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  • From: Armed With A Mind Armed With A Mind <armedwithamind@hotmail.com>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Greetings
  • Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:08:04 +0000


I appreciate the responses and good wishes, and yes I will be taking it slow
due to monetary constraints if nothing else. I will do my best to resist the
urge to rush long term crops in the ground, like mulberries and walnuts etc.
until zone one is established and I've got a better acquantance and
understanding with the land. I've learned that lesson the hard way while
involved in planning a nearby community garden.



This winter I will be doing a lot of research and tentative planning, and I'm
lucky to have the luxury of a nearby school of natural resources college
library. While a student there I was amazed to find books like the One Straw
Revolution, Robert Harts Forest Garden book, Mollisons full series of
permaculture manuals, Gaia's Garden, Gardening and horticultural books of all
kinds, several Agroforestry books, and even several of the Permaculture
Activist magazines hidden away in the older periodicals section. I may well
become known as the phantom of the Fleming College library. I would love to
take a permaculture design course but I don't know how I could scrape the
money together for it. We have so many expenses to worry about with this farm
that every spare penny so far is going to paying the bills.



Thanks for the advice Tripp and Mitch. And Tripp, as per your question; "do
you like people? You seem like a fairly gregarious fellow. Just be honest
about that aspect of the future. " I'm not sure what you mean by the last
part but I am far from gregarious and was a loner and outcast through most of
my childhood. I have been trying to be more sociable for the last 8 years or
so, and have had some success but feel I have a long way to go. On the one
hand I do like people in general but on the other, I see what most of us are
doing to the planet and I view us as a cancer-like entity. I'd say that I do
like people in general and at the end of the day we are a part of nature and
are simply filling our role, whatever that may be.


When it comes to swales, when I said before that I was mystified, I suppose I
used the wrong word. I think I have a basic understanding of the function and
theory but no real world experience with it so I am nervous to start plotting
and digging away only to realize I messed up. Luckily my zone one is
relatively flat and low lying (laying?) so I won't need to worry about
putting swales in there. Jeff Lawtons Youtube videos "Greening the Desert"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk gave me a much better
understanding of how they work but then I watched his video on 'water
harvesting' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPrfNVzDNME&feature=related, read
a few websites talking about swales, and I became a bit overwhelmed at how
technical it can get. I also can't find anything with any detail about swales
used on land with a high water table.



Lawrence, thanks for the list of uses for those species. I've definetly
thought along the same lines. As to your suggestion of starting a plant
nursery, there is a native plant nursery 2 km's down the road so I don't
think I want to 'cut their grass' and start my own nursery. There may be a
possibility of some sort of consignment deal with them to provide plant stock
that they don't have.



To answer a few of your questions and uncertainties... Manitoba maple or Acer
negundo is a species of maple native to North America. Box Elder, Boxelder
Maple, and Maple Ash are its other most common names according to wikipedia.
It is a vigorously spreading species who's seedlings pop up in droves on
lawns and gardens around central ontario. The wood is too weak for carpentry
but would make decent firewood. Balsam poplar is fast growing, and can be
used as firewood. The wild apple trees on my property are real apples, of
different cultivar types. They are mixed in the hedge rows seemingly randomly
and I've counted only 7 of them, all probably planted by birds, squirrels, or
farm workers who tossed their cores aside. They are all very mature and
gangly and I plan to practice pruning on them, and to feed the apples to the
farm animals as most of them are wormy and not so tasty. A funny thing
happened with some of the apples; squirrels took a few and skewered them onto
pine tree branches and left them there for later eating. My girlfriend joked
that we've discovered a new species of pineapple...



A question for the group about wild strawberries... I wonder how best to go
about working with them. They are heavily populated in one of our hay fields
so my instinct is to dig shallow paths to designate beds, weed out the
grasses, and mulch heavily. Or it may work out that if I can get to the patch
early enough in the spring, that I can just mulch around the plants and
suppress the grass that way. Luckily there are old hay bales on the edge of
the field that I could use as the mulch. Does this latter idea sound feasible
as long as I periodically refresh the mulch layer?



Hi Isabel. Establishing Chinampas are definetly in the plans if we get some
more ponds dug or expand the existing one. And don't worry as far as tilling
goes...I pretty much have a phobia of tilling and my success with sheet
mulching has convinced me to stick with no-tillage, except maybe when it
comes to our hay fields. Some of our hay fields need reseeding and we'd like
to have hay without alfalfa due to the high protein content causing hoof
problems in horses that aren't worked very hard. I'm wondering if I simply
hand broadcast grasses like timothy early enough and thick enough, if it will
eventually crowd out the alfalfa. Does anyone have experience similar to this
or have literature that talks about it? All this being said, I am intrigued
by the Yeomans Keyline plow, especially after seeing it in action on youtube.
Our farm will rely on people power out of necessity and we plan to have
several interns at various levels of committment from one-offs to a full
season. There is a sustainable agriculture course starting up at the
aforementioned Fleming College of Natural Resources and I'm trying to
collaborate with them. We'll see how it goes.



Again, thanks for the support and advice,



Travis






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