permaculture

[jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>]

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.