My *OFFICIAL* permaculture farm journey thread

OK!
here is my official thread where i will begin to post all of my pictures and questions and progress etc etc on my permaculture inspired farm that i am starting THIS YEAR IN CHEYENNE, WY
i have ordered seeds for a three sisters plot and then some, but i am going to save those seeds for next year because i have a bunch of seed packets left over from a few years ago(that i didn't know i had til last week) and am not certain whether or not they are GMO and i refuse to contaminate plants that i have bought from the SSE with pollen from possible GMO plants
i have contacted a company today that was removing a bunch of HUGE cottonwoods just down the road and they told me they would drop off three huge loads of wood for 200 bux and then any small miscalleneous trips after that because im closer to the job site than the dump or composting facility, these cottonwoods are big enough around that i am confident i will have no trouble harvesting well over 15 years worth of mushrooms(and therefore way more than 200 bux) from each one, and there are many!
i will be doing some hugelkultur bed with them as well and im not holding back, this suckers will be a good 10 feet tall if i can help it, i need the wind block!
i will begin to take before and after pictures of every project and will be updating this thread fairly often, it will have everything from hugelkultur to bees, bamboo and chickens,
this year i plan to:
plant a three sisters BASED garden(with many added plants as i don't think the squash will grow that fast)
EDIT:
CORN - about 120 seeds
Peaches&Cream Hybrid
Early Sunglow Hybrid
PEAS - about 230 seeds
Melting Sugar
Sugar Snap
SPRAWLING PLANTS - about 10 seeds per variety
Cantaloupe
Sierra Gold
Hearts O' Gold
Cucumber
Marketmore 76
Squash
Waltham Butternut
Winter Straightneck(that unlabeled yellow variety CO)
Zucchini
Butterstick Hybrid
Grey Zucchini
Melons
Hale's Best Jumbo
Sugar Baby Watermelon
HERBS - about 120 seeds
Cilantro/Coriander(idk if there is a specific variety for these, there oughta be but idk what it is)
FLOWERS
Baby's Breath - about 25 seeds
ROOT CROPS - lots of seeds altogether:)
Radishes
Sparkler
Salad Rose
Carrots
Little Finger
Red Cored Chantenay
Onions
Sweet Spanish Yellow Utah Jumbo
Red Burgundy
Evergreen Long White Bunched
LETTUCE
Bibb
Grand Rapids
Parris Island Cos
Buttercrunch
SPINACH
probably throw in a bit of bloomsdale in the mix when i plant


build at least three hugelkultur/keyhole hybrid beds with my own variation, a inoculated stump replacing the compost basket - one of which is a really heavy pine stump to be inoculated with chicken of the woods, the other two of which will be cut down for hugel beds(dead trees) and will have a tall stump left in place for a hugel/keyhole bed
money and time permitting, start both a TBH and a Warre Hive to see which one i like better

thus far i have only spent 400 dollars on seeds and wood for hugelkultur(i may have food wood for cheaper but this is fast, immediate results that will speed things along and i believe will work just fine - cottonwood being the main source) and will hopefully be making much more than that by selling my harvests

onto the actual thread, here is the first question: WHAT IF you used large hugelkultur beds to create a continuous barrier around a bunch of bamboo, would this effectively prevent the bamboo from spreading or would the aggresively spreading rhizomes simply grow up, over and under and straight throught the beds?

Looking forward to seeing pictures of your progress, if possible.

I look forward to seeing pictures too! Would love to see some before shots so we can see what you're starting with.

ok, here are 2 pics, taken from the lid of my septic tank that was fortunately dry at the time

2 more, 3 is getting too big to add comments

last year the GH was sqft garden, this year polyculture
this year i am trying to clear out all of my non-heirloom seeds so that next year i can qualify for Certified Organic(CO from here on out) if i so choose, the plants will still be grown organically and thus will likely be healthier
after planting in the hanging pots, i mixed all these seeds and planted them in the south bed of the GH:
Better Boy Hybrid Tomato
Sweetie Tomato(CO seed)
Sweet Spanish Yellow Utah Jumbo Onion
Roma VF Tomato
Poblano Pepper
Evergreen Long White Bunching Onion
Hearts O' Gold Cantaloupe
Sierra Gold Cantaloupe
Marketmore 76 Cucumber
some yellow straightneck squash(CO, but title for strain ripped off of package whenever it was opened)
Jalepeno Pepper
Anaheim Chili Pepper
Blue Lake 274 Bush Beans
Red Cherry Tomato

2 more

2 more

2 more
on cornfield i have it misshapen to wrap around the GH for windbreak and to give it much more edge, so other than where i had the brassica's last year(the mulched spot in between the plastic) none of it is uniform and traditional:)

moar pics!!!

Devon Olsen wrote:this year i am trying to clear out all of my non-heirloom seeds so that next year i can qualify for Certified Organic(CO from here on out)

I think most hybrid seeds will qualify for organic, just not GMOs. There may be restrictions if the seeds are treated with fungicides, but good catalogs will tell you if the seeds are treated.

mapped out for hugelkulturs

Thanks for the response Tyler, i know but without being 100% certain they are CO seeds, i don't want to advertise them as so, this is my first year in business afterall:)
and i can't really varify cus its old seed thats been hidin away in a box for a few years...
even more pics
that have to be reattached cus t-h-x isn't acceptable:p grr

3 more

ok, i think thats all the pics for now, all cell phone quality, so nothing amazing, just enough to show whats there
i will update as i do more things, this will probably get heavily updated for a few years unless i find a better method for sharing my progress and getting feedback on things...

UPDATE
today i finished mulching the corn field with cottonwood mulch that was dumped with the logs i got
i also dug out a small part of the hugelkultur bed so that i can move the logs that are light enough for me to move myself into there, thereby thinning out the pile that i have there and giving me an idea just how much im going to need to spend on renting a machine to move the bigger logs that i simply cannot move on my own

here is more views of all the logs i got, some are just HUGE and some are small enough for me to move on my own

here is the cornfield after being mulched, i will move the mulch to plant before i place it back on the field, this sorta stops "weeds" from coming up before i plant and then when i do plant i can pull it away, plant the corn in planned locations and then scatter other seeds before mulching over it again, that way the scattered seeds are actually able to touch soil and keep moist because sitting on TOP of the mulch is just gonna kill the seeds i believe
this is where the field will be, the mulch shows the future shape

got a little more time last night after doing other things so this is how far i got yesterday on the hugelkultur beds, am going to go work on them some more today

Do you know how deeply that pipeline is buried? Folks here plow right over them, so I'm wondering if you could do some shallow swales if you want to do more water management over that area.

i don't, i believe this yard is in my fathers area to locate if i call it in to get painted so i could do that and see if he can find out for me, another things about a pond for me is the space available, i almost want a small one anyway but it seems i may be able to get more out of the land if i dont have a pond... i could be totally wrong on this

i kinda took down some of the hugelkultur logs because they weren't stacking stabily(sp?) and so i removed the post, took off the top layer and used a mix of wet mud and straw to sorta cement the logs together, im waiting on them to dry before i stack more and do the same, i think if i continue to do this i can get the 8ft i am desiring without any worries about the bed collapsing or anything...

also looked at rental prices for a 20" chainsaw today and may look at renting one for a couple days to a week
and looked at rental price for a backhoe, if im getting one then i definately need to have everytthing mapped out and ready precisely to save on time cus thats sorta expensive for my poor self

will probably do a lil more with the hugelkultur beds today and will post pics up at the end of the day.

forgot to take pics the other day but im still working on the same stack of hugel logs, have been using soil, water and straw to make a sort of cement on the logs to keep them stable when another log gets stacked on top of them


A QUESTION:

so a friend of a friend offered to let me take half of all his beetle killed pine logs and his rotting aspen logs from his 43 acre property if i simply go up and help him cut them down, hes got a truck and trailer and everything and all he wants is some of the logs for doing stuff on his in-town property of (i cant remeber if it was 3 or 5 acres) now i obviously don't want to be bringing pine beetles onto my property if i dont have to especially since they are pretty bad around here

IS IT SAFE TO BURY BEETLE INFESTED LOGS IN HUGELKULTUR BEDS?
if i do this, will the pine work as acceptable wood for fruit trees and various understory plants or will it be too acidic or something?
what if i simply mixed in cottonwood with the pine to balance it out?
IS IT SAFE TO USE THE LOGS FOR SOME MUSHROOMS NEAR LIVE EVERGREENS (not nessacarily pines just conifers) OR WILL THE INOCULATED LOGS JUST INFEST MY WINDBREAK WITH ROCKY MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLES?

I READ/HEARD SOMEWHERE THAT THERE IS A CONNECTION WITH PINE BEETLES AND SOME KIND OF FUNGUS THAT IS ONLY ABLE TO TAKE OVER IF ANOTHER FUNGUS GIVES WAY, WHERE I HEARD/READ THIS, THIS FUNGUS GAVE WAY BECAUSE A CERTAIN TYPE OF PLANT DIED OUT BECAUSE AN ANIMAL LEFT THE AREA AS A RESULT OF OTHER PLANTS BEING KILLED DUE TO LOGGING AND THE REPLANTING OF A MONOCULTURE, GIVEN THIS, IS THERE ANY TYPE OF EDIBLE(even for livestock) OR MEDICINAL MUSHROOM THAT WILL PREVENT THE OTHER FROM GROWING?
ARE THERE PLANTS I CAN GROW THAT WILL ATTRACT PREDATORS OF THE RMPB OR DIRECTLY REPEL IT?

IS IT SAFE TO BURY BEETLE INFESTED LOGS IN HUGELKULTUR BEDS?
if i do this, will the pine work as acceptable wood for fruit trees and various understory plants or will it be too acidic or something?

Devon,
Glad to see the project is moving forward in Cheyenne. IF the logs are currently infested with beetle larvae, they will be chewing their way out of the logs and flying away in a few weeks to infest new trees. If you do not want to deal with them possibly infesting pines nearby, you will have to either expose the larvae to the elements by stripping the bark, burn the logs so the bark and the area directly under it is completely charred, OR wrap the logs in heavy plastic or tarps and don't unwrap until late in the summer. The beetles will cook in this case. It might have been possible to strip the bark off the logs earlier this winter and thus the beetles would've died of exposure but I'm not sure if it isn't too late now. I'd check with the Wyoming State Forestry people or your county agent. Burning of course is tricky and creates carbon pollution. If the logs are long and extremely heavy, wrapping would be difficult. I know that standard wrapping treatment includes pesticide treatment before wrapping but pesticides cause their own problems.
Rocky Mountain pine beetles are fairly host specific, infesting ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine and limber pine based on my past experience working in the field in Wyoming. I did lose a Scotch pine to beetles here on my place in Helena and there are clearly heavy infestations of pine beetles in all of the mountains surrounding Helena so maybe an ornamental pine nearby could be affected. I am not aware that pine beetles would cause problems for the typical fruit trees you'd likely be planting there in Cheyenne ( I'm assuming apples, cherries, plums for example.) They are the wrong kind for the beetles to infest and use as hosts.

what if i simply mixed in cottonwood with the pine to balance it out?

I only have a couple of beetle killed pines being buried this season in my hugelbeets (beds) but I am not in the least bit worried about acidification. I am quite certain your soils are so heavily buffered that acidification just isn't going to happen. What if it did? It's not like Wyoming is mostly acid soils anyway. I seriously doubt the pH meter will even cough- there's just too much alkali in 90% of the state to worry about acidification. Same is true up my way. I don't see how it would hurt to mix your cottonwoods into the same beds. A variety of wood may create more varied habitat for your decomposer fungi

IS IT SAFE TO USE THE LOGS FOR SOME MUSHROOMS NEAR LIVE EVERGREENS (not nessacarily pines just conifers) OR WILL THE INOCULATED LOGS JUST INFEST MY WINDBREAK WITH ROCKY MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLES?

I can't speak to the safety of inoculated logs near live evergreens BUT if the logs you are hoping to inoculate are beetle killed pine, the blue stain fungus has already infested those logs. It is this fungus which actually causes the tree to die by blocking its vascular tissue (xylem and phloem). It might be pretty tough to inoculate the logs with another type of fungus if it has already been infested and killed by another type.

Impressive project you have going on! The only thing I have to add is:

Make sure you add plenty of green material to your piles (kitchen compost, green grass clippings or other freshly cut living material).

Bamboo - That question was posed in your first post - I don't know what bamboo does in your area but here in SC it will crawl under 6 foot deep county ditches - just about any type of bamboo around here is AMAZINGLY invasive and would be so happy to find a hugelculture bed to infest. About the only way to get rid of it would be to over graze pigs and or goats for a long period of time. Even if a person were into using chemicals there are no chemicals that will get rid of it in this area.

thanks for all the heavy responses guys, appreciate it!

thanks for the info on the bamboo, i figured if i got it i would have to end up doing something a little more labor intensive to control its spread

on the pine logs, yes i hadn't thought about the fungus that was already in it, thanks
i also read that if the logs are buried at least eight inches under the soil then the beetles will die off, got that from a colorado website i believe
so i think if i got them i would have to have their pits ready to go for logs and just dump them and bury them as i got them to proevent any beetle infestation of my nearby windbreak(what im really worried about) is there any chance of the fungus getting out if buried under eight inches or more of soil?

i am sorta busy and we are beginning to start scheduling our week out around here so im not spending as much time outside for a couple reasons, one i have other things that i need to make sure are getting done and two because i got a good burn from working outside and then snowboarding, so i am trying to do more inside stuff while my face heals up a bit, will be taking some pics today, i am almost done stackign logs for the small section of hugelkultur bed i started by hand, i don't have machinery just yet

the bed is at 6ft tall from the ground before i put soil on it, should be 6' 6" to 7' when done

more Hugelporn!

seedlings and more hugelkultur pics

one more pic from today...


also i haven't posted it yet but my seeds from SSE came in yesterday
i planted some borage in the strawberry bed, the north bed of the greenhouse and some of the bricks lining the south bed
i planted stevia in some pots today, will probably plant more stevia in other pots as time goes on
i also have some free spores for enoki, blue oyster and winecap mushrooms on the way from a very nice guy on a forum i just joined... i will take sooo many pics of that process when it comes time:)

i also forgot to take pics of the seed balls i did yesterday, which im sure were far to large, but had a mix of chards, an indeterminate variety of toms, some carrots, some onions, some broccoli, some brusselsprouts, and probably some other stuff, i'd have to look at the seed packets, i'll take some pics tomorrow if theyre still holding together as im sure they will be...

heres the pic promised...

i also read that if the logs are buried at least eight inches under the soil then the beetles will die off, got that from a colorado website i believe
so i think if i got them i would have to have their pits ready to go for logs and just dump them and bury them as i got them to proevent any beetle infestation of my nearby windbreak

That makes some sense to me. They only have to follow the burrow left behind by their parents. I doubt the little buggers would do well digging their way out of 8 inches of soil. If you're not going to plant that bed or beds for a while, maybe tarp over the top for some extra insurance?

(what im really worried about) is there any chance of the fungus getting out if buried under eight inches or more of soil?

I know that beetles are the main (only?) vector for the blue stain fungus. I don't think it's windborne. Once your beds begin to decompose, there would certainly be a LOT of competition between the blue stain, if it remains viable, and the multitude of decomposer bacteria. Pretty much my understanding is no beetles, no way to spread the fungus.

Hugelporn

Devon, that's a winner!! Thanks for the laugh. Good luck getting yours buried. I'm about to traipse outside and continue throwing topsoil on my three piles. Wind is howling up here! I thought I left Wyoming!!

thanks for the extensive response, glad i could make ya laugh a bit:)

awesome info on the beetles and on to the next question....

Is there some kind of mushroom that grows well over a septic system?

our septic system is a little overflowed i have to admit, the grass is green even in the dead of winter most of the time and there are occasionally puddles near the lid or whatever, what i am looking for is 1) a mushroom that will help soak a good portion of the moisture up or if thats not possible than 2, use all that moisture to make something pretty that grows decent in grass
i am honestly too paranoid to harvest any mushrooms for edible or medicinal use from a poop soaked septic field, but i'd like to knock it up for beauty if nothing else...

here is an added benefit to the mushroom logs i let stick out of the bed...
rather than just mushrooms and a trellis for nearby vines, this will also attract birds to eat insects and add direct nitrogen to the soil:)

UPDATE!!!

i planted the three sisters inspired cornfield yesterday
i raked a section of mulch away as i planted that area, and then i used a shovel to break up the upper layer of soil and mainly to sever the "weeds" that were growing there, mainly grass
before iplanted one corn kernel and two pea seeds together every foot or so and sorta ran out near the end, so maybe i'll plant some sunflowers there or i may just leave it
i then scattered a mix of:
SPRAWLING PLANTS - about 10 seeds per variety
Cantaloupe
Sierra Gold
Hearts O' Gold
Cucumber
Marketmore 76
Squash
Waltham Butternut
Winter Straightneck(that unlabeled yellow variety CO)
Zucchini
Butterstick Hybrid
Grey Zucchini
Melons
Hale's Best Jumbo
Sugar Baby Watermelon
HERBS - about 120 seeds
Cilantro/Coriander(idk if there is a specific variety for these, there oughta be but idk what it is)
FLOWERS
Baby's Breath - about 25 seeds
ROOT CROPS - lots of seeds altogether
Radishes
Sparkler
Salad Rose
Carrots
Little Finger
Red Cored Chantenay
Onions
Sweet Spanish Yellow Utah Jumbo
Red Burgundy
Evergreen Long White Bunched
LETTUCE
Bibb
Grand Rapids
Parris Island Cos
Buttercrunch
all around before raking the mulch back on top of the seeds, i did not water as i dont want to prematurely germinate the plants, its supposed to snow tonight anyway

more pics of planting

can someone help identify middle pic?

update and a question:

udate first:
i spent $12.01 on filling the back of my small pick-up with sifted topsoil from the local compost facility yesterday, probably wont be buying any again if i can help it, 1: its extra cost, 2: this soil seems to hate water and im worried it will be heavily erosive 3: im not sure if it was only 12 bux because thats all they needed to charge or if it is subsidized by the city, thats something i want to be sure of before i contribute any large amounts of money to them

i also spent a little under $6 on a can of window and door great stuff yesterday for sealing the corners of the greenhouse, i used a can the other day that we had in the garage and am planning to finish it with this can, will take pics when im done, not gonna look pretty but it shold make a significant difference in how well the greenhouse stays warm at night and into the cooler seasons

i took a few pics of the sprouts in the greenhouse, we had a cold day on monday with very little snow(which i wish wed get lots of its gonna be cold...)


and now.... the question, which stems from this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaWqntIxJ5M
what part of the dandelion is he harvesting and selling?
who is he selling it to?(im sure the average person isn't going to pay for dandelions if they have a million growing on their lawn all summer)
i'd even like to knwo approximately how much he is selling them for
if ANYONE knows this, im not really anywhere near skeeter i believe, i just know that i have a LOT of dandelions growing on this property and it'd be great if i could make a bit of money off of them...
thanks:)

Wow - nice work.

(And the yellow flower is a daffodil.)

And that definitely looks like mullein.

This is probably not a good way to test, but mullein leaves are somewhat mucilaginous and tasteless.

In TN, mullein liked broken ground and open spaces. It would regularly show up by the side of the road.