Thomas Partridge

So first before discussing the pros and cons I would like to discuss one thing that stood out to me over and over as I read this book. This book is not a book for someone who is experienced with Permaculture, it is for someone who isn't. That is by no means a bad thing, after all if you are experienced with Permaculture you hardly need to be convinced that the knowledge in this book is good to possess. Unfortunately this makes the book hard to give an unbiased review to because as a person who has browsed these forums off and on for years, most of the information in here is stuff that I learned years ago on the forums and by listening to the podcast.

I give this book 7 out of 10 acorns. As I generally do, I will first discuss the positives.

This book is a surprisingly enjoyable read, more so than most books on the subject or permaculture. The author(s) mixes down to earth experience without droning on in a way that makes it sometimes very hard to stop reading. Additionally, when you do stop reading you almost immediately start thinking of how to implement what is discussed in the book and have a desire to research things further. The book also covers enough that almost anyone will find value in its pages regardless of what level of interest they have in permaculture, homesteading, or environmentalism. This really is a book you can easily give to someone as a gift and for most people it will be a gift that they appreciate and are bettered for it.

Unfortunately there are a few issues that prevent me from giving the book a higher rating. Much like Sepp Holzer's book, much of this book applies to Paul's specific situation. As I said before there is something in there for everyone, but reading through eight things that wont work for you to find two that might can at times be frustrating. If I ever obtain a print copy and move to a cold climate this book will be invaluable, but if I instead move to a warmer climate then the near lack of information on passive cooling and other necessary information will make this book redundant. Additionally while I do agree to pretty much all of the opinions discussed in the book, I do feel slogging through a good part of the book to get to the meat only makes it frustrating when things like chickens, pigs, and other animals are not discussed significantly. Finally I must base my review on the copy I was given, and unfortunately the formatting of the copy did make it difficult at times to find which images went with which. I will be happy to update the review at a later date if I find that the final version does not have this last flaw, but until then I do have to deduct an acorn for presentation.

Thanks for the great replies! I am just interested in hearing about experiments involving directly applying stropharia directly to soil and not to mulch or newspaper. I am curious to see if it will work with my garden as it is without having to significantly change my garden (I use sawdust not mulch in my garden and not a deep layer) so that I don't have to increase the amount of watering I do.

I emailed a vendor who sells the big sawdust spawn blocks but I thought I would also ask you folks, can you just rake/till in sawdust spawn into the soil of your garden and have any chance of these types of mushrooms colonizing the soil?

We have had terrible luck trying to grow mushrooms which we think is mostly our fault (neglecting in keeping them moist constantly) and we are hoping that by putting it in our raised beds where we are going to grow tomatoes and carrots that we can help them and give them a place where they will get sufficient moisture and nutrients themselves.

Is this just a case of us wishing instead of reasoning? If this doesn't work I may try another log spawn attempt (third time is the charm) and covering it with leaves to keep it from drying out since we can't really water our non-garden areas.

Justin Peck wrote:We have a Great Pyrenees and she does a wonderful job protecting our flock, though she does cost us about $90 a month in dog food. She get's the good stuff (4Health grain free). I agree with Bryant that it's more about the size of your enemy than the size of you farm. And most small dogs are more likely to go after your chickens. An alternative may be for you to get a guard goose. I know Joel Salatin keeps one with his chickens and they keep predators away. Just don't get more than one or they'll care about each other and not protect your chickens.

I like that! I had considered guard geese but I didn't know you could only keep one for that effect. Maybe I will see about getting a single gosling and see how that goes.

The problem with Pyrenees and other medium to large dogs is that they cost more to feed than a dog that weighs about 20lbs

Even a LGD alone is not a match for more than one coyote at a time, but they will deter the coyotes from wanting to come around.

We don't really have coyotes, the worst we get is foxes and small ones at that (house cat size). I am also not desiring a fox fighting dog - I want one that will bark enough to startle it and to give it something else to worry about. Fighting the fox means vet bills that will probably cost a lot more than the chickens would cost to replace (only birds we have that have predator problems).

We are planning to make the switch from electric net fencing to permanent welded wire fencing in the next year and one thing we wanted to do was to get a poultry guard dog. Most of the time when people talk about livestock guard dogs they are talking about the large breeds that can watch sheep and goats, but we are a small farm and do not want to feed such a large creature unnecessarily? Are there any really good small breeds that will drive off a fox or opossum but not harm chicks?

We got a Beagle/Husky mix and while she was the right size and loud like we wanted but she did not do well with poultry so now she is an indoor dog (though to be fair when we had an outdoor rat problem she was a great help and made up for it). We want to make sure before we get another dog that we are getting one with the highest chance of working out because we really don't want yet another indoor dog.

We have also been using the wood pellets for our cats for years now. For composting we are pretty lazy so all year long we pile it in a three sided bin made of pallets and then when it is time to plant our spring garden we shovel off the top half into another such bin and use the significantly older stuff below. By that stage it is at least six months old and has an almost pleasant earthy smell. I doubt it adds much in the way of nitrogen to our garden, but with our heavy clay soil we have noticed that each year are garden soil ends up being a bit looser without us having to till much more than the top three or four inches.

You know, I always wondered what would happen if people grew vining beans and other things out of their windows in skyscrapers. A vining bean might grow twenty feat high and need no more than a 5 gallon bucket.

GIS is a great tool, depending on the county you are interested in you can use it to look for large tracks of land on big plots and see who the owner is. There are a lot of older people who have huge tracks of land and it hasn't even occurred to them to rent it out because they don't think anyone would want it. A little work and you can work out a pretty good deal (might even let you do it for free)>

Honestly you will have a hard time competing with the large growers when it comes to bulk produce and meat - they are just set up to do it better.

I would recommend trying a bunch of different species of livestock and finding the one you most enjoy to raise, then get into breeding and selling. You make a lot more selling a chick than you do an egg and there really isn't a significant difference in the amount of work one takes to sell over the other. Another thing that seems to work well is finished products. You could try selling honey or nuts, or you could sell honey glazed nuts for more than you could sell them for separately for. Classes are another option, if while raising livestock you get pretty good at certain things (such as cutting pigs or butchering chickens) you can teach classes on those to new homesteaders. Watching a video or reading a book is just not the same.