board meetings, policy development, office politics, committees, memos, organizational hierarchy charts - mind numbing things that make you want to bang your head against the wall. However, understanding how the business/government world works puts you in a much better position to create change in the world if there's something you're passionate about.

The downside of these jobs is that they were not completely fulfilling. Even worse, I feel like a slave working 8 to 5 every weekday all year long with only two or three weeks of vacation time that gets eaten up by sick kids or dentist appointments. I, personally, have not had much success finding part-time jobs or jobs with flexible schedules that pay well and are intended for people with college degrees, but that could just be me. So I am trapped in the rat race of working a rigid full-time schedule and never having a chance to pause and reflect on the what the heck I'm doing. I look back at the last 12 years and feel like I mostly wasted my talents and extinguished my inner creativity. As long as I've been working, I've felt restless and daydreamed about running my own small farm, which was my dream long before I ever went to college. Yes, having a comfortable lifestyle has been nice, but in my opinion it has not been worth selling my soul.

Soon I will jump ship and start building the life I want, which is made much easier because of my college degrees. The reason is that I will be teaching online (about 10-15 hours a week) to make just enough money to cover the bills. That affords me the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes while I learn how to eke out a living doing the things I actually love. Without my college degrees, I would not have the luxury of being able to make a smoother transition from working for the man to working for me. Having a steady paycheck, even a small one, brings me peace of mind, which is important to me since I have children and a family to think about. It sounds like you may not be as tied to stability and predictability as I am, given your description of your years sailing, rock climbing, backpacking, etc., which is why I lean a little more toward not going back to college in your case. The only exception is - you mentioned looking at Sterling College. If you could get into the next round of the Wendell Berry Farming Program, it looks pretty amazing. I'm sure it's competitive.

Best of luck to you! When trying to make a difficult decision, I have two pieces of advice. First is to remember that no matter which path you take, you can always change your course, and you will always learn something. The second is to flip a coin and say "heads" means you go back to college. If it lands on heads and you feel disappointed, then maybe that's not what you really want to do. If it lands on heads and you feel relieved, then maybe that is what you want to do. I know that's kind of stupid, but it has worked for me before. Good luck to you!

I doubt the stars will align for anyone reading this thread, but I came across a hoosier cabinet in central Kentucky on Craigslist that appears to be in close to original condition, if not original condition. They didn't list a price - just that they need it gone by April 20th.

https://lexington.craigslist.org/grd/d/berea-reduced-must-go/6857980579.html

Hi Anthony. That sounds like a fun experiment! I have a couple questions for clarification:

1) You mentioned plural raised beds, then you talked about subdividing a single bed into 4 equal spaces. Does that mean you plan to make multiple of these subdivided beds for the experiment, or just one?
2) Within a 4-square bed, will the two test squares have the same amendments, or different amendments?

I only have three concerns. First, you need replication if you don't already plan on having it - multiple plants grown under the same conditions, not just a single radish under condition X, due to the variability of plants. I would want to see at least three radishes grown under condition X so that you can attribute their better (or worse) growth to the soil/amendments and not just the possibility that you got a freak radish. Perhaps that's already part of your plan if you're going to have multiple experiment beds or repeat the experiments. Second, I'd be worried that the amendments would affect the nearby control soil. I would suggest physically separating the test and control soil. Third, if you do multiple beds or repeat the experiment multiple times, I'd make sure the control and test plots have a mixture of orientations to the sun, wind, or any other environmental conditions. That is, I wouldn't always put the control plants on the side that gets all the wind or always put the test plants on the side that gets all the sun.

I hope you learn a lot from your experiment. I had considered doing a similar experiment in my own backyard this year, but I got overzealous and applied my amendments everywhere. Be sure to take pictures and make notes along the way!

Jeremy, I think this is a very interesting question to ask. I would also be curious to hear others' responses. I realize this is the large farm forum, but I will respond anyway despite not having a large farm. I have a small home vegetable garden in my backyard in an urban area. I grow food because I enjoy it and want my family to have more healthy fresh vegetables, not really to save money or make a profit. Here are the priorities that influenced my seed selections a couple weeks ago when I placed my seed order:

1. Familiarity - I've always grown tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, summer squash, and kale without many problems, so I just keep growing them.
2. Adapted to my growing region - I don't have time to fuss over plants, so I only grow things that thrive where I live.
3. Family preferences - I grow what my family likes to eat.
4. Space - With limited space, I can't grow the winter squash and other sprawling vegetables that I'd like to. I squeeze a few vines in on trellises.
5. Flavor - I usually prioritize flavor over productivity or resistance to an unlikely pest/disease.
6. Productivity - I want to maximize what I reap from my small space.
7. Variety - I squeeze in as many varieties as I can to keep things interesting.
8. Story - Whenever possible, I like to plant heirloom varieties that I know the history of, like "Aunt Betsy developed this bean in Madison County in the 1930s."

It's funny to think about all the priorities that battle it out in our brains when we choose what to grow, and we sometimes aren't even aware of it.

Blake, I love your website for Peaceful Heritage Nursery. I'm also located in Kentucky and currently planning a half-acre orchard / food forest in Lexington. Your website is the primary source I visit to get a quick summary of the pros and cons of each cultivar and learn about what conditions they need to thrive. Your plant descriptions give just the right amount of information, and I appreciate how you highlight what makes each variety special. I will likely be placing an order with you this coming fall as I start planting my first trees. Strangely, out of all the amazing trees and shrubs you sell, the product I'm most excited to try is the Chadwick tomato seeds. Its description sounds exactly like the tomato I've been dreaming of.

I watched your video last week. I must have found it on your fruit blog. I have never pruned apple trees before, so I found it helpful to see you describe the apple tree pruning process rather than having to read about it in a static book. I learned other things from the video, too, but the apple tree pruning is what stood out for me personally since that's something I need to learn about right now. Thanks for putting the information out there!

Victor, I appreciate you emphasizing that liberal arts are important, and that the point of education is not necessarily to get a job. There is nothing wrong with learning as much as you can for the sake of learning! I taught math and statistics, but my thinking was very much shaped by the courses I had to take in college that were not related to my major, like anthropology and architecture history. I think you and I would both agree that every field of study has intrinsic value. The friction comes from figuring out what the connection should be between higher education and the job market.

You also talked about showing others the good things that can be done within your community as a way of creating change, in addition to being active in changing policy. This is something I've been thinking about lately. I don't see a lot of people who straddle both of those worlds well. I see a big disconnect between the bearded guy in overalls who grows amazing beets but never leaves his farm and the person in local government who sits through endless board meetings with other people wearing suits and has good intentions, but lacks practical knowledge of what the beet-growing farmer needs to thrive.

My impetus for thinking about all this is that I'm currently transitioning from the business world to not quite homesteading, but something along those lines. I am realizing that by leaving the business world, I am cutting off some avenues of influence. Currently I work in an office with about 80 college-educated professional folks who lead pretty typical suburban lifestyles. These 80 coworkers are involved in churches and sports and neighborhood associations. Their influence extends far throughout our community if you think about it. Suppose I left some of my amazing produce in the break room and chit chatted with my coworkers about it. When they tasted the difference in produce that's grown in healthy soil, that could spark some eye-opening, attitude-changing conversations. But that's not what I'm going to do, because if I sit under those fluorescent lights for 40 hours a week, I'm not in my backyard growing the amazing vegetables. It's a Catch-22.

This thread is about millennials who are involved in permaculture. I think we've already established that there are some, but not many. We've established that many millennials were sold the lie that they had to go deeply in debt to get a college degree. So where are they now? I think a huge proportion of them are living their lives, mostly unfulfilled, in suburbia, working at meaningless office jobs that they got with their college degrees. They are driving their SUVs to Costco on the weekend to buy crap for their kids' lunch boxes in bulk. They are standing around with other miserable parents at a Chuck E Cheese birthday party making mindless chatter about whether their kids should take piano lessons or do gymnastics. They're buying the crappy overpriced plastic toys that their kids see advertised on YouTube. They think about wanting to eat healthier and live a more balanced lifestyle, but they don't know how to escape the consumerist hamster wheel they're running on. How do I know this? Because I work with these people, my kids go to school with their kids, and I kind of am one of these people (not 100%, but more than I'd like to admit). To me, these unfulfilled suburban millennials are a huge source of untapped potential. We just need permaculture enthusiasts to infiltrate their inner rings and gently show them another way of thinking and living (i.e. - not by preaching, but by sharing some delicious peaches or tomatoes and starting a conversation).

Dillon, I also wonder if there will be an overcompensating swing the other way against higher education. I mentioned it in a post way up near the top of the thread, but I recently left teaching at a university for many reasons, mostly that the university was being run as a business. Students and instructors were seen as commodities and treated as such. Actual learning was not the goal of the administration nor many of the students who just wanted their degree. I see a lot of people in our age group (millennials) and younger harboring feelings of resentment and bitterness toward college, which I completely understand as I share some of those feelings, but it also makes me sad. Higher education has its place in any society. I'm afraid we will throw the baby out with the bathwater and lose many of the good attributes of higher education as people turn away from it.

David up above mentioned that he loves Gen Z and that they have their act together. I have to agree. I started teaching at a university when I was 24, so basically I was teaching my fellow millennials. I stopped teaching at age 36, when I had reached the age of a fossilized dinosaur in my students' eyes. The shift I saw from millennials to Gen Z was the following: Gen Z is much more tolerant of people with differences. If you have blue hair, depression, and three gender categories, it's all good. They have much more realistic expectations of how little money they will earn and how hard it will be to eke out a living. Their low expectations border on pessimistic and self-defeating, but I think it's better to start out with low expectations and surpass them than to do the opposite, which is what many millennials have done. Gen Z does things on their own terms, like showing up late for class or turning in an assignment two weeks late and just expecting to get credit for it. This is absolutely maddening from the teacher's perspective, but I have to admit, they are laid back and lovable. I could go on, but I'll stop there. Obviously, as others have pointed out, there is much variation among individuals within a generation. I'm giving my own personal observations of the generation stereotypes.

I have enjoyed reading everyone's experiences, young and old. They give me hope. I think we will see a cultural shift toward a more sustainable lifestyle for the majority of people over the next generation. It will be painful, and I certainly don't expect folks to flood out of the city and live 100% self-sustainable, off-grid lifestyles, but there will be urban, suburban, and rural versions of positive changes.

Finally, James (the person who started this thread), it sounds like you have a very good head on your shoulders for being 23. I think you will be able to do the great things you wish to do.

Hi Kevin. I'm in central Kentucky (Lexington) and have two gooseberry bushes on the south side of my garden shed that do very well. They also get dappled shade from a nearby tree in the morning. I did not plant them, so I don't know if anything was done to the soil where they were planted over ten years ago, but the rest of our yard has clay in it. I wish I knew the variety. I know nothing about gooseberries, but since our weather and soil are similar, perhaps shade is the only difference.

...It just dawned on me that rabbits live under that shed. There's a good chance my gooseberries are getting a healthy dose of rabbit poop too.

Joel, you bring up a very important point:

My thought — that of someone older than yourselves who has been living the homestead way for many years — is that you’re starting with the advantage of theoretical knowledge of the soil food web. You’re not starting from the concepts, convictions, and habits of “chemical farming”.

The abundance of wise, often ground-breaking information available now is an enormous advantage over toiling away in the soil blindly, or worse, with only knowledge of chemical farming. While it can feel like information overload at times, and it can make you feel like you'll never learn it all, it can also save you from having 80 apple trees die in their first year. It can guide you to create the right infrastructure for your property before you shell out your hard earned money on plants and animals, thus setting you up for success.

Millennials may struggle to scrounge up enough capital to get started, but a penny saved is a penny earned, and using what you learn from others on this website (or elsewhere) about permaculture can save you thousands of dollars and hours in losses. Thanks for the reminder!

James, you asked if I have plans for my 1/3 acre urban yard and the 1 acre I have access to use. The answer is yes!

I always grow basic vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, kale, and cucumbers in my raised bed in my backyard. This year I have added another raised bed and plan to invest a lot more energy into composting and developing healthy soil, growing more cool weather crops, seed saving, and using the space more efficiently. I am also learning how to care for the apple tree, grapes, gooseberries, and blueberries in my yard. I have haphazardly pruned all but the blueberries in the past and occasionally added some soil amendments, but all of that was done without much research. None of those plants are as healthy and productive as they should be. I want to change that. I'm also going to be grafting several other apple varieties onto my apple tree. I've never tried grafting before and I'm very excited to see if it works.

On the 1 acre of my parents' property, I will be planting a food forest. As soon as it warms up I will be adding some amendments to the soil, doing a one-time till, and planting a cover crop. I will spray compost tea on it periodically. I haven't completely worked out the summer and fall plans. In late fall I will lay down woodchips and plant the first trees, selected to be hardy and disease resistant and well acclimated to my growing zone. Over the coming years I will fill in the understory and ground covers with as many plant varieties as I can get my hands on.

My ultimate goal is to spend more time outside, in the moment, not rushing to the next deadline; to teach my children where food comes from and how to be a good steward of nature; to bring some biodiversity back to my tiny piece of earth; to grow the most nutrient dense food possible for my family; to share excess with people who need it; to infect my fellow suburbanites with a passion for (or at least awareness of) sustainable, regenerative growing methods; and last on the list is generate some revenue from all this, although that is not a requirement.

I have learned so much about permaculture from this website, among other resources, and am very thankful that older, more experienced people share their knowledge so willingly. The internet is rich with helpful people, although like you, I feel physically isolated from others who share similar goals or interests, especially in my age range.

So James, what plans do you have for your farm this year?

I mailed in an order form for some seeds in mid-January, maybe around January 11th, and have not heard back yet either. I will update if I ever get any seeds.

Hi James, I am an old millennial. I was born in 1982, which I think is right on the cusp. I see very few millennials who are into farming, but that could just be the crowd I run with. I don't know anyone in my age group who is interested in agriculture, let alone permaculture, like I am. I meet people who like to talk about "chemicals in food is bad" and buy organic, which is a great start, but I don't know a single person who has heard of the soil food web (that I know of at least). There was a guy a year behind me in high school who now runs a successful no-till market garden and has a YouTube channel and podcast and all that jazz. He is the only person I am aware of from our age group living that kind of lifestyle. He says the biggest barrier that keeps young people from entering into an agrarian lifestyle is the cost of land. I would agree with that, but I also think that the lack of exposure to food production plays a huge role in keeping millennials from farming as well. You don't know what you don't know, right? If you've never seen a seed planted in the ground, if you have only seen food that appears in a shiny plastic container on a grocery store shelf, how would it ever occur to you to start growing food? And if you did decide to plant a little garden, surely you would first till it and then douse it with as much chemical fertilizer as you can because more equals better, and cover crops don't exactly pay for advertisements. I can't really blame millennials for their lack of participation in growing food, especially in a permaculture style way, if they have never been exposed to it.

I, personally, am still trying to escape the rat race and get into a permaculture based lifestyle. I went to college and grad school right after high school and have worked professional office jobs as a researcher and a college professor since then. This past year I couldn't take teaching anymore for a variety of reasons (I will not launch into a rant about the current state of education), so I went back to a research-based office job, even though all I have ever wanted to do is farm. I just assumed that farming was never an option for me. I felt huge pressure from many directions to "prove myself" in society through education and in holding a professional job, all of which occurred in an urban environment. I don't regret all that I've learned and the experiences that I've had, but after 12 years of being a "professional," I don't really give a shit anymore about society's opinion of me. I am putting a concrete plan in place to leave my full-time office job, transition to teaching part-time online for a reliable (albeit much smaller) income, and throw myself into growing as much of my family's food as I can. I live on a 1/3 acre plot in the city but have at least an acre available to me on my parents' property 30 minutes away. Their 10-acre property, by the way, is something I would never be able to afford. That goes back to the earlier point that the cost of land is a huge barrier for people who want to get involved with agriculture.

I have an insatiable desire to learn everything there is to know about the interconnected nature of soil, plants, and wildlife, and to develop skills to restore a biodiverse environment while growing nutrient dense food. My library of books on soil, compost, orchards, nutrition, herbs, etc., grows weekly. My software developer husband (lovingly) calls it my stack of crazy hippy books. To be honest with you, I have no idea where this passion comes from. I grew up in suburbia, although I am only one generation removed from an agrarian lifestyle. My parents both grew up in rural Appalachia growing most of their food, churning their own butter, slaughtering pigs on the kitchen table, etc. Perhaps my limited exposure to that lifestyle through their stories, and the fact that I see that way of life disappearing, is what drives me. I think other millennials are two or three generations removed from that style of living and thus lump it in with fairy tales and a vague notion of "back in the day." In my opinion many millennials have their heart in their right place but lack the tools, knowledge, and access to break away from modern society. They care about the environment, they don't want nasty pesticides on their food, they want workers to earn living wages, they want to buy responsibly sourced products, and they don't want to work for evil corporations. At the same time, they typically don't have any idea of how food is grown AND they like the comfort of a reliable paycheck AND they don't even see an agrarian lifestyle as being a possibility. It's just so foreign to modern culture. That's pure speculation from being a millennial and from my dealings with other millennials, though. Take it with a grain of salt.

Sorry for launching into an essay on millennials as if I am some sort of expert. I am not. I'm glad to see another millennial on here, and I'm happy that you're happy with way things are going in your life on your farm. I consider every story I hear from a young person who's making it in natural style farming to be breath of fresh air, so thank you for making your presence known!

Today's post is brought to you by the letter G.

Gooseberries: I moved into my house in the fall 9 years ago. It has a couple gooseberry bushes in the backyard. I had never seen gooseberries before and knew nothing about them. I associate the gooseberries with becoming a mom because they were ripe and ready for picking a week after I brought my first baby home from the hospital. Every year when they ripen I think back to my first week of parenthood.

Gourds: When I was in fourth grade my parents let me pick two plants for our garden from the seed catalogue for the first time. This continued through my senior year of high school. I always picked the strangest plants I could find - loofah sponges, giant sunflowers, white pumpkins, you get the idea. Anyway, that first year I chose gourds because I couldn't believe that you could actually grow a container, and I was fascinated by all the shapes they came in. I haven't grown gourds in a long time, but every time I see them they make me appreciate the love of gardening that my parents instilled in me. I actually need some birdhouses - maybe it's time to plant some birdhouse gourds.

Thank you guys for all these suggestions. This is giving me some floss ideas to investigate.

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to leave a warning on lupin for anyone with a peanut allergy. Lupin can cause a cross-reaction in people who are allergic to peanuts, so if you grow them, please share that warning with anyone you share lupin with for consumption. I had hoped to plant some lupin in my own yard, but my son is very allergic to peanuts, so I had to cross them off my list. Here is a warning out of Canada:

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-labelling/allergen-labelling/information-canadians-peanut-allergy-concerning-lupin.html

This is a great article. If their work is along the same lines of your work, then you do fun research! As a visual person who makes a lot of graphs for research papers, I really liked how Figure 4 broke down the contributions that pH, carbon, land use, and other factors made toward various bacterial measures. Between that graph and this sentence - "...soil properties, notably the pH and texture, appeared to be the main drivers of soil bacterial community composition and distribution at the European scale." - I came to realize how much pH, carbon, and texture affect the bacteria in the soil. I knew that these were important components of soil, but I hadn't considered how they affect the bacterial communities before. Thanks for sharing!

This is probably too far out of the way, but Berea, Kentucky comes to mind.

There is a store near me in Frankfort, Kentucky, called The Woolery (https://woolery.com). They sell linen fiber (they call it flax). Next time I'm in Frankfort I'll swing by, pick some up, and see if I think it has any potential. If it doesn't work as dental floss, I'd still have fun trying to spin it into yarn. I talked to a worker there on the phone. She said that out of all the fibers they sell, she suspects the flax would work the best as floss. If it actually works I'll probably plant some. Thanks again for the suggestion!

Ooh, good suggestion. I did not know anything about linen before researching it just now. Very interesting!

Yesterday I read an article about how Oral B Glide dental floss is coated in PFASs (think Teflon) that makes the dental floss slippery. A recent study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-018-0109-y) in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology found a link between using this floss and the presence of PFASs in the body. It made me so mad because I am very careful about examining the ingredients in all the healthcare products I use, but I had never even considered evaluating the ingredients in dental floss. I was making my own soap and lotion and deodorant, only to find out that I've been flossing my teeth with a carcinogen.

Today I've been thinking about alternatives to store bought dental floss. Obviously I could use a different brand, but then I went down the rabbit hole of wondering why do I need all that plastic packaging? Why am I putting gobs of string in landfills every year? Why am I spending money on SKINNY STRING? I don't know why I've never questioned it before.

So now I am wondering if there is a plant you could grow in your yard that would consistently produce long, thin fibers. I figure a person could coat it in beeswax if needed. Then after you floss, you could simply toss it in your compost pile or even just your yard. Optimally this plant would not require excessive processing to turn into floss, and would produce consistently thin fibers. Does anyone have any ideas?

Now you've piqued my interest. I'd also like to hear if fire logs can be made efficiently in a way that is worth the time and effort, as there is an over-abundance of cardboard and paper in most places. You'll have to post your findings if you end up experimenting with it this summer. Hopefully someone else with more experience will chime in.

I'm curious to hear the answers you get, Ryan. I work in an office where the paper waste is ridiculous. Every time you print something you get a blank sheet on top with your name. I'd be curious to find out if you could turn paper into fire logs using a press as you described. At the same time I wonder if turning the paper into fire logs is better or worse for the environment than recycling it. I know nothing about how paper is recycled.

Hi, Eric. I currently have a composite material similar to 5/4 decking around my raised beds and like it a lot. It looks natural-ish and has held up well over the last 5 years. With that being said, I think if I were in your position I would be inclined to scope out any salvage material stores in your area or the free section of Craigslist to see if you can intercept a useful material from heading to the dump. You may find something unexpected that could be re-purposed to do the job and save money at the same time. Or you may find nothing. Since you don't seem terribly picky about the material you use I think it's worth a try.

Jocelyn, I don't know if you do any juicing, but homemade crackers are a good place to sneak in some of the pulp that's leftover after juicing vegetables. It adds fiber and is generally destined for the compost pile anyway.

Hi Ken. I have made vanilla extract twice. The first time my vanilla beans were plump and fragrant. The vanilla extract turned out great. The second time the beans were dry and hard to cut. The vanilla extract was noticeably less flavorful. Luckily you've got time to see how yours turns out before summer. If by March the vanilla extract seems to weak, then you could order some more beans and toss them in then.

Eric, I read through your wood chip adventures and am glad to see that you're getting good results! I hope you see a large number of red caps this spring. Do you plan to eat the mushrooms at all, or are you just interested in them for composting? It's nice to see someone else go through the experience of figuring things out as they go. I will take what you've learned and apply it when I start incorporating fungus into my orchard. Now go fix your neglected orchard up again! (And try not to get a 26th kidney stone in the process.)

Trace, your method for developing a meandering path sounds very effective in creating an inviting space. When I was an architecture student years ago (spoiler alert: I switched majors) I'd stare at my blank paper in frustration for hours while my classmates tinkered away on their projects. My studio instructor told me the best way to get a creative project going was to just start with something - anything, even a scribble - and then start adding, subtracting, and editing. That advice has helped me in all creative endeavors since. That sounds like what you're doing by planting tree guilds in random spots, expanding them outward, and seeing where things go. I'm sure it will turn out great. A project that evolves organically is almost always more intriguing and has more layers to it than a forced intellectual design. I've just got to decide if I want a right-brained, "live and let live" style orchard (to use your phrase) with winding paths, or a more predictable, controlled, straight-lined, left-brained orchard. The organically evolving right-brained design sounds pretty appealing...

Duane, thanks for the link to the videos. There are a lot of resources in Kentucky coming out of the woodwork that I knew nothing about. Very helpful stuff!

Like you guys, I take being weird or eccentric as a compliment. Maybe I'll get a little water gun and start squirting the eye rolls I get from my family.

John, yes I plan to plant some native fruit trees, although I hadn't considered using them as trap plantings for pests. What a cool idea. I had looked at Kentucky's Division of Forestry tree order form before (http://forestry.ky.gov/statenurseriesandtreeseedlings/Documents/Seedling%20Order%20Form%2018-19%20Season.pdf). They have one or two varieties I might be interested in. That's a good idea to look at neighboring states. I hadn't even considered that.

Eric, I have no idea why I called you Evan in my last post - sorry about that. I can see how having trees in rows would be easier to maintain just based on your use of poles and tarps. Decisions, decisions...

So much good information.

Greg, thanks for the overview of bio-char. Your description definitely demystifies it for me. I will take your advice and incorporate bio-char when mulching in the future. Thanks!

Kamaar, I had not heard of John Kitsteiner. His website does look useful as he is located in a similar climate. After some digging I saw that he is now in Tennessee, although he did mention spending time in Kentucky. Still, lots of useful stuff on his website about permaculture in a temperate climate, so thanks for the reference. My orchard is for home use only, at least that's the plan. I'd like to preserve as much as possible through a solar dehydrator, canning, and freezing, and give away excess to friends, family, and the food banks, but if it ever got to a point where it was producing an exorbitant amount I would not be opposed to selling some. That might be a good mini-business for my kids when they're in high school. My primary goal for now is to breathe some life into this land, produce food for my family, enjoy time outside working with my hands, and get my children involved in gardening. We currently live on a 1/3 acre on a busy road in the middle of Lexington, which has a population of over 300,000. The 10 acre property where I will be planting the orchard is in the rural southern part of the county, about 25 minutes away from us. Living in the city and working an office job is about to drive me crazy. This isn't the life I want for me or my kids, so I'm doing everything I can to get us interacting with nature until we can maybe build a house out there, finances willing. In terms of wildlife pressure, there are plenty of dreaded deer. At this point they avoid that part of the property, but I have no doubt they will discover it as soon as anything tasty is in the ground. We also have groundhogs, moles, voles, raccoons, possums, birds galore - the usual. I will definitely check out the YouTube videos from Edible Acres. Thanks for that reference, too!

Evan, I love your idea to mow the grass as short as I can and then sow the seeds for the cover crop right on top if the clippings aren't too thick. That seems the least disruptive to the soil. I think I will use a mix of nitrogen fixers and nitrogen sponges, as you suggest, including crimson clover, daikon radish, and others, and I appreciate your warning about hairy vetch's sprawling tendencies. That's good to know. The way you described the benefits of carbon in soil and how you might sparsely add some corn gets my creative juices pumping. Now that I'm getting an understanding of the big picture of prepping the soil I feel a lot more confident about experimenting with various plants like corn, buckwheat, beans, or any others this summer. When it comes time to kill the crop I've got a few tools at my disposal, as well as the means to purchase some that are on the cheaper side. My husband, my 8-year-old son, and I can do quite a bit of labor by hand (I'm sure my 5-year-old daughter would help for a few minutes before picking some lovely flower arrangements for us). I also have a push mower, a riding mower, and easy access to a tractor that has a mowing attachment. It sounds like the tractor might be the way to go.

I will start shopping for seeds soon. Next on my list is actually designing the layout. I understand the whole idea about vertical layers of tall trees, shorter trees, shrubs, and ground covers. I've read about various types of plants that serve all different functions and plan to incorporate as many varieties as I can partly by mimicking what others have done and partly by fun experimentation. But when it comes to actually drawing up a plan for the paths and trees, I hit a roadblock. Some options I'm considering are plain old rows of trees with a walking path between each row. I've also seen a pattern that goes tree row, nitrogen fixing bush row, tree row, path, repeat. And then there's the interesting looking designs with winding paths based more on circles than lines. I like those because they look softer, more like something nature would create, and are probably more intriguing to walk through. However, I wonder if they make maintenance or harvesting more difficult. Does anyone have any insight on a good layout for a 30-40 tree orchard?

Thanks for your informative feedback, Eric. I will have to read up on bio-char sometime. I don't foresee myself learning about it in the immediate future just because I have so many other thoughts swirling around in my head at the moment.

I have lots of questions about the crimson clover and daikon radish process. Brace yourself.

First, I have to battle the existing grass that was planted this last summer. It's still new, so it's not incredibly thick, but it most definitely covers the ground. How would you recommend killing it off? Perhaps black plastic for a few weeks? I don't like the idea of creating waste, especially plastic, but that might be something I could repurpose if it didn't get too torn up. I also could easily borrow a tractor and till the soil.

Second, how early could I plant the crimson clover and daikon radish? The little reading I've done about crimson clover mostly talks about planting it in the fall.

Third, would you recommend including other seeds in the mix, like oats or peas or hairy vetch?

Fourth (I told you - lots of questions), at what point do I cut the clover and radishes down? It seems like the radishes would have gone to seed and died long before the fall, and I don't know what clover does over an extended period. My understanding with green manure is that you cut it down just before it goes to seed. My life would be easier if I could just plant the crimson clover and daikon radishes in early spring and not touch it again until Fall, but I feel like there would need to be some interim mowing and replanting somewhere in there.

Fifth, I'm going to let you off the hook with a fifth question because this is getting a bit lengthy :)

Thanks, Trace. You can tell I know nothing about bio-char, ha ha.

Thanks for your follow-up on the corn, S Bengi. How do you go about turning dried corn into bio-char? Do you just put it in a pile and burn it, then spread it out over the field?

Ha ha, Eric, feel free to obsess over my orchard! Then I won't be alone in my obsession. I've talked to a few friends and family about the details, but their eyes glaze over. Plus, the few people around me who garden or who have lived on farms are only familiar with the standard chemical based, tilling, mono-culture style of growing. I don't have anyone to get input from in person.  

I really like your suggestion of planting crimson clover and daikon radish first, mowing it down, and then sowing in the dutch white clover and sheep's fescue mix. That sounds much less labor intensive than sheet mulching or trying to use corn as a green manure. Do you think it would be a good idea to bury some logs and branches in the paths, almost like a lazy hugelkultur, to provide food for fungus before I start planting the crimson clover and daikon?