Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] [Fwd: Re: [NAFEX] re: shade for blackberries]

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Scott Vlaun <scott@moosepondarts.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] [Fwd: Re: [NAFEX] re: shade for blackberries]
  • Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 00:37:40 -0400

In the interview I did with Bill Mollison last year, he talked about the relationship between African Box Thorn (Lycium ferrocissimum) and chickens as well as a Coprosma. He never mentioned Caragana though, unless something got confused in the transcription. As you can imagine it was a bit of a challenge. I've pasted the passage below. The complete interview is at http://store.yahoo.com/seedsofchange/25enewsletter.html#Mollison

Regards to all,

Scott Vlaun

P.S, Just returned from Bioneers Conference and heard and great presentation from Ali Shariff. He is doing wonderful Pc stuff in Brazil. www.permacultura.org.br/ipec if you can read portuguese.




I wondered . . . these chickens aren't eating one handful of wheat, that's not going to do it. She had them running in amongst two plants: one was called Coprosma, it's a New Zealand shiny leaf creeping plant immune to sea winds and things, and it has crop after crop of berries during the year; it's always got green berries or ripe berries or new berries or something. Each berry has two seeds that you could easily mistake for two grains of wheat. So it's a continual wheat producer as far as chickens are concerned; they think it's wheat and they eat it. So even one Coprosma bush was feeding dozens more chickens than my grandmother. And the other plant she had planted because of the sea winds was in the Solanum family. It's got huge thorns. It's called African Box Thorn. It's a Lycium. It's a frightfully thorny thing. But in cool climates it doesn't spread; you put it in and there it grows; it grows to about 15 feet across and 15 feet high. It's a dome, and it stops there forever. We've had hedges of it for more than 200 years in northern Tasmania. It always has flowers, green berries, and ripe berries and the chickens love it. It's in the Solanacae so there's like millions of little tomatoes falling all the time. When a chook (chicken) is going to lay eggs and rear chicks she walks in underneath the box thorns, makes a nest, lays her eggs and sits under the box thorns because nothing, no hawks, no dogs, nothing can get her in there. Then come the chicks and they don't leave that shelter because the berries are the perfect size for little chickens. They eat them until they're quite well fledged, and out they come in the open air and then hawks get one or two of them. If they're in trouble, they run into the box thorns, so it's ideal food and shelter.

So, she had these two plants and none other, and yet, they fed 85 chickens within 50 yards of her chicken house, so I could say you didn't have to buy wheat to grow chickens. And her eggs were very good eggs. I later discovered there's some New Zealanders who grew their chickens on three species of Coprosma. I never saw the other species. That's all they ever feed them.



On Tuesday, October 22, 2002, at 07:09 PM, Robert Waldrop wrote:

Is caragena the same as the Siberian pea tree?

Robert Waldrop, OKc
-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly Finigan <kfinigan@telus.net>
I haven't seen anyone do this, but I think Mollison has a sketch with
caragana and chicken runs. I HAVE heard of Russians eating the beans,
either
as vegetable or ground as flour. I have eaten some of the beans and
found a
range of flavours - from nice to quite bitter. Maybe a potential to
select
good tasting varieties and breed for perennial protein?

The bushes (normally 10 to 30 feet tall) can also be coppiced and
then form
very thick hedges good for keeping people (or animals) in/out.

ciao,
Kelly




Kelly Finigan, M.Sc. P.Eng., Permaculture Designer
Essential Elements Inc.
744 - 4 Street NW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1P2
1-403-283-7270 fax 283-9783 kfinigan@telus.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 1:29 AM
Subject: [permaculture] [Fwd: Re: [NAFEX] re: shade for blackberries]



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


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



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page