Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[mtncats@planetcomm.net]

Hi Joanna,

Thank you for the post and website.  Took a brief look.  Reminded me of that 
old classic book "One Acre & Security" from the early 70's.  Keith and I once 
spent time on an effectively unmoderated list concerning homesteading (which 
unfortunately became very political).  There were several of us living the 
dream, along with a large number of dreamers.  Congratulations on making the 
transition.

Pretty much the opposite of your place, we have almost entirely trees (and 
considerably more land) with only our roof getting much summer sun.  Raised 
beds up there.  We're classified as a "tree farm".  Harvey here 
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/greenhouse.html has got my attention about a 
greenhouse.  Unclear if I'll be find the construction time this year, rather 
full plate already.  You might find his observations on crops and fowl 
interesting.

A major factor we desire is lack of maintenance, whether crops, livestock 
(none here- but the woods are full), or dwelling (ours requires nothing from 
us).  Went no-till this year and am loving it so far.  Even my composting, 
while far from fast, requires nothing from me other than adding layers to the 
area.  With no lawn mower living here, I think I've found a nearby source for 
more "green", which will boost production.  Horse manure is readily available 
for the hauling in our area.  Our mushroom cultivation is also extremely low 
maintenance.  Rather than trying to produce everything we want, informal 
bartering works well for us.

Looking forward to your sharing your successes, and otherwise.

Tom (in central Va)


On 4/29/06 at 8:07 PM J Bailey wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Trading Post Paul pointed me to this list from a lost arts group because
>of
>a post I wrote he thought might be helpful here. It went something like
>this...
>
>"We're in Whatcom county WA
>on a tiny bit o' land, trying to see how much we can provide for ourselves
>with it. We just moved to our place last fall, so are neck deep in
>projects.
>I'm just getting ready to dig out a giant herb bed for all the starts in my
>greenhouse, so herb lore is on my front burner. We also brew, so medicinal
>beer & mead herbs are part of the plan too.
>
>One website I like to look at when planning plantings is this one -
>http://www.pfaf.org/index.html Plants for a Future. They rate plants by
>usefulness, both food and medicine, so you can pick ones that will give a
>lot of bang for your buck. For instance, we need to plant some shade trees
>in one corner of a pasture, we'd also like something we can use for
>firewood
>someday, and they need to be able to withstand windstorms up to 100mph. I
>looked at linden trees and found not only will they meet those needs, but
>they are an excellent medicinal plant too.
>
>Same goes for heather. The flowers make a great addition to beer or mead,
>they have medicinal uses, and seem to like the growing conditions around
>the
>foundations of the house (which were bare when we moved in). They are
>evergreen, and help trap rainwater before it can compromise the house crawl
>space, and help hold water in that planting strip so the soil stays moister
>where the plants need it."
>
>Let me add to the description of our place by saying it's 1.25 acres on
>what
>used to be a larger working farm some time ago. The piece we bought fronts
>the main road and has the original 1920-built farmhouse. The outbuildings
>and fencing were removed long ago, so we're starting from scratch there.
>The
>house itself was a rental the past 20 years but has been updated and well
>insulated, and being well under 1000 square feet, is very easy to heat
>with
>a small woodstove.
>
>We're fairly experienced gardeners and critter tenders, and our goal is to
>see just how much we can help this land provide for us. We inherited an
>ancient apple tree, a large blackberry patch, tasty nettles, and some
>herbs
>that went wild from someone's garden. We've added fruit trees, hop vines,
>raised veggie beds, a potato patch, small greenhouse, compost areas,
>chickens, goats and are researching if we have room to keep a dexter cow
>for
>milk and babies. The house is so tiny that most of the lot is lovely open
>pasture. Incredibly rich with timothy grass, which we overseeded with 2
>kinds of hybrid clover (the best we could find for our microclimate) that
>brings nitrogen to the grass and is already making the pasture lush and
>alive. We have a huge salmonberry patch that is home to tree frogs and
>provides good goat fodder, and we're crossfencing everything into small
>paddocks we can manage for best growth and critter food potential. We're
>also learning how to use our scythe to mow so we can make a little hay
>too.
>We also have 7 old growth douglas fir trees that the house nestles in,
>which
>provide shade and habitat. We hope to underplant these with an appropriate
>food plant, once we figure out what that is....
>
>We also want to add a couple of beehives, some hazel trees, and have a
>bunch
>of elderberries on order. Infrastructure-wise, we're building a small
>barn,
>a new coop, a woodshed, and looking into a smokehouse, outdoor bread oven,
>carport, doubling the barn next spring, etc, etc...
>
>Anyway, I hope to learn a lot here about how to make Seven Trees a better
>place.And hopefully share what I've learned along the way too.
>
>Joanna of Seven Trees
>http://www.seventrees.blogspot.com/