[permaculture] reed beds

Harmon Seaver hseaver at gmail.com
Fri Feb 8 19:26:47 EST 2008


Robyn Francis wrote:
> Have you ever worked with phragmites? The stems have an exceptionally hard
> and brittle wall with hollow centre - to use in cob would be quite
> impractical - it doesn't have the same or even vaguely similar qualities to
> straw. The leaves, possibly, but it would be very labour intensive to
> separate from the stems and you'd need to spend some time curing and
> preparing it to a suitable size and texture for such use.
> robyn
> 


   Not cob -- claw/straw as is used for wall infill in timberframe
buildings. I've done claw/straw, but with wheat straw, not with
phragmites. The only thing I've used phragmites for is pipe stems. But I
think you could harvest it with a forage harvester and it would be great
for clay/straw walls.

-- 
Harmon Seaver


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