permaculture

[Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>]

Growing bamboo as I do, with some bamboos salt intolerant, it is important
to be sure to flush salt out of the coir before using it. I do like coir.
And coir twine and rope is really strong and fairly long-lasting outdoors,
although rough on your hands. I wish it was more available, I'd use it ALOT.

Here in Oregon I use fir (Pseudotsuga) bark as the base for my potting
medium. Relatively cheap, very available. Not renewable at the current rate
of harvest, but more importantly I think, the mode of harvest is ripping the
mountains apart and silting up the rivers.

Peat is certainly a renewable resource. But not as it is being used. (Do I
hear an echo?) The peat resources of Europe are a drop in the bucket
compared to the Canadian supply. Canada is the Mideast of peat, because of
the natural succession occuring in glacially created lakes. The deposits are
quite recent, geologically. So alternatives to peat are not AS imperative
for us in N. Am. as for Europeans.

The rudest thing to me is the linear effiency with which it is strip mined.
(the mode of harvest?) Imagine if it was done to increase edge, develop
habitat, or just to create  artwork lakes visible from space? Crop circles,
hah! miniscule!

-Rick

Down with monocultures of the imagination!