C Sanct

I'm really glad to see a post like this. I live in the Temecula area but have been considering buying cheap acreage in Newberry Springs close to Barstow. When did you leave Temecula? When considering ideas for Newberry Springs my mind went to the Uyghur farmers of Xianjiang Northern China. They live in extreme conditions with only half an inch of rain per year, but their agricultural settlements are a pleasant sight to see amid the the surrounding wasteland. Check out the Turpan region and its agriculture for some possible ideas.

-Desert Poplar Populus euphratica grows in the area. (Could be a good choice for beautiful, fast growing, shade giving, mulch providing, windbreak)
-They depend on using ancient horizontal wells called Qanat or Kerez to gravity feed their fields with water from higher elevation groundwater. (Is your land completely flat or does it have high points?)

Some thoughts I had on working in the area:
-White Sonora Wheat as a drought tolerant landrace heritage grain from our area could be a very helpful annual species to try to bring some cash flow while perennials are establishing.
-Consider establishing desert grasses to keep some constant vegetative cover over the area.
-Bob Dixon's land imprinter seems to do an excellent job of creating the micro-topography/micro-climate needed to get grasses growing in the desert. (Why couldn't this work with wheat as well?)
-Roller crimp the annual grass/grains and plant within the mat to get a no-till widespread sheet mulch system going.

I so badly want to get farming on my own piece of land that despite the downsides, I'm very much considering your region. Maybe renting like you would be a good idea at first. Do you mind sharing your rental costs?
Hope to see updates on your exciting project man. Nice to see other posters residing/considering the area too. Maybe we will eventually become permie neighbors.

Frankly, I’m tired of not being 100% confident in understanding Keyline Design.

Let me run through what I think I already know about it:
- The main ridge line usually descends in elevation so that every primary ridge and primary valley shooting off from it is lower than the next

- Each of these primary valleys has a key point located within it and the different key points from valley to valley are in different spots

- The key point is not the point of inflection where a slope goes from convex to concave, but rather is located just below this inflection point

- The key point is the highest point water will fill up to in a valley if that valley is dammed

- From the key point you draw a contour line and this becomes your key line

- Every equidistant line you use for plowing, swales, tree belts, crop beds etc. above and below the key contour line runs parallel to the key contour line

- Running parallel to the key line will ensure that both your parallel lines above and below the key contour line will slope gradually off contour and carry water runoff from the higher valley points to the lower ridge points which would other wise have water rush off them into the lower parts of the valley

- The slightly off contour parallel lines should be gradual at 1:100 or even 1:300 rise over run

Is there anything wrong with my understanding of it? What critical points am I missing? Because if I was to go out and design a key line property today I don’t think I could do a perfect job.

Here are some of my questions:
1. Besides being a marker for ideal dam placement, is a key point even necessary to locate or even have inside a valley? In other words, how much wiggle room is there to base your parallel lines off of a line other than the precise key point?

2. Why can’t you just choose any place to start your lines, parallel pattern from there, and make sure that the lines will slope down towards the lower ridge tops with a 1/300-1/100 grade?

3. When it comes to evenly distributing water to both the ridges and valleys, doesn’t a contour swale cutting through the valley and ridges perform the same function? Is this primarily driven by convenience?

4. Besides being reliably spaced for machinery, what advantages do tree belts on a keyline pattern have over other orchard planting patterns?

John Elliott wrote:

C Sanct wrote:@John Elliott
I was under the impression that any soil's mineral content contained all the elements needed for a plant. It's not so much the decaying matter (although whatever nutrients the organic matter had would presumably be made available also). The message I took from Ingham was that the compost isn't the "fertilizer" but rather it's the vessel carrying all the required microbes which would then solubilize nutrients and eventually turn them into their non-organic form that plants can take up. So if that's the case,  then even when it's still "dirt" and not yet "soil" the nutrients are still all there, waiting to be worked upon by microbes. I'd like to hear more from you about nutrients from decaying matter vs. from mineral content of soil.  

If the dirt is a jumble of many different types of sand, rocks, and gravel, there's a good chance all the micronutrients are there as well.  


cobalt to make B12 comes almost entirely from animal sources, which is why it can be problematic for vegans. But it makes a great example for how we get nutrients from decaying matter than directly from the dirt.

Ok then about point 1. you seem to be in agreement with Ingham. Here's a quote from her that really drives home how adamant she seems to be about this claim she's making

"Mineral nutrients: The crystalline strucutre of clay, sand, silt, rocks, pebbles, etc hold within it a great deal of EVERY nutrient that plants require. Bacteria and fungi make the enzymes to remove those nutrients from that crystalline lattice work and pull those nutrients into the body of bacteria and fungus, retaining, holding and keeping those nutrients bound inside the organism. The organic matter, or food, for the bacteria and fungus to do this work is usually provided by the roots of plants, or to a lesser degree, organic matter present in the soil. Consider that there is no soil on this planet that lacks nutrients. Do not be mislead here by thinking I'm talking about SOLUBLE nutrients, because I'm not. Plants need a certain amount of each nutrient important to that plant's growth. Those nutrients are present in the sand, silt, clay, rocks, pebbles, gravel, parent materials, and so forth. No soil lacks the nutrients to grow any plant you care to grow. Please look at tables that show TOTAL NUTRIENT CONCENTRATIONS from all soil, in any part of the world where they have been tested. All the nutrients the plants could possibly want are present. And if life is present, every second of every day, new nutrients are being replenished in that soil from the bedrock, parent materials, rocks, boulders, pebbles, gravel..........etc. Until the bones of the planet are gone, there will always be nutrients in the soil."

So let's look at these tables that show "TOTAL NUTRIENT CONCENTRATIONS" as she puts it and see if that's true. That should be relatively easy right? Where could we find something like that to verify her claim?

I see your second point about cobalt as reassurance that it's not the minerals in a soil that are ever lacking but rather the biological pathways to make the nutrient usable to a certain organism. This would reinforce the idea that all we really need to do is supply the proper biology to a soil ecosystem so that all minerals in the soil are solubilized and filtered in the proper way for plant consumption. Would you agree with this? If anyone disagrees please explain why

Kitty Leith wrote:I have an appt. with  Sustainable Economies Law Center next Monday

Please gather questions you might have so I can make the best use of my time with them!  

What's the status on this idea now?

@John Elliott
I was under the impression that any soil's mineral content contained all the elements needed for a plant. It's not so much the decaying matter (although whatever nutrients the organic matter had would presumably be made available also). The message I took from Ingham was that the compost isn't the "fertilizer" but rather it's the vessel carrying all the required microbes which would then solubilize nutrients and eventually turn them into their non-organic form that plants can take up. So if that's the case,  then even when it's still "dirt" and not yet "soil" the nutrients are still all there, waiting to be worked upon by microbes. I'd like to hear more from you about nutrients from decaying matter vs. from mineral content of soil.

@Tyler Ludens
I don't know, but perhaps it has something to do with introducing the other microbes other than the bacteria and or fungi that we can already witness breaking down matter. For instance, maybe protozoa that feed on bacteria are missing, or beneficial predatory nematodes aren't found in the right ratio etc. In addition to this, it could also be that we're boosting the numbers of beneficial organisms already there to turbo charge the whole process.

@John Weiland
I don't think the claim is that compost teas are better than normal compost. In fact, I've heard Ingham mention that applying well made traditional compost itself is just as effective or more so. Compost teas allow for a surge in microbial population. The compost brewing machine is a breeding ground to multiply numbers and stretch the benefits of compost over a larger area.
Metagenomics sounds very interesting, especially about using it to track the shift of microbial communities over the life of the brewing process. Unless I'm mistaken though, it would still be costly and require trained professional lab technicians, correct? I see BEMOVI software as something that every interested farmer with a computer and a microscope could take advantage of. If it was designed to become stream-lined and user friendly then it could have tremendous potential.

Elaine Ingham claims that virtually all soils in the world contain all the the nutrients plants need. Fertilizer (organic or synthetic) is totally unnecessary. Microbes solubilize all plant nutrients. This is revolutionary. How do we verify this?

I feel like she's been making this claim for a while now, and people haven't been paying attention to it. Let's get this out in the open and verify this.

As for different microbe farming methods, how does Soil Food Web compost tea method differ from Cho's Korean Natural Farming IMO? How is it different from Zero Budget Natural Farming's cow poop microbe teas? What microbes does a well made compost tea have that a KNF IMO rice box inoculant from healthy woods doesn't? Or a cow manure tea?

Also I don't know if I should post this part here or a different section, but have any of you heard of BEMOVI software? Ingham speaks of how important it is to analyze your compost and compost teas for the proper microbial life. This requires an understaning of morphology to identify bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, microarthropods, etc. However, now with this software the computer can recognize microbial species and identify them as such. Take a look.



http://bemovi.info/

I see this as an amazing tool to get in the hands of everyone. This should be open source. I'd like to see what Open Source Ecology would do with this. Standardized and streamlined methods of analyzing your own soil life could expedite the process of understanding and creating perfect compost.

But before we all become microbial masters, we need to know if Elaine speaks the truth. Is she right?

Pierre Pépé wrote:

C Sanct wrote:This permies chat will be a good adjunct to permies.com

I think the regulars around here should probably join the group regardless of their intention of chatting or not. There's no loss in expanding our communication options, and communicating our thoughts about permaculture in real time could prove to be very valuable. I also think topics could undergo initial brainstorming in the chat and then be refined back at the forums

thanks C Sanct for the encouragements (sorry for my bad english) - what do you think of the "chat announcement draft" above ? do you think it s OK if we go with it ?  should we post it in the "web sites" forum ? are you OK if I post it ? or maybe you d like to post it ?

I'm Ok with it an I'm assuming most people will be too. I see no reason why you shouldn't go ahead and post it where you see fit. Would you prefer someone else post it in the "web sites" forum?

I am OK with this draft

This permies chat will be a good adjunct to permies.com

I think the regulars around here should probably join the group regardless of their intention of chatting or not. There's no loss in expanding our communication options, and communicating our thoughts about permaculture in real time could prove to be very valuable. I also think topics could undergo initial brainstorming in the chat and then be refined back at the forums

So it's just a place to have our permaculture questions and ideas discussed in real time? I think I'll join if you don't mind. I hope it gets alot of people involved

Where are you from and where would you like to set up your farm? What do your wife and kids think about living on the land? If your entire family is interested in that dream and that lifestyle, then 7 people all focusing on the same vision can really make it happen. If you have a team of 7 who are all on board, then I don't think you'll have much problem convincing them of the value in renting a small plot of land and making a living from plants/animals. Like others here, I think it's important to shift your money making endeavors into horticultural/permacultural pursuits so that your livelihood gives you the life you want. If you can't rent land, even starting a backyard nursery for plant sales would probably get you on the right track.

Depending on how radical you're willing to get, it could be really fun to just find a run down piece of land that isn't being put to good use, buy a few years worth of food supply, get an affordable and comfortable RV and permaculture the shit out of the place until you get some staple crops out of it. You might be able to pay the owner with a sharecropping sort of plan. Or just grow him an abundance of food he loves most to feed him and his family. I consider that a really good and fair payment. He gets his share, you feed you and yours, and you sell the rest.

If your family is up for an adventure like that, then it could lead to some of the most fun times of their lives. If things don't work out at that spot then you can always load the RV and find another spot you all love even more. If on the other hand your family isn't down for something like that, then you have the task of convincing. If you believe that this is truly the healthiest and best lifestyle for your family then convincing them should be pretty easy, but it would still probably require strategizing and a tactful approach.

As for your diabetes here's an interesting link that might help
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/diabetes.shtml