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  • From: jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Books / biomass plants
  • Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 00:22:48 +1100

On Wednesday 08 November 2006 20:42, Cesca Beamish wrote:
] Has anyone any suggestions on plants (for mid uk) suitable for growing for
] mulching material? I have sown a couple of beds of wheat and have got
] patches of comfrey any/every where but looking for other possibilities

Comfrey's great, verily. Wheat, I'm not so sure about (but have
only grown it accidentally). Lucerne is good, but may give you
the same problem that wheat does - it could go weedy.

I'm using queensland arrowroot (v.similar to normal arrowroot,
I believe, but perhaps a tad more drought tolerant?), lab lab and
rice beans, and of course pigeon pea - all for chop and drop
purposes. I'm experimenting with growing a few rows of the
queensland arrowroot, lightly irrigated, and throwing all weeds
and other surplus green manure crops in amongst them, with a view
to either moving the resultant compost from there, or just digging
up the tubers in a year or two, planting perennials in that spot, and
colonising a new spot with the same approach.

I would suspect that most things that produce lots of material would
work well - a permaculture approach implies that you'd use plants
that had other purposes (qld arrowroot is edible, pigeon pea, lucerne,
wheat, comfrey are all good fodder crops, rice bean is edible when
young but I gather mostly grown for green manure / ground cover,
not sure but don't believe lab lab's particularly tasty). With that
in mind, I tend to get *lots* of material from my kiwifruit vines
once a year (twice with the boys), and of course a prodigious quantity
from peas and beans (two or three times a year). Bamboo may be
a good option here - edible, timber, retaining wall, wind break, etc
and the 'waste' material can be used for fodder or perhaps sent via
a mulcher to the compost (though I'm not sure about the silica
content and if it'd be a problem .. ?)

Jedd.




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