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  • From: "GlobalCirclenet" <webmaster@globalcircle.net>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Re: PDC thread
  • Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:36:26 -0600


You may find helpful resources on my website
http://herbfarmer.net/foodplants.htm
http://herbfarmer.net/buildinglife.htm
http://herbfarmer.net/gardening.htm
http://herbfarmer.net/storing.htm
http://herbfarmer.net/living.htm

paul@largocreekfarms.com
http://medicinehill.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 9/16/2004 at 4:26 PM Anne Erlandson wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I was just chased indoors by the rain, from working in my garden and
>thought
>that I'd try to throw a little optimism into the mix:
>
>I took a PDC last Dec and it changed my husband's and my lives. After
>taking the course, I began to draw up a site plan of my suburban lot and
>began to design some pc principles into my garden systems. I decided to
>put
>in a bunch of fruit trees, fruiting shrubs and perennials and self sowing
>edibles (I haven't quite figured out the vine thing yet). I decided to
>relax my tendency towards orderliness by mixing flowers with kale,
>lettuce,
>potatoes, chard, strawberries, fruiting shrubs, and weeds (pre-approved
>for
>usefulness of some sort - not just chickweed and quackgrass). I still
>have
>my vegetable garden area with lovely straight rows, but when I had extra
>seed potatoes and garlic and shallot cloves, I just stuck them in the
>ground
>in my new beds (which I had sheet mulched over existing lawn). This
>afternoon I was cleaning up a new bed formed last spring when I (or rather

>my hubby) jackhammered halfmoons out of our asphalt driveway forming a
>snaky
>paved path and four large new beds. I'd planted this particular bed with
>2
>aronias and one goumi, 4 chrysanthemums, and later 5 pepper plants. I had

>strewn various salad greens in the bed in the spring which fed us many
>salads and when I let them bolt were swarming with buzzing insects.
>Sunflowers volunteered towards the back of the bed and this morning after
>the night rains the migratory birds were perched on the older heads
>pecking
>out the seeds. While I was cleaning up the beds I yanked out the old
>potoato vines which had contributed lovely foliage and flowers all summer
>and to my surprise pulled out dozens of big potatoes! I guess I shouldn't

>have been surprised - I mean, that's what they usually do - but, when I'd
>stuck those extra seed potatoes in the sawdusty horse stall sweepings
>which
>I'd used to mulch the rocky nasty soil that I'd uncovered under the
>driveway, I didn't really expect any actual food from them, I just wanted
>to
>have something growing there for aesthetics and to get that little piece
>of
>land going! (This is my first year growing potatoes in my veggie garden
>and
>I am just amazed and awed by those little guys! There's nothing like
>digging around in the dirt and finding FOOD!)
>
>That was kind of a tangent, but anyways, somehow my enthusiasm for pc
>infected my husband and we went out and bought a piece of old pasture land

>with some woods at the back. We plan to eventually leave our urban
>lifestyle (which, until I found out about pc suited us just fine), build
>ourselves a strawbale or other appropriate construction little passive
>solar
>cottage with solar and wind power, rainwater catchment, Humanure style
>toilets and greywater and live as sustainably as we can. We've sold our
>Prius and bought a diesel VW which we run on bio-diesel so that our trips
>out to our land don't negate the whole point of what we're doing (send
>your
>dollars to farmers in the mid-west, not to that craziness in the Middle
>East).
>
>We've been trying to hold in our enthusiasm for this new project so as to
>follow the sage advice of living on a new piece of land for a year before
>starting anything, but we were just had to do a few little projects. We
>put
>in a wind break to shelter the pasture land, cleared out a big blackberry
>thicket, built a temporary shelter, and started clearing out the alders in

>an old pond.
>
>All this time we have been sharing our new interests of permaculture,
>natural building, bio-diesel, etc. with all of our friends and family and
>acquaintances, dentists, people we meet at music festivals, grocery
>clerks,
>etc. In short to anyone who will listen. :) And I fully expect that this

>informal dissemination of these valuable ideas are like seeds strewn out:

>many will fall on infertile ground, but some will germinate and come to
>fruit.
>
>We went to the Natural Building Colloquium East this summer to get some
>hands on experience with these techniques. It was fabulous, the best part

>possibly being the slide shows shown at the end of each day - very
>inspiring
>and thought provoking. I just wanted to share with you something that Tim

>Owen Kennedy, one of the presenters (I'm pretty sure that it was him that
>said it), said: "Don't beat yourself up for not being now where you want
>to
>get to." Or something to that effect. I would add that it's probably
>better to not beat others up for not being where you want to be either. I

>try to remember that everything is a process, especially the changes that
>we're all trying to effect.
>
>One last thing: The people who took the design course with me (I think
>that
>we all paid except one person who had some kind of work exchange worked
>out)
>were all very sincere about learning the coursework, mastering the
>principles, and absorbing the information available to us. There was no
>one
>there who showed any signs of sleeping through the classes or just skating

>through. One of the most profoundly affecting things about the course was

>spending that intensive time with what I would have to call soulmates. We

>were all there for the same ultimate reason, drawn by the idea of
>Permaculture and all that it promises for the future. Every one was fully

>present for every waking minute of the 2 weeks whether it was showing up
>on
>time for the classes, talking about related subjects during meals,
>participating fully in hands-on work outdoors, coming back after classes
>to
>watch optional videos and slide shows and presentations, staying up late
>working on projects. It was very intense and everyone gave 100% and tried

>to squeeze in every drop of learning possible and at the end half of us
>were
>sick and all of us were exhausted. It was one of the best experiences of
>my
>life.
>
>Well, it looks like the rain has stopped, so I'm back outside! Potatoes
>for
>dinner!
>
>Anne in Seattle
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and

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>
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