permaculture

[John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

> any tree or ramp that produces a significant amount of biomass should be
> suitable for mulching. However the trick he is to find a plant that not
> only produces a significant amount of biomass but also provides some
> secondary or tertiary outputs. So, for example, comfrey is quite a good
> one, in its role as a dynamic accumulator. there is however no reason
> the while this mulch should not come from a fruit bearing plant. So the
> real difficulty or challenge is to incorporate multi purpose plants into
> every aspect of design.

Yeah, and, depends on what one has to start with and work with.

Stuff that most people here consider "junk" and "weed" trees (and 
grasses and bushes), I use as "free" mulch/biomass sources (cecropia and 
albizia, melastoma, bamboo orchid, various non-native bunch/clump grasses).
They're already here, they grow and spread all by themselves in these 
solid rock/almost no soil/acid conditions, and they make biomass.

There may be (I dunno, pretty tough conditions) stuff I could plant that 
would produce a bit more and/or better - maybe - but I'm sure happy 
there's already stuff here I can use just by gathering/coppicing, even 
if that's about the only function I get out of it.

cheers,
John S.

--

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
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