permaculture

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

That is our situation almost every year Jason. We had better apples this 
year than ever before, almost a bucket full. And hazelnuts did medium well. 
The blackberries were great as were the elderberries. They grow rampant 
wherever you let them. You can have a clean garden overgrown by them in two 
years if you don't act ferociously. But what we find pleasant are the 
uncultivated treecrops like hawthorn and blackthorn that give berries for 
medicinal :) alcoholic beverages.
The bulk of our calory intake comes from a great variety of tubers . The 
stachys affinis, occas, jerusalems, Apios americana and wild groundnuts and 
others we dig as needed and the survivors will be back the next year. We 
have a good variety of almost perennial green leaf crops like sweet cicely, 
alexanders, Veronica becabunga and arch angelica and a great variety of tea 
herbs and other tasty perennials that are necessary to keep life pleasant.

For bulk food, annual crops but to make life interesting perennials are 
necessary here. And of course meat without which we would not survive.
John

> Darrell's site is definitely an example of a market garden developed
> through the permaculture design process. I've been there a couple times,
> and was impressed both times. Darrell also tells good stories, and thinks
> deeply, and has a great library.
>
> Food forests in my experience are a fun, enjoyable, and exciting way of
> producing food. They have a lot of potential to gain productivity with
> strange species and assemblies (and I hope some of us are working to
> improve that for temperate climes especially), but yes, I have a couple
> food forests and still live on annual agriculture. I butchered a gigantic
> 25# Boston Marrow winter squash the other day, and realized that just my
> squash yield alone provided more food to me than my food forest this 
> entire
> year (if I don't count the alliums, and the subtropical fruits that are in
> a greenhouse, or the mushrooms, it was an epic shroom year). It was a
> horrible fruit and spring perennials year, or I should say a nothing year.
> Nothing, not even the ever reliable gooseberries. Wicked cold and record
> late heavy snow and frost really put relying on spring flowering 
> perennials
> in context. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Diversity is king. The
> exciting food forest yield this year was *Stachys affinis* tubers though.
> Yum!
>
> I can't wait to break out the broadfork and loosen the soil in my annual
> garden this spring. Tillage. Gasp!
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> --
>
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> Boulder, CO 80306
> 720-496-9744
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