Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

You are starting from a false premise.  The reason the non-natives are doing 
so well is Round-Up, Oust, soil disruption, fertilizers, pesticides and so 
forth and so on.

People go in and plow under the natives because they brought with them the 
plants they were familiar with.  With all that man made help they did well 
to the detriment of the natives.

AND, not planting natives just because you are peeved at what you call 
enviro-whatsits is just plain silly.

Your seed mixes are there because someone is making M-O-N-E-Y.  Not because 
they will do best but because some seed company could make $$.

You want legumes, there are lots of natives, Trifolium macrocephalum, T. 
wormskioldii, and Vicia americana, just to name a couple or three.

As to permaculture, that would be defined as "an ethic of caring for the 
earth and interacting with the environment in mutually beneficial ways" and 
how is that going to end simply because folks learn to use natives and 
collect their own seeds?  I don't think Monsanto has been able to pass laws 
banning all seed collecting, at least not yet.

Lynda

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Jones" <billj AT harborside.com>


> I'm way behind, having entertained company all last weekend.
>
> These grasses you mentioned sound interesting.  We're soon opening
> another square of pasture and "clearing" it (for me, that means thinning
> all the but the very largest conifers, and limbing these up, and leaving
> most deciduous trees, except chittem).  It's a little wetter down there,
> but presently almost no grass grows due to the shade, so it's a good
> place to try.  I think seed is probably available for these and the
> local big-leaf clover.  The thing is, it's not so much up to me, as it
> is to nature, to decide which grasses will grow best.  A grass has to
> not only compete with other grasses, but also withstand the summer
> drought.  My tall fescue that now dominates stays green all summer,
> while the "also-ran" cultivar next door at the neighbors' is totally
> brown.  I didn't even plant it; it sprouted/regrew after my buckwheat
> cover crop.