masanobu fukuoka

SILVERSEEDS wrote:

   several clovers. there are lots of others actually. wilder plants that wouldt be congruent with this.

Ok.  I wonder which clovers and things they are? 

  I can get back to you eventually.... It took me a good while of constant searching to find a few. Go to that list of seed companies I listed, the companies would have to of been in there. I trialed tons of them, an found a few that worked. honestly I didnt care the names because they now grow in my yard and I can save seeds and spread them. I just call them all clovers. It may be awhile until i get into my seeds, but I will remember this when I do.

Ok, thanks. 

I agree with Dieter.  What I am drawing from the book is that it is necessary observe and imitate nature and in order to practice this successfully you really need to know what's happening in your particular space.   There's a part where someone has visited his farm and is taking the advice to throw down the straw on  the rice seed, and it doesn't work.  So Fukuoka goes to check it out, and sees that they are laying the straw down in this very regimented and what he calls, Japanese Garden style, way.  He has to say, no, really guys, throw it around like it would happen in nature.  So, he does have a method, and the method is to imitate nature.  
Which makes so much sense as nature has been practicing this stuff for billions of years, I think she/he/it would know what she/he/it is doing considering all the on the job training she/he/it has.  I think people's greatest gift is the ability to take that imitation and use it to consistently sustain ourselves and our environment.  So, if you are hot and dry, maybe build some swales and plant a lot of drought tolerant, deep rooted plants to start bringing the soil up.  Mulch the heck out of everything, and compost like crazy to both feed the soil and retain moisture, and don't think it's going to happen right away.  At one point he's saying that he's been going at this for decades and built up 4 inches of soil, which for me sounds arduous as all get out!  Four inches, REALLY!! Ahhhhh.  But if you want pure Fukuoka, then that's what you do.  I myself need to feed the family starting this summer, sooo, I'll be bringing in inputs to help the situation along.  I think just being real with people about what to do, and what works is good enough, right?

Yep, I've been gardening here off and on for ten years and just now learning how.  But trying to get useful information from people who have been successful sometimes seems as hard as pulling teeth.  Not sure why.  Not sure why we have to reinvent the wheel if others have done what we are trying to do under similar circumstances.  Sharing information with each other could trim years or decades off each of our respective searches.  

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Yep, I've been gardening here off and on for ten years and just now learning how.  But trying to get useful information from people who have been successful sometimes seems as hard as pulling teeth.  Not sure why.  Not sure why we have to reinvent the wheel if others have done what we are trying to do under similar circumstances.  Sharing information with each other could trim years or decades off each of our respective searches.  

A LOT of people are slow to give advice, because if the person receiving the advice messes up then they often blame the person who gave them the advice in the first place. And, in some areas (like where I live), people would rather bite off their tongues than make their neighbor think them stuck up.

I see the logic of it and I have banged my head against it many a time, but people are just that way.

Maybe I'm too eager to give advice and share information. 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Maybe I'm too eager to give advice and share information.   

I see that, and I have been enjoying it!

As someone who has had trouble getting answers, I read about your experiences, take out what looks usefull, and do not worry about the rest. A free exchange of information sure would save a lot of people (like me) a lot of effort and a lot of problems.

Different methods may work for different places.  Careful observation and enriching soil are practices that were so beautifully shown by Fukuoka.  Speaking of good, rich soil and understanding the value  of soil-building is a way I see to honor Fukuoka.

can anyone tell what they think of my masanobu experiment?

in case you didnt see my other posts. its about 15x15 or so. and it is grass full sun. i spread a pound of seeds about three weeks ago. i then raked the dried hay back on top of the grass.

today i just hit it with a weed whacker (lawn mower is not only junk it might be dead) and afterwords (mistake maybe?) i looked for a few seeds to see how they were doing.

out of the ones i noticed they had all germinated. one looked like i may have chopped it with the whacker. can anyone tell me the nature of wheat? its a grass, right? so if i did decapitate it this early in the season it should be able to recoup and continue growing?

i don't really plan to hit it again. the grass is pretty thick. im figuring it will be shaded out and be so thin as to produce next to no wheat.

if i could do it again i would put maybe 5 pounds of seed in the same size area. and hit it maybe a week ago.

My question is what kind of perennial legume will grow with 15 inches of rain per year?  I'm not saying there isn't one, just that I don't know what it is.  huh

you should be able to grow bush lupins no problem. also look into the elaeagnus family( goumi, autumn olive, silverberry)

hubert cumberdale wrote:
you should be able to grow bush lupins no problem. also look into the elaeagnus family( goumi, autumn olive, silverberry)

Thank you.  I guess I was really wondering about a legume which could act as a groundcover in the manner of the clover in Fukuoka's system.  The above all seem to be quite large plants. 

Ludi -- what is your ecoregion?  I seem to remember you were in Texas or somewhere over there.  I was trying to find the WWF ecoregions and I found this...

http://aggieclover.tamu.edu/map/

Yes, if the wheat is young enough it should recover.

Terri wrote:
Yes, if the wheat is young enough it should recover.

thanks for the info terri; you all are fantastic

In light of the new guidelines let me restate what I said: When winter wheat is planted then it is put in in September, and it starts to grow then. SOMETIMES it is grazed in the Fall.

It then recovers when it breaks dormancy in the spring, and it produces grain in the summer.

I have no firs thand knowledge of SPRING wheat being cut or grazed, but it seems logical since the grain could onloy be a few weeks old.

Paul Cereghino wrote:
Ludi -- what is your ecoregion?  I seem to remember you were in Texas or somewhere over there.  I was trying to find the WWF ecoregions and I found this...

http://aggieclover.tamu.edu/map/

Thanks!  I'm in "not recommended for dryland plantings"    Ecoregion 7 Edwards Plateau. 

What about, Dalea greggii or Lupinus havardii

I'm imagining planting in patches spaced and interplanted by Dalea or Lupinus using annual or cuttings enrich the planting sites, and shade the soil surface... Maybe a more patchy mosaic of vegetation to reduce competition for water... it seems like you landscape is lots of scrubby shrubs with forbs and grasses that dryout between, an prickly kind of seeds stuck in your socks kind of place.

I was imagining a series of pans with rills between where you could do flood irrigation, adn harvest the leguminous uplands to enrich the lower pans where you'd grown hills of corn or sorgum or something like that.

absolutely NO EXPERIENCE... just interesting to muse about a climate that is totally alien to me.  The structure of the natural farming might follow the structure of natural vegetation?  And you'd be focussing on capturing sporatic heavy rains.  And you'd need to 'companion' species to not be sucking water when you are trying to get your harvet crop to survive the heat.

Paul C, Gregg dalea is one I ran across in a xeriscape list, so thanks for suggesting it too.    It looks to be  a very likely  candidate. 

Lupinus havardii looks like it's an annual.  I'm growing Texas bluebonnet our most common Lupine, but it is also an annual...

Your ideas of pans and rills are similar to what I hope eventually to achieve with sunken basins as planting areas. 

Maybe if you loaded the seed bank with the annual lupine, that might give you teh spontaneous cover and weed control when your crop is down but soil has moisture, while providing additional mulch when the dry season begins.

It's certainly worth a try! 

I deleted about a dozen posts.  About eight were because the poster was saying something outside of my comfort zone - usually expressing things in a way that does not allow others to express their own position.  And the remaining posts were deleted because they quoted stuff that was outside of my comfort zone.

I really don't like doing this sort of work.

hey paul. i notice i am one post less (or two?). i looked at my posts and didnt really see nothing worth editing. i fully appreciate you keeping the peace in the forum. internet forums can be really unruly places. so while im torn about the idea of censorship i can understand your point.

@ Paul Cereghino and H Ludi Tyler:
Does Dalea and Lupine do best in hot, dry climates, or can they take a bit of humidity and coolness, say as low as 50 degrees Farenheit?

Paul, sorry about that!

Nerdmom wrote:
@ Paul Cereghino and H Ludi Tyler:
Does Dalea and Lupine do best in hot, dry climates, or can they take a bit of humidity and coolness, say as low as 50 degrees Farenheit?

Here's detailed information I found about Gregg Dalea: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/nativeshrubs/daleagregg.htm

I don't know those species personally.  I was just poking around information about information about Ludi's native ecosystem looking for herbs I recognized as leguminous by genus or common name.  I pulled those up primarily because they seem like they might survive south central texas (criteria 1) and fix nitrogen (criteria 2).

While species may survive out of native range, you likely won't get the vigor under competition that I am looking for in a naturalized planting.  There are nitrogen fixers for every climate.  I am in cool moist climate with dry summer and am trialing 3 species of native lupine, 1 introduced lupine, and use alder, clover, goumi, field pea, fava bean, and get naturalized vetch.  There are some native vetch type plants that are also interesting for part shade.

Howdy everyone,

I wanted to visit some farms that are farming according to Fukuoka's principles. I have found a few on the internet, but it seems that they are few and far between. If anyone knows of any could you please point me in the right direction. Farms in the states would be ideal.

All the best,

Jake

boddah wrote:out of the ones i noticed they had all germinated. one looked like i may have chopped it with the whacker. can anyone tell me the nature of wheat? its a grass, right? so if i did decapitate it this early in the season it should be able to recoup and continue growing?

Though one. It will def revcover, but probably it will not flower and give you yield.

Some seedlings came up in an area I had grown and trellised green, striped tomatoes last year.  I laid some branches down near them.  It's a method Fukuoka mentioned in One Straw Revolution for cucumbers, melons and squash.



"Instead of staking them up, let the tomatoes run along the ground.  Roots will grow down from the nodes along the main stem and new shoots will come up and bear fruit."

"Lay out bamboo, or the branches of a tree and the cucumbers will twine all over them.  The branches keep the fruit just above the ground so that it does not rot."

I'll see if the volunteer tomatoes like the branches there this year.

Wait, so the roots sprout out of the nodes, the stem runs along branches that keep it off the soil, but wouldn't the roots be in the air until they reach the soil?
I thought that for most plants it's not a good idea to have their roots exposed like that. When my zinnias or tomatoes or whatever show some roots I always put a mound of compost on top of them.

@SergioSantoro:  I think you are correct.  Fukuoka didn't seem to suggest that the branches would work for tomatoes.  I'm just trying it to find out if the tomatoes like or dislike this method.

JadeQueen wrote:
Different methods may work for different places.  Careful observation and enriching soil are practices that were so beautifully shown by Fukuoka.  Speaking of good, rich soil and understanding the value  of soil-building is a way I see to honor Fukuoka.

It is tempting to do permaculture with a rote, tookit approach.

The path, I think, is not just to imitate nature, but more importantly imitate and assist what nature is doing where we are. So we could look at our soil and just say "clover for nitrogen," but it might be better to look and see what nitrogen fixers are naturally growing in the area and encourage or seed them on our land. Or, cultivate a plant closely related to them which also has a human use.

Which is why, as you say, it all begins with careful observation.

I've just borrowed the book 'One Straw revolution' from some friends. The beginning of the book really stuck with me. Where Fukuoka is giving a personal account of what pushed him to transition from one kind of lifestyle to another...it is so similar to what I went through and the 'breakthrough' that was experienced...I shared the whole chapter on my blog if anyone is interested

It's such a good book - for both smart practices and holistic philosophies

http://zenforestliving.blogspot.com/2011/05/masanobu-fukuoka-nothing-at-all.html

Larry Korn spent three years with Masanobu fukuoka and did the translation for the excellent book "One Straw Revolution".  He is now a permaculture instructor in Ashland, Oregon. 

Larry gives a bit of his background especially as it reflect on his time with Fukuoka.  He explains how he studied soil and plant nutrition in college.  I think the key point in this video is where he talks about in college how bad plowing is.  His college professor says "we just don't know how to grow food any other way".  Years pass and he meets Fukuoka.  Who has far superior soil and is growing food without plowing.

Larry explains the sustainability of living there.  They produced 95% of their own food from an edible food forest.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhOJRJAuyEs

Harvesting potatoes from no till:

The area has had layers of ... well everything.... magnolia leaves, grass, assorted leaves, pine/fir boughs, cypress shavings w/ chicken poo, kitchen trash.  I just started piling it on top of the grass/weeds in that area.

The soil always appears dry, but loose down to about 5 inches.  Under that the soil is not wet but not dry either. 

The plants seem to love it and the number of earth worms is more than I have ever seen.

I have only been working this spot for about a year; if you can call it work, I just throw stuff on it in great piles. The potatoes are doing great!  I am thinking about planting it in garlic in the fall.  I can't imagine why I would want to do more work - such as till - when I can get results like this with less work.

South Carolina wrote:
  I can't imagine why I would want to do more work - such as till - when I can get results like this with less work.

I haven't figured out why some people seem so addicted to labor such as tilling, mowing big lawns, etc. 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
I haven't figured out why some people seem so addicted to labor such as tilling, mowing big lawns, etc.   

I've read that the Big Mowed Lawn was a form of conspicuous consumption. In Medieval Europe, for the Lord of the Manor to have a big mowed lawn was a way to demonstrate his wealth; it meant he had plenty of surplus land to pee away on something utterly non-productive, and plenty of peasants to maintain it in this unnatural condition.

Helen and I talk about a 2000 acre organic farm vs. sustainable systems, then fukuoka's systems

http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/296-podcast-032-helen-atthowe-sustainability-efficiency/

mentioned in this podcast:

http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/301-podcast-034-sepp-holzer-film-discussion-1/