Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] off topic: dehydrators, sustainability

pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: pcplantdb

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] off topic: dehydrators, sustainability
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 16:48:21 -0500

Lawrence F. London, Jr. writes:
> 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

Yes, Fukuoka (Bonfils, Hazelip, et. al.) has had as much sway over my
ag. thinking as Mollison (although maybe PC is a derivative?). One of
my heros for sure.

> > 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.

Pretty much what I did except I used a small steel funnel to penetrate
the mulch and my cleaning rod has a nifty return spring and a half
inch copper tube delivers my seed to the funnel. Sounds like I wasn't
the first to tackle this kind of thing.

This is TOTALLY why we need a permaculture knowledge base kind of
thing. This is the kind of knowledge we should be sharing. I guess
we are except on mailing lists it just kind of gets lost to bit rot.

> > 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> pcplantdb mailing list
> pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/pcplantdb
>




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page