permaculture

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Linda,
   
  Last fall and the year before, I did some tests with seedballs in parallel 
  with the direct broadcasting of seeds. I found that it either didn’t 
  work at all, or that the seedball plots germinated much later than the
  directly seeded plots.
   
  Going by the discussions on the Fukuoka farming group, this is probably
  similar to what a lot of people experience, since one usually never hears
  from people again who announce that they are going to try it.
   
  The problem I found was that the seeds in the seedballs didn’t germinate
  with light rain, at a time when the directly broadcast seeds had already 
  germinated. When the rain would get stronger, the clay would be washed 
  away, and the seeds, I had taken so much trouble to enclose in the clay 
  balls, where laying on the ground just as the directly broadcast seeds, 
  except that the latter had germinated much sooner. I live in a semi-arid 
  region in the South of Portugal, where the climate is very different from 
  the humid climate encountered by Fukuoka in Japan. This may account 
  for some of the problems I had.
   
  If you do give it a try, don’t use the mesh-method. I went to great 
  expense to buy 3 differently graded metal meshes and fix them to
  wooden frames. It was extremely messy and took ages just to 
  pellet a handful of seeds. It is amazing that Fukuoka should have
  included this method in his book, which he very obviously can’t
  have tested himself.
   
  For a small-scale test use a large bowl (or tray) with a smooth inner 
  surface, throw in a handful of seeds and about 3 to 5 times that 
  amount of finely pulverized clay (you need to smash dry clay, then 
  pass it through a fine sieve so as to get rid of all stones); then one 
  person needs to swing the bowl around (great for your belly muscles), 
  so that the contents will roll along the inner side-surfaces of the 
  bowl (back and forth with the tray), while another persons adds water 
  little by little (best to use a spraying device of some sort). After a 
  while the pellets will form. It usually can’t be avoided that some 
  pellets contain more than one seed.
   
  For growing a crop by this method one needs some sort of revolving
  drum device like a concrete mixer without the inner shovels. But I 
  wouldn’t go to the expense of building one before testing if I want 
  to use the seedball method on a regular base.
   
  Once I get a little more time, I will give it another try since the
  pelleting of seeds allows for a much more flexible seeding schedule.
  Right now, I can only use direct broadcasting from 15 Nov. until
  the end of March because of the ants. I can use mulch to protect 
  the seeds against birds, while rodents and other wee creatures only 
  take a small part, but the ants will get every single seed even under 
  a layer of mulch.
   
  Dieter Brand
  Portugal


Linda Shewan <linda.shewan@bryn.com.au> wrote:  Have you had experience with 
seedballing? We are going to seedball the
understorey of our wildlife corridor and there doesn't seem to be much
information on how successful it usually is. I have heard some very
negative outcomes and I don't want to get the kids too excited if a
reasonable percentage don't take. Although they will love the process
anyway!

Anyway, I would love to hear any real life success (or otherwise)
stories you have about this.

Thanks, Linda

-----Original Message-----
From: Primal Parent [mailto:primalparent@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 16 June 2007 8:52 AM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Politics and Permaculture

right, which is why i originally put quotation marks around the word 
"society". which has both good connotations (i like to socialize, or a 
social gathering) and bad connotations (socialism, socialist). from an 
anthropological standpoint cities are sedentary populations of people so

large that they require the importation of resources. sedentary groups
of 
people in collectives small enough to be self-sufficient are not cities
but 
rather villages, and towns falling inbetween as a transition category.
for 
me, permaculture is about re-establishing villages i.e.
self-sufficiency, 
not dependency on the government (or not dependent on an established
social 
order). i appologize to all if this appears as a semantical argument but
for 
me i am trying to make a point that it is the social system that is 
inheritently flawed and therefore no benevolent enlightened ruler
(nader, 
kucinnich, etc) can "fix it". this is why i included the howard zinn
quote. 
the greatest lie or myth of our culture is that our political system is
the 
most advance, free, enlightened in the history of mankind. once you
believe 
that, then you believe you are fortunate to be a part of it (in other 
words...DEPENDENT). it is an un-natural system that is imposed via
suspended 
violence and as such can not be compatible with permaculture, in my
view. i 
am withdrawing from the "politics is permaculture" argument and will
attempt 
to steer the discussion back to real important issues like seedballing
and 
foraging.

-best wishes


>From: permafrog@riseup.net
>Reply-To: permaculture 

>To: "permaculture" 

>Subject: Re: [permaculture] Politics and Permaculture
>Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:58:24 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Greetings, > "but when those same people are allowed to self-govern
within
>the limits > of their bioregion, then history has shown that they will
>evolve to a > "societal > balance" in regards to their ecosystem.
>sometimes referred to as "climax".
>
>That is a way and one that I support of doing this: Politics is how we
>order society and meet the needs of society's members."
>
>The word "politics" comes from Middle French politique, "political"
from
>Latin politicus "of citizens" or "the state, civil, civic," from Greek
>politikos "of citizens or the state", from polites, "citizen", from
polis,
>"city".
>
>Perhaps we need to work with the original meaning of the word rather
than
>a reinterpretation.
>
>Bob
>_______________________________________________
>permaculture mailing list
>permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
>-go to the above link to subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list-

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