permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

Cory Brennan wrote:
> Prairie grass or rapeseed could work as a biofuel possibly. Fertility
> problem could be addressed with seasonal cover cropping and use of
> organic waste streams in the city. Complex prairie grass systems may
> maintain fertility even with harvesting if done right. Some research
> is being done on this in the midwest currently. It may not be
> advanced enough yet for this project but worth checking into.

How about a natural Fukuoka type plan for a plot of land wherein the 
existing seedbank is allowed to grow and compete for succession
- a public learning garden! interspersed throughout the roadside 
landscapes, integrated with the water impoundments, catch crops (swales 
catch runoff to irrigate lowland gardens adjoining (on downhill sides of 
the swales) allowed to develop unattended, providing wildlife habitat 
and food - I am thinking of benefits from a mix of eleagnus, cedar 
and/or juniper, carpets of native ground cover: mint, Creeping charlie
or ground ivy - the large leafed, prolific, medicinal, fragrant, 
invasive catch crop ideal for compost piles and Hugelkultur
(Glechoma hederacea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glechoma_hederacea), 
chickweed, tall sweet clover, Alsike clover and miscellaneous other 
volunteer wild plants.

> Instead of landscaping, what about food forests at those larger
> junctions of land? Food will be exposed to exhaust, which is a major
> downside but there may be microclimates where exposure could be
> minimized.
>
> Yes, swales, water catchment, etc! Capture the energy..

I think it is about laws of thermodynamics. Go for the most concentrated
accumulation of energy, whether it is light, heat, nitrogen as in 
manure, water from within a watershed....and recycle it through 
successive systems of usage and successive cycles of reuse and 
recycling, eliminating errors in the wastestream.