permaculture

["Robert Waldrop" <rmwj@soonernet.com>]

I am from Oklahoma City, and live on a city lot in an older Oklahoma
City central neighborhood built in the 1920s.  All of my available
space for gardening is in my two front yards (I am on a corner), and
the buildings are right up against the other property lines.  I am
finishing the third year of my project of creating a "forest edge
garden".  This past year's garden diary is online at
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/2002gardendiary.htm .

I am in the master gardener's training program with OKlahoma County
Extension, and today we got the results back for our soil test.  On a
per acre basis, mine came out:

Nitrogen:  232 lbs/acre
Phosphorus:  575 lbs/acre
Potassium:  1462 lbs/care

which are all waaaaay above what Extension described as being ideal
for vegetable gardens.  My soil pH was 6.7.

My gardens are untilled raised beds on top of a former lawn, planted
intermixed about 2/3rds perennials and 1/3 annuals.  I presume it had
been lawn since the house was constructed in 1929.  For the three
years I've been working on this, I have fertilized with nothing but
compost.  My compost is primarily shredded trees, grass clippings,
flowers, dried leaves, and kitchen leftovers.  The walls of the beds
are logs (mostly elm) from two mature trees on this property that in
my first two years here were taken down by wind and ice storms.

I had very lush growth and good production all summer, except for the
tomatoes, which grew very nice plants but were a bit stingy on the
tomatoes (it was also an abnormally cool year for Oklahoma City, not
one single day over 100 degrees and I only watered maybe 6 times since
spring.)  And except also for most of the perennials like fruit trees
and berry canes/vines which haven't been in place long enough to begin
producing.

Another question:  how do y'all feel about pruning grape vines?
Everyone I know says "prune them".  I was wondering how some of the
more experienced permaculturists felt about that.  I haven't pruned
mine since planting them two years ago, but was thinking about doing
that for the next season.

I'm thinking that Extension standards are probably based on
conventional agriculture and gardening and I was wondering how these
soil test results compare with others of you out there who have had
soil tests done on your permacultured gardens.

Third question:  I mentioned the master gardener class I am in, I was
thinking about producing a handout to give to everybody in the class
with a short list of food producing plants in each of the seven layers
of a permacultured forest garden.  I have quite a bit of material, but
I would like some more suggestions for "color".

Thus far under that I have Maximilien sunflowers (mine put on two
separate and very showy displays of flowers this year), purple
echinacea, rosa rugosa, purple hyacinth beans, Mexican mint marigold,
daylilies, perennial kale, dandelions, and amaranth (which in my
garden is self seeding).  Any other suggestions?

And finally, about those Maximilien sunflowers, I was expecting a bit
bigger seed, as supposedly they are an oil sunflower (so I read
somewhere on the net).  Any thoughts about extracting oil from the
seeds?  Also, should I cut them back closer to the ground (I bought
two pots, and they each grew into 10' tall stalks, covered with
flowers.  Even if they aren't edible and I was mistaken about that,
their beauty is food for the soul.

Robert Waldrop, Oklahoma City