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  • From: John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] mulch/biomass plants
  • Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:28:26 -1000

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
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net




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