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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] off topic: dehydrators, sustainability
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:41:21 -0700

Chad Knepp wrote:

I have also some agriculture experiments that I'm writing proposals
for. The most interesting one is something I haven't thought of a
good name for. It's based on my observations while doing more
conventional farming that if you miss part of a windrow while making
hay it will be around the following year possibly fouling your mower.
Last summer here at DR the ultimate frisbee [freaks] mowed their field
when the grass was kind of tall. It made clumps of grass that instead
of tripping on they threw outside the field. I noticed one pile still
around this spring and after planting sweet corn in my own garden I
walked over and stuck 10-15 seeds through the mulch. If only I had a
camera! It's a little shorter but tasseling and might even make sweet
corn if that small of an amount will pollinate. The crazy thing is
that it looks better than most other corn around here (except for mine
of course ;-) and it took less than a minute of my time. Anyway, the
possibilities of what you could do by mowing grassland, concentrating
it, letting it kill off the sod/decompose, and planting into it have

Masanobu Fukuoka! Book: "One Straw Revolution".
http://www.fukuokafarmingol.net/
Dedicated to exploring Masanobu Fukuoka's revolutionary method of sustainable
agriculture

got me all excited. As a side note, I got a European style scythe
from scythesupply.com and I can't say enough good things about it.
I've put in over 40 hours on it in the last month mostly for fun and
to generate mulch for my garden and others. Another interesting

A great company. I have a range of scythes and accessories from them.

ag. thing I've been working on is a sort of a hand *no-till drill*.
Ever figure out a good way to direct seed into heavy mulch? It's

Take 1" schedule 40 plumbing pipe X 3 feet - cut one end on a steep angle
to make a sharp point - attach a good 8" diameter funnell into the other end.
Make a long pushrod of heavy copper ground bus or something in steel - use
this as a cleanout
when dirt gets jammed in the business end of the pipe-planter. Cut 1/4 moon pieces of pvc plastic sheet and glue them to the sides of the pipe near ground delivery zone - these would be the wings you described - push down and you clear a path for planting - pull up and twist and you clear enough area for the seedling to emerge through.

still in early development but I've planted kale through about 12" of
course grass. I got great germination but unfortunately the drill
didn't make a large enough hole in mulch to let the kale back out.
I'm going to modify it with an eccentric fin/wedge so that twisting it
will create a larger opening.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech





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