C. Letellier

Posted an utube link that just seemed to glorify NL tractor attachments.

@Morfydd St. Clair - Thanks for the links.  Some great info!  I currently have a tomato plant in a pot that has spectacularly failed to produce fruit, but it has plenty of leaves.  I will experiment with them in the kitchen along the lines in your article.  Exciting!

I'm not sure how Milorganite, being made from Milwaukee sewage sludge, could actually be truly organic and healthful.  I'm sure it passes the organic rules but there's a lot of stuff dumped down the drain that could maybe possibly end up in that stuff.

ABC ACRES has a few descriptive videos about growing trees from a cider mill, just like mentioned earlier.
They plant them thick in a furrow then move them before they set in..

We let the small plants grow in our lawn like wood sorrel and other small wild flowers that pop up here.  The resident gopher tortoises like to munch on them.  

What we've planted on purpose in our yard are rain lilies (fairy lilies).  We mostly have pink, but yellow and white ones come up too every once in a while.  My mother-in-law had the pink ones all over her back yard and they were lovely intermixed with the grass.  When we moved in our current house, I started planting them and I still spread the seeds all over the place.  

They do well being mowed with everything else and do well when we have dry times.  St. Augustine grass is what we have in our yard.  The lily leaves and the grass blades are very similar in shape and size, so you don't notice the lilies until they bloom, which is pretty cool.  One day, green grass.  Next day BOOM!....green grass and pink flowers everywhere.

I've bending it for 7 yrs with no damage.

Hi, everyone! We've been putting off really figuring out our laundry situation at the homestead because every time I've tried something the clothes ended up more dirty than when I started (mostly because there wasn't a clean environment to do it all in). But now, with the coronavirus pandemic, it doesn't seem worth the risk to go to the public laundromat, so we have extra motivation. We don't have a washer or dryer or well. We have a rainwater catchment system, an extra bathtub and buckets outside, and a scavenged mop-wringer that we put on top of a bucket to help both with washing and wringing dry. We have a greywater drip irrigation system that just connects the bathroom tub and sink to one of the gardens, with a long sock filter. Sometimes we'll pour water from other sources down the greywater standpipe that's just past the filter (we put a basic drain screen on top of the standpipe mouth), and that's what we'd do with the wash and rinse water.

I have Biokleen and Ecos laundry detergents, and my first instinct is to use the latter based on research I've done and posts here. But my partner is still leery of putting anything we don't know all the ins and outs of into the garden we get most of our food from, even very diluted, and that's understandable. Instead he proposes we use either a weak and diluted hardwood ash lye we've made with our collected rainwater or a more Pompeii fuller-inspired product created by dripping urine rather than water through the hardwood ash. The latter would both add the cleaning and whitening powers of urine and also turn the greywater into a good fertilizer, right? But at the moment, I feel more comfortable with the former than the latter because he did a load of his laundry using the latter a few weeks ago and reeked of piss afterwards. He says that's because he got a little over-excited and added extra piss during the soaking... Still, I'd like him to do another test of that system using his own clothes or rags or something before I wash my clothes (selfish, I know) or our sheets and towels in it. If I use the former, I'd put a little vinegar in the rinse water (just like I usually do at the laundromat) to help get all the lye out and re-neutralize everything before putting it in the garden. (Our soil here is quite alkaline. Our rainwater is slightly acidic.)

What do folks think? Which washing product -- a) Ecos laundry detergent, b) weak and diluted hardwood ash lye, or c) urine and hardwood ash lye -- would 1) get the clothes clean, 2) leave them smelling least/best, and 3) be best to irrigate (and fertilize?) the food garden? Thank you!

Is there any way to overwinter carrots without a coldframe? The wild ancestor of carrot, Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) has no problem overwintering in the soil where I live without Winter protection, so I was hoping I could just bury the carrots in a thick layer of leaves and straw over winter and harvest the roots as needed. I have yet to successfully accomplish this process since leaf and straw mulch tends to blow away if there is nothing holding it in place. Winds tend to be high during Winter in my part of Ohio, so it is not uncommon for the mulch to be blown off before the end of Winter. Usually, by the Middle of march, most of the carrots left in the ground from last year have turned into mush from frost damage.

Well I finally broke down and bought a scythe that was built for me. That was at the beginning of summer 2019. It is as light as a feather.  Way lighter than any other scythe I’ve ever tried.  So Jasmine maybe this would be for you?  Check out https://scytheworks.ca/
I’m still adjusting to using a lighter model. It is a work of art. I am also learning the art of peening.

Bump.

Looking for a short-term transitional solution.  If it's true that "
"Newer vehicles will run of a mix of up to 50% ethanol mixed with gasoline without any modifications.  They don't have to be designated as flex fuel vehicles.  There is nothing special added to make them work that way.  It is the computer controlled engine management system that does the alterations in engine timing." as was posted earlier in this thread a few years ago, then I imagine we could drive by the E85 station if we have a little more than half a tank left and fill the rest of the tank with e85.  BUT would need to keep careful track of whether our last refill was the E85 or regular...I am _not_ the most organized person in the world

Other permaculture strategies that come to mind:

--use magic genie who will grant one wish for an electric car or a hybrid pluggable car
--use magic genie who will grant one converter kit that can work on a Honda HRV even though that is not compatible with the Honda HRV
--cut out the middle-person and simply use magic genie wishes for transportation directly

While I'd love to get into the ins and outs of distilling my own gas, and more power to anyone who can do this, I am simply looking at this time to continue to cut my carbon footprint for 2020.  

Side note--I am now reading that new ethanol-generation processes can use cellulose--so wood waste, agricultural waste, etc., could be used.  (source was wikipedia, I believe).  This is new in the last couple of years.  It makes much more sense than growing sugar cane to make alcohol, and you could also put the really non-edible food waste to use (ie stuff that's too toxic even for chicken feed or composting, or maybe sewage??)  

Long term, I think the real answer is "appreciate where I am more so I don't want to get in a vehicle and go somewhere else," and "appreciate who I'm near more so I don't feel the need to to elsewhere to get my emotional, social, cultural, intellectual stimulation/needs met" but this is a long-term shift.  Medium-term, electric cars.  Short-term, magic wand for the HRV? biodiesel it even though that does wear down the engine way faster, I'm told (Ben Falk said he used to do biodiesel and no longer does because of the wear on engines).

Thanks for any input!

I quite like Lee Reich's idea of "Lawn Nouveau" which he mentions about halfway down here:  http://www.leereich.com/2012/10/cooler-weather-and-moister-conditions.html


Essentially it's mowing pathways through tall grass, with an artistic effect.  

We did indeed try it in the Kleingarten when we had only the push mower.  Frankly, though, the neighbors were grumpy enough about other messiness that it makes sense to just mow everything short which makes the garden look 1000% tidier.  And with the battery-powered mower it's an hour of work as opposed to the days of weeding I'm always behind on.  I figure 1) the lawn was here when we got here, 2) we're not watering, adding chemicals, or using much petroleum to maintain it, and 3) we're slowly planting out and expanding new beds and reducing the lawn.  Most of the gardens along our path have moss pushing out the grass (that side is heavily shaded by street trees) and I'm so jealous!

For a larger lawn it would be really lovely, and kids and dogs would be as happy to play in tall grass as on short, aside from soccer games.

Peony Jay wrote:Sea buckthorn.  Yum!
http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Hippophae+rhamnoides

You can find other teas here.
https://www.umiteasets.com/tea-leaves/yellow-tea.html

Yum!, I like Sea buckthorn too.  Few year passed, how about the tea tree right now?

I grew the same green onions for like 5 plus years, maybe 8 years - Just gave em haircuts starting in like February here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  Most I started from the root end of store-bought green onions.  And they were going fine until I had to put a ton of dirt on them for a pipe trench.  (Funny how my asparagus grew right thru the dirt!)

Scott Billups wrote:Hello all. I love this thread.

I have 6-acres of land that I would like to add soil to. Wood chips are free to me, but how to turn the pile?

I was wondering if anyone has ever layed-down a tarp on the ground, with ropes & pulleys in surrounding trees, added wood chips and other additives, and then rolled the pile back-n-forth to turn it?

Am I crazy? Is a good pile of chips *way* too heavy to tumble in a tarp?

Thanks everyone.


-Scott

Scott,
Yes this sounds crazy - i love the ideas stream, but tarps wear and tear fairly easily from heat and moisture (formed under a pile of wood chips for sure)
So I ask, why turn it at all ? Why pile it up? The chips should be spreadable as they are shouldn't they? It certainly is easy to pull weeds out from bark gardens, fungi love the wood decaying (mmm mycorrizal action) and if it is thick enough you can plant straight into it. Also the rough nature would be great if you need to add lime, dolomite etc for balancing the soil, just sprinkle, sprinkle on and the powders wont glug up in a layer.

Stephanie NewComer wrote:I’m currently growing 10 apple trees in my kitchen. Waiting until they’re a few feet tall before they go outside. They are currently a foot or less. Jonagold, ambrosia, golden and pink lady. Also growing 2 orange trees. Seeds came from fruit we ate and purchased from the farmers market.

FYI some fruit purchased from you run of the mill grocery store will never produce fruit because the growers treat them so others can’t grow from them.

Your little trees will grow, and some of them may be fruitful.  But seed-grown trees will not be true-to-type to the parent apple.  Well over 90% of apples grown from seed are really bad.  Birds may still eat them, as might other animals like pigs, but rarely will you get anything close to the parent fruit.

However, occasionally you do get a winner.  You mention Ambrosia.  That variety was a discovered down in a ravine growing close to an orchard in British Colombia.  A farmer was clearing out volunteer apple trees and other brush that was growing down in this ditch below his farm and he was just about ready to take a chain-saw to one of the trees when he reached up and picked one of the apples off the tree.  It tasted fantastic.  There were only 4 apples left on the tree.  He picked them all, took them home, and shared them.  Everyone loved them.   He went back and marked the tree so that he wouldn't cut it down, and that winter he pruned it for production.  The next year he had a great crop off that tree—great apples, high brix levels, very little blind wood or bitter pit . . . a great little tree.

So they grafted a ton of new trees off that mother tree and started growing them for production.  With good root stock and standard growing conditions, they realized that they'd found a winner.  They named it Ambrosia and started to sell graft wood to other growers under an exclusive ownership agreement.  The apple grew in popularity and everything went great until one guy decided to stop paying royalties to the original family.  Other People violated the growers agreement and now there are all kinds of lawsuits about protecting the Ambrosia variety.  But it's one of the most profitable apple varietals in the world, and it was discovered growing wildly of to side of an orchard.

Mark Shepard is calling for American school children to plant seeds (like you have done), with the hypothesis that if millions of children planted a couple of seeds each, and those trees were allowed to grow until their fruit could be tested/tasted, America would be able to discover a bunch of new varieties.  

Best of luck with your seed-grown experiment.  I hope that at least one of those trees turns out to be eatable.  If not, apple is a great wood for smoking BBQ, and any living tree is good for the soil that surrounds it.

I do enjoy this topic very much....
and I don't want to argue about arguing...
and no disrespect to Dr. Novella, but....

I have read (and reread and reread) Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People.

That book could be written by almost any well-meant grandpa who wanted you to be happy in life. It's just chock-full of good, solid observations about human behavior, feelings, needs, wants, shame, anger, lashing, loving--just an all you can eat buffet of human emotion, observed from arm's length as a casual bystander.

And one of the things he said that will always stick with me (and there are a LOT of them) was:

                    "You can never win an argument."

...because when you lose, you lose--and when you win, you lose. Because you can never beat someone out of their good will.

Cranking it up a notch, have you ever heard of sleeping on a horsehair filled mattress? Still have one to sleep on in Hungary Europe.. Following...

Dave Miller wrote:For a truly awesome garden experience, plant some black oil sunflower bird seed.  It is super cheap ($25 for 50 lbs.) and there is nothing like a big patch of sunflowers in bloom.  Then when they go to seed, the birds hang out in them well into the winter.

did that last year in Nov.  Eating them in my apt.  Learned sunflower oil seed is 95% of production.  These seeds meant for sunflower oil, or bird feed.  Generally the stripped ones is what we eat.

What do you do with the left over ginger? Do you just add it to the next batch or chuck it?

Excellent example of the effect of terroir on food flavor. I ate this in Spain (stayed with local family in Barcelona), and it was so so very good. Sliced exceedingly thin and wrapped around local melon. Oh my. Not meant to be eaten as a ham, but more as a very thinly sliced delicacy. A brand available at igourmet costs $16 per TWO OUNCE package. Here's the description, FYI:

Jamon Iberico by Fermin
From the Fermin family comes this exceptional, thinly-sliced Iberico ham. In the dehesas, an indigenous forest of southwestern Spain, the Iberico pig, a descendent of the wild boar, still wanders free. Popularly known as the Pata Negra or Black Hoof, the Iberico roots for wild herbs, fallen acorns, and edible roots. The resulting meat is swirled with high levels of flavorful natural fats, for which this pig has gained notoriety. Savor this exquisite product with a fine red wine, good Manchego or Zamorano, and artisan bread.

Acorn-fed iberico pork has been named to Slow Food's "Ark of Taste" (Spain). www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/ark-of-taste-slow-food/acorn-fed-pure-iberian-pig/

Once upon a time, all our food was raised naturally, with traditional skill and artisanal processing, and I believe, it all tasted this amazing. The more I raise my own food in a healthy ecosystem, offering a diversity of nature's wild feeds rather than industrial foodstuffs, the more everything I raise tastes as fantastic as this.

Found this topic while doing a search for something else, but figured I'd give a less "evil" example of the same scenario for anyone interested.

There was a video where a real eye clinic was the setting and the following experiment occurred:

1) There were 10 people who started off sitting in the waiting room, 9 of which were placed there for the experiment so they would be considered the controlled variable. 1 person was a real patient who was unaware of the experiment, the random variable.

2) A noise would come on once every few minutes, and the 9 people in the room all stood up briefly and then sat down. The 1 random variable person also began to stand up eventually.

3) They removed the original 9 controlled variable people via being called to "see the doctor", so it was just a process of slowly removing all the controlled variables and bringing in other real patients(random variables) 1 at a time to view the behaviour.

4) Just like the banana experiment, the people who didn't know what was going on would stand up when the noise came on - based purely on what they observed others doing. It should be noted that most didn't stand up right away, but after observing it a few times.

5) Eventually all 10 random variable people were standing up when the noise came on, and none of them knew the reason why they were doing those actions when the noise came on.

The interesting thing in this experiment is there is no physical punishment for not conforming, as it was all mental stress and likely associated with peer-pressure or some internal fear of being ostracized. (herd-mentality)

---

The eye clinic and the banana experiment have different motives, but they can be boiled down to a failure in macro-rationalization and awareness, because of an override of some ancient tribal-like(?) mechanism we still hold onto on a subconscious level.

I'm very curious about what happens with the 2nd real patient that enters the office, and if that is always the result if the scenario is repeated. For example if someone asked "why are we doing this?" and the answer was "I am not sure", would every individual still conform and stand-up anyways? I personally can't see that happening. If that is the case that there are "free-thinkers", you could then potentially derive a theory about individuals evolving to override the seemingly innate decision to side with herd-mentality as a way to increase efficiency(time or energy usage) which may increase potential for survival. Though I'm going well-passed what I have knowledge about by coming up with such a hypothesis, but it's really fascinating to think about.

Devin this is something that fascinates me.  Nomadic culture (hunting, herding, roaming) is the oldest human culture.  With modern inventions like solar panels it would be possible to make the nomad culture a very pleasant existence.  

Huge advantage of nomad culture is that they don't have to buy land.  So they avoid bond payments and rent.  When they have their own animals to ride (like http://www.3mules.com) they have dignity.  Camel nomads actually don't even need food because they can drink the milk of their camels.  So they avoid another expense that the rest of us suffer from.  With goats they can make cheese to sell, which gives them money for the few extras they need to buy.  I know Australian aborigines have adopted wild Australian camels for transport (http://event.icebergevents.com.au/uploads/contentFiles/files/2016-SUCON/Alex%20Knight.pdf)

The RV culture in America are real nomads, but they need to spend money on fuel.  If they used horses, mules, donkeys or camels they would avoid the cost of fuel, for real independence.  3mules comments that his mules eat "very well" on the road.  If the hobos added the same animals they could also enter a lifestyle with diginity.  Solar panels then provide electricity and enable them to use mobile phones, Internet and GPS.

The hobos seem to have it so good that they are not forced to add animals.  But it is nice when they do.  

Do the squatter punks have some sort of website where they communicate?  It would be fascinating to know if they used animals for free transport.

Rejuvenating this post.

I grew competition pumpkins, tomatoes, etc, for some time. The pumpkins were the ones that had to be harvested with a forklift and carved with a chainsaw... that said.

In competition growing there is a lot of controlled and hand pollination. You want to know what genetics went into the offspring. This means bagging blooms, Q-tips and playing 'bee' yourself. (mostly for the pumpkins...) I would sew 'bloom bags' of sheer curtains and use yarn as the drawstring. Night before the blooms were set to open I would select the male and female blooms that I wished to use for the cross (usually 3 male to one female, they did look different) and bag them so they couldn't be visited by an early morning sneaky bee and contaminate the pollen. Next morning early I would get out there, pick the male blooms still in bag, and take them to where the lady was, unbag the males and take the petals off, then unbag the female and pollenate. Three blooms of pollen meant a good pollination which was necessary for a large well shaped fruit. Then tie the female shut with a bit of yarn and rebag her. In a few days it could be seen that the pollination had taken and the base of the flower was swelling, so the bag could come off and the petal part would detach, leaving the developing fruit. These bags were easily big enough for me to stick my fist into and came past wrist to about halfways down my lower arm. (scale of those pumpkins and plants and all related parts are immense).

For tomatoes I made smaller ones. Also I would pick off the side blooms of the cluster so only the biggest one or two was left. Bag. When bloom day came, same thing, either pick bloom from father plant to pollenate mother plant bloom, or use q-tip to transfer the pollen. With the bloom protected you got the full pollen load which helps in pollenating. After pollination rebag for a few days. Tomatoes do not have sex-oriented blooms. Later in season I could reuse the pumpkin bloom bags (easy to swish clean and quick to dry) to bag fruit to prevent the grasshoppers from getting to them before I did, especially on fruit I was going to use for seed.

You can grow for greatness or grow for harvest with tomatoes, and the basic care for the first two months is pretty much the same, then you make the choice and train the plant appropriately. Setting fruit and letting it go to seed ripe will drop your productivity of the vine, so do pay attention there.

Peppers, I have also bagged and q-tipped, and  if I bring some in, if they bloom, I can q-tip and harvest at least one round indoors over winter. Usually plants brought in will ripe off about December, bloom, and if pollenated will give me another crop about April. I can set that bloom as well, and take them out for an early season harvest. Most 'green' peppers if left to themselves will eventually turn red. They are picked at green for a milder flavor. You can collect from a green pod but it will vary on how successful you will be in the seed sprouting. Peppers are a perennial, though are mostly grown as annuals. They can be taken in if potted in large enough pots, to make the winter and go out again in the spring. They do need a LOT of light though.

Tomatoes and pumpkins I have propagated and kept over winter. Pumpkins set anchor roots at each vine node, so you can lay a running end into a long windowbox, let it root in, sever it, and take it in. Put another windowbox in tandem, and keep letting it root, sever, and remove the back part and continue until spring. A grower I knew kept a favorite vine going for five years (he used it as a pollinator and it did wonderful things to his breeding line). I have personally air layered tomato plants as well as sucker propagated them, to keep a particular plant around (three years for a Delicious) for the same reason, plus to give me some more great tomatoes.

Saving seeds, some need to be 'fermented' to be cleaned (aka tomatoes) and some just need to be thoroughly dried (pumpkin and related cucurbita after washing to get rid of the 'slime'). Though I have done a quick 'oxyclean' of tomato seeds, it may not work as well. Once separated they have to be cleaned of the 'slime' and other organics, then dried. Peppers, I often let the entire pod just dry out, then carefully cut open and remove the seeds and grind or flake the pod. If you are harvesting from a fresh fruit, remove seeds, deslime, then dry in air on a fine screen, and stir or turn your seeds often. They need less turning as they dry out. Try to have enough space so that the seeds do not have to touch, where they touch they can clump and they can also mold. Also make sure wherever you dry your seeds, that they are NOT accessible to mice. One mouse can really destroy your hard work at seed harvest! Most people will harvest maybe 100 seeds tops for attempting to regrow something, in competition, you may have several fruits and end up with double digit thousands to process at close to the same time. That is when it's daunting. Grabbing 20-30 out of something you're going to eat won't be much time or bother to process.

Also note that some seeds need a cold period once processed, a sort of dormancy, to get them into the mood to sprout. Popping them into a part of the fridge where they can't freeze for 1-3 months (check on what you're saving for recommendations).

If your fruit donor is an OP and not a hybrid/hybred (usually stuff that is Plant Patented, PP or Plant Patent Applied For, PPAF) should breed true if it was pollenated by self or same variety. The best way to make sure of what is in your seed genetics if you want to save seeds from what you grow, is to do the isolating and self pollinating I mentioned. I tend to grow several to many different tomatoes varieties a year so if I want 'purity' I have to work for it.

If your donor fruit is ripe when you process it, your seeds should be okay if you collect them at the 'raw' stage. Just make sure they are ripe and not 'air seeds' (looks like a seed but didn't fully form-literally empty).

Always taste the donor fruit! You want to select for best flavor.

Also, research what you pick up to propagate. I recently bought a chayote, and was going to cut it open and remove seeds, it's a sort of squash. I left it sit on the counter and it put up a shoot! I went okay, I've had seeds sprout inside fruit before so I looked it up before I cut into it. Chayote is a single embryo, the entire fruit is the seed. Oh. It's a hot weather long season. It's got 3" of shoot and starting to do tendrils and it's snowing right now (our spring is 3 months of warm with the occasional cold spike). After 51 years growing stuff I am still learning and being surprised.  Now back to your topic.

If your donor is not a hybrid or GMO, it should come true, depending on what pollenated it. (looking at avocados, the most common is Haas, which is a dark green, and it is crossed with Fuerte, which is almost black looking, for best pollination. You will usually see Haas in the store, and an occasional burst of Fuerte. Be reminded those are the mother tree, the father is the other, and if you grow out the seed you're getting a cross. If you want Haas you have to BUY a grafted Haas tree, it has to be grafted because Haas true rootstock isn't all that hardy. I'm told also that some of the orchards will just graft a Fuerte branch onto each Haas so they have pollination coverage, else it's 10 Haas per Fuerte).

A lot of permies also will regrow some of their store boughts, such as replanting a celery heart, to produce more. So going to your food to get more food is a time honored and frugal thing to do. Happy growing in 2017

Came back to edit/add: if washing your seeds or cleaning them, always use water that is at best lukewarm. Hot water will kill your seeds. I usually set out water to degas (I am on city water) for a day and warm or cool to room temperature to wash/clean my seeds during processing.  

Ken Peavey wrote:It is the fundamental nature of man to want to control his own destiny

IMO this is interesting because it stimulates very deep consideration(s).

I just watched Geoff Lawton's Soil movie and was inspired to try and get an outdoor shower from the heat .  I added everything EXCEPT the dead animal goo or as he calls it "inoculant".  After 8 days my pile still isn't hot.  Was the goo that important?

Recipe (%): Carbon = dry leaves 75% 19% straw
                  Nitrogen = guinea hen poo 2%, cow pie poo 4%

Layer order: 1) Foundation of leaves (1 foot deep) 2)  thin layer of bird poo, 3) water it 4) leaves 5) cow poo 6) water  7) leaves, and so forth

after 4 days I turned the whole pile but added a huge pile of wet straw that I mixed in.  Covered the whole thing with a plastic tarp.  How can I get it started?  Do I need to add pee?

Sounds great! I'm also unsure if my skillet is deep enough - is there a too shallow?
Thanks - Dawn

The need or wish to side discharge grass clippings is something one should carefully consider when buying a mower. Most of the walk behind rotary mowers that are listed as 3 in 1 accomplish side discharge in the most efficient way, but not all. What is the most efficient way and why? First it is important to know how these mowers cut. Almost all cutting occurs as the blade passes across the front of the deck of the mower, with the clock face reference, from about 10 to 2 o'clock. The natural path of grass clippings off the rotating blade is away radially. That means that the easiest exit path for the clippings that imposes the least load on the blade and least likelihood of being smashed onto the underside of the deck is the one closest to the point at which the rotating blade cuts the clippings off of the grass plants. Approximately 2 o'clock is therefor the best place for the discharge port to be. Since all the rotary mowers I know about rotate the blade clockwise as viewed from above, that'd be on the right side of the mower deck. A mower designed to exclusively discharge through a dismountable chute in it's rear discharge port for rear bagging requires more energy to get the clippings to it and since those "chutes" all discharge to the left of the mower, the chutes themselves introduce mower loading additional resistance to the clippings / air flow the blade creates.. My Neuton CE-5 14" SLA battery pack powered mower is a great example. It is designed for rear bagging and mulching mode mowing but I bought a chute that inserts in place of the rear bag. It works fine for side discharge unless I let the grass get too long before mowing. Then it loads up converting function to mulching mode pretty quickly. A lot of the 3 in 1 cordless electrics now available have a spring loaded cover and a chute insert for a discharge port at ~ 2 o'clock. Their advantage is clear. Were I not in the midst of the patent process for an "improved rotary mower blade" design, testing of which my Neuton offers unparalleled ease of process, I would never have replaced my 13 y/o Neuton EM 4.1 14" SLA powered mower with it's current younger brother, my CE-5, last fall. Both the old and new 14" Neutons use the same battery pack, the newer versions of which are more easy to modify for in use power consumption testing. The objective of the "Improved Rotary Mower blade" is greater efficiency.

After my 42" riding mower stuck the piston, I was forced to do something with spring approaching.

I purchased a Greenworx Digipro 19" cordless walk behind, mostly because it will cut 4" high (approx.)

I am a believer in longer grass. I even have to manage my goats in the pasture with zones, as they do not believe in leaving grass more than about 1/2" high! Plus in the front yard, they eat all the shrubs first: no, no.

The Greenworx is functioning quite well and the whole ordeal for my 1/3 acre of front lawn is about 15 minutes longer than with the riding mower. It helps me reach my daily step count.

I am not certain about what the mulching will produce as the grass has yet to evenly fill in this spring to 4 inches. I also am not sure what it will doo for sucking up leaves in the fall, my real love of the riding mower.

The mower is of good quality and came with two rechargeable batteries of different operational times. I like the extra control and detail of this mower versus what I was able to do with the riding mower. The digipro feature has been able to handle the sticks and thick clumps well.

So far, so good.

I like this approach if you want to build a diy refrigerator or freezer.

You can use whatever enclosure or fridge donor chassis you like and service and repair becomes a snap. The company makes thermoelectric devices (delta-t to dc power) that can be plumbed with fluids or simple contact with heat or flame. 30-50 watts constant while running a biofuel heater is nothing to shake a stick at for solar off gridders when strings of cloudy days reach 5-12 days in a row

http://tellurex.com/shop-products/

McMaster, Cambridge Wire Cloth, and Darby Wire Cloth are all fine screen sources if you want a 100-foot roll. We offer type 304, 12-mesh, plain-weave stainless screen in 2-by-2 foot squares from both our website (http://www.geopathfinder.com/Solar-Food-Drying.html , for the cheapest price) and from several E-Bay listings. I've been told that our price is about 1/3 of what could otherwise be found for small quantities. We sell the 2 foot square size to match the 4-foot by 100-foot rolls of screen we buy, and to match the 2-by-2 foot screens used in our radiant solar dryer design. Since 1982 we've been experimenting with various designs, screens, collectors, and mesh sizes to find what works the best in our humid, 45 degree latitude, half-time-cloudy location, but which can be modified to work for many different crops at higher/lower latitudes, altitudes, and temperature.

Bit late to the thread - has anyone had any success with the Fukuoka-Bonfils method discussed here?

I've had a good read of the Harmonious Wheatsmith and other threads, haven't found examples of it being used anywhere though!

Edit: Hang about, just stumbled across this fella and his experimenting http://oakhavenpolyfarm.com/2014/12/bonfils-fukuoka-winter-wheat-experiment/

Okay, I admit it. I've actually been playing around with Fukuoka's grain raising ideas for a month now. Experimenting and observing.

If this isn't the right place to post this, please let me know where would be better. Thank you.

It looks like we are going to have very little winter this year. The last frost was a couple of days after New Years, and given the weather patterns here and that many of the animals have come out of hibernation two months early, I feel it's a good bet our February freeze is going to pass us by.

I decided that Barley is what I can play with because if we do get a frost or even a snow, it will hold up pretty well. I bought a bag of organic barley which is usually used for animal feed, but has a great germination rate of 95%.

First attempt was the second week of Jan. I broadcast some old barley seed so that it was approx 2 seeds per inch (only less regular as per my understanding of Fukuoka's philosophy). Why that thick? Reading about small scale grain raising - traditional European methods - they recommend one seed per inch when starting out, maybe one seed per inch and a half if you have absolutely fantastic soil. (source: Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers, by Logsdon and O-Brien - my memory of what I read when I borrowed it from the library). In One Straw Revolution, I remember Fukuoka saying that for the first few years, especially when dealing with poor quality, compacted soil, it is a good idea to sew the seeds extra or even twice as thick as normal.

On top of the barley, I spread about half an inch of used hay (hay the animals had nibbled on but didn't like because it was too coarse. Basically like chopped up straw). On top of that I sprinkled a tiny amount of llama berries.

Results: That night the wild ducks came and ate most of the grain. During the week, the ducks really enjoyed themselves. At the end of the week, the ducks had enough and I pealed back some mulch and looked at what was left of the grain. About one kernel per 6 inches remained and was growing well. Better than I had expected, but not as good as I hoped.

Reviewing Fukuoka's philosophy, I see some of the things I did wrong.

First off, the mulch was cut up straw - not the uncut straw that Fukuoka recommends. Also the mulch wasn't thick enough. Third aspect I failed to follow was to step on the grain. I was so careful not to step where I had broadcast, but by not stepping on the grain, it failed to push the barley into the soil. Seeds love contact with the soil, the more the better. So keeping this in mind, it was time to try again.

Second try: First weekend of February.

Broadcast grain again, this time to a thickness of two or three kernels per square inch. Walking all over the area as I broadcast (I broadcast about four times in the same area to get the grain thickly on the ground).

Mulched again with twice as much spent hay (that's what I have, so that's what I used) and on top of that with leaf mulch from cleaning out the ditch. On top of all that, a much thicker layer of llama berries.

Why llama and not chicken manure as per Fukuoka's method? Llama has several benefits that I wanted to take advantage of. First off, it's a great deterrent for many animals that enjoy grain, like mice, llamas, ducks... &c. Since I have no clay yet, I decided to try this method to protect the grain. Second, it's easier to spread around as it's in nice neat little berries. Third, I've observed that it's exceptionally good at growing grass. Llama berries are good for growing just about anything and everything green; given that their PH is pretty neutral and they are full of all the good things for roots and circulation growth in plants. But with grasses, llama berries really shine there. The grass that receives llama treatment stays greener much longer in the drought than the rest of the property. Also where the llama berries go, fewer hawkweed is found.

Results: week in and no ducks bother the grain. A good amount of the grain has sprouted. Although not evenly distributed, it averages about one to two kernels per square inch that have put down roots and are now starting to form their shoots.

So far I've only done a 10 by 20 foot section, the limiting factor being mulch. If I can get more things to use for mulching, then I'll plant more. Later, when the weather warms up, I'll add in the clover and try my hand at buckwheat on the slopes of the terraces.

But for now, the rain has come back with a vengeance. It will be curious to see how the grain survives being partly flooded. Not well, I'm guessing.

If this is interesting to anyone, I can keep the updates coming.

Pyramid scheme; Person A sells something to person B with the understanding that when person B sells the same something to person C that part of the funds go back to person A as well as a portion of the funds that person C, D, E, F, etc. bring in. As long as the lineage keeps going person A gets rich.

Permaculture; Person A sells something (their knowledge) to person B. Person B sells their knowledge to person C, etc. Person A must continue to teach in order to make more money and has nothing to do with person B's success or failure.
Permaculture is definitely NOT a pyramid scheme

Are people making money teaching permaculture? Absolutely. Is their teaching worth YOUR money? That depends on the teacher. I studied all I could about Permaculture for about 5 years before I took a PDC. A lot of that came from this forum. I found an inexpensive course ($800) and loved it. There were over 40 students attending. The amount of knowledge learned would have taken years of internet searches. Take a PDC from a qualified instructor you will learn way more than you can anywhere else. I've never heard of anybody who finished a PDC and said that they already knew all of what was taught. I wish I had spent more money for a better course because now I know how much I don't yet know. If I can spare the money, I'll take more PDC's in the future just to get another "experts" views, experiences and opinions. Somebody with 20 years of hands on permaculture experience is invaluable. The course I took crammed so much knowledge into 2 weeks that I left in awe of the teachers knowledge. I was told in the class that if you want to be a teacher, then give a free 1 hour class. Then give a 5 dollar 2 hour class, then a 10 dollar 4 hour class and keep adding to the time and money until you feel confident to teach a full 72 hour course. I am certain that NOBODY from my class is teaching PDC courses yet (1-1/2 years ago) because we just don't have the experience and knowledge to be able to teach that long of a class with confidence. To assume that PDC graduates are attending PDC's to get a certificate and get rich is absurd. Most people taking a PDC genuinely care about the planet and doing their part to reduce our (human) impact on it. We left that PDC ready to change the world. If we somehow made money too, that would be a bonus.
I feel that even remotely comparing a PDC to a pyramid scheme is disrespectful. Take a PDC, you won't regret it.

Cool!!

We've been thinking about buying an olive
Oil press same way.

Here's a discussion of what plants to use.

http://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/2519/is-there-an-edible-plant-that-is-hardy-and-can-be-mowed

I think the maybe three interestingly cases of simultaneous emergence (late 70s early 80s) might be Van der Ryns 'Ecological Design' and JT Lyles 'Regenerative Design' and MIT/Club of Rome 'Systems Analysis'... but agree with Hatfield #4 (?!) in the danger of equating ideas that should be understood one at a time if you want to actually respect their origins. There are also examples of ongoing convergence... I think restoration ecology and permaculture are converging (but I would say they are converging somewhere new).

I find the Permaculture community when assembled and talking to itself, has a tendency to attempt to envelop all other good ideas as part of PC, while also remaining somehow separate and superior to those that are not PC (I am not suggesting this tendency is unique to PC). I think this is because there are three "Permacultures" that are overlapping but somewhat distinct in their function: 1) trademark, when there is something for sale, 2) subculture when you want to be part of a group different than others, and then 3) there is that beautiful book of design theories written by those Australians that are trying to transform systems. Function 1 and 2 are entangled, whereas function 3 is free, wild, and beautiful.