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12-Plus Methods For Keeping Challenging Weeds and Pests Out of the Garden
12-PLUS METHODS FOR KEEPING CHALLENGING WEEDS AND PESTS OUT OF THE GARDEN
With organic gardening, especially at the outset, comes a few new challenges for transitioning growers. Pesticides and other chemicals have, for several decades, become the go-to solution for all things in the garden, and now that many of us are clearing our heads from that fog, we are left to rediscover methods for dealing with everyday garden problems.
When herbicides have been the trick for combating weeds, how do we do it without the chemicals? Where aphids once elicited a poison spray (on our food no less), how do we now stop them from eating our crops? When voles are feasting, how do we protect our food without resorting to awful compound killers? This is our food after all, so we have cause to protect it! If we have to do so without chemicals (which seems a form of protection in its own right), what are we to do?
The permaculture way is to find somewhat natural solutions (we kind of stage them) to such problems. Bill Mollison is famously quoted as claiming there isn’t slug problem but rather a duck shortage. In other words, we can control slugs with ducks and get more production from the system on the whole. With permaculture techniques, solutions to problems have multiple functions in the garden. Not only will pest insects be thwarted, but pollinators will be invited. Not only will weeds be suppressed, but the soil life will be enlivened. Stacking solutions is how permaculture gardens, much more organically than typical organic gardens, handle weeds and pests, as well as fertility, soil structuring, and so on.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
12-Plus Methods For Keeping Challenging Weeds and Pests Out of the Garden
12-PLUS METHODS FOR KEEPING CHALLENGING WEEDS AND PESTS OUT OF THE GARDEN
With organic gardening, especially at the outset, comes a few new challenges for transitioning growers. Pesticides and other chemicals have, for several decades, become the go-to solution for all things in the garden, and now that many of us are clearing our heads from that fog, we are left to rediscover methods for dealing with everyday garden problems.
When herbicides have been the trick for combating weeds, how do we do it without the chemicals? Where aphids once elicited a poison spray (on our food no less), how do we now stop them from eating our crops? When voles are feasting, how do we protect our food without resorting to awful compound killers? This is our food after all, so we have cause to protect it! If we have to do so without chemicals (which seems a form of protection in its own right), what are we to do?
The permaculture way is to find somewhat natural solutions (we kind of stage them) to such problems. Bill Mollison is famously quoted as claiming there isn’t slug problem but rather a duck shortage. In other words, we can control slugs with ducks and get more production from the system on the whole. With permaculture techniques, solutions to problems have multiple functions in the garden. Not only will pest insects be thwarted, but pollinators will be invited. Not only will weeds be suppressed, but the soil life will be enlivened. Stacking solutions is how permaculture gardens, much more organically than typical organic gardens, handle weeds and pests, as well as fertility, soil structuring, and so on.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How to Make Instant Garden Beds
HOW TO MAKE INSTANT GARDEN BEDS
A common problem when just starting a garden is dealing with the fact that we’ve not had time to condition the soil, fostering it into something heaving with fertility. Or, maybe we just aren’t that far into gardening yet anyway and don’t know what to do. Basically, it seems we are left with the option of using what we have and hoping for the best, or we can spend a heap on importing soil and compost and such. Fortunately, there is another route, an inexpensive way to make garden beds instantaneously.
Often referred to as lasagna gardens or sheet mulching, an instant garden bed requires little to nothing being brought in, and it can be cultivated right away (though it will get nicer as time passes). It begins with kitchen scraps, maybe some manure (or other high nitrogen items), old cardboard boxes or newspaper, and some mulch material such as dried grass, straw, or shredded leaves. In other words, most of what we need is already around waiting to be used.
STEP ONE: FOOD FOR THE WORMS
One of the nice elements of this kind of garden is that it doesn’t require digging and tilling. Rather, whatever grass or weeds are growing in the garden space, leave them right where they are. Fresh green material provides a good boost of nitrogen.
Atop this, add a bucket full of kitchen scraps (no need to wait for it to compost) and, if available, some well-rotted manure, whatever is around: horse, rabbit, cow, chicken, etc. If manure isn’t available, other high nitrogen items would be more fresh grass clippings or spent coffee grounds from the nearest coffee shop.
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How to Start an Urban Farm
HOW TO START AN URBAN FARM
Like any new venture, starting an urban farm is a daunting and difficult task. Not only do you have to find land to farm, but that land also must be suitable for growing food. Not only do you have to know how to grow food, but you also have to know what to do with your bounty when harvest time comes around. What has often been referred to as “the simple life” is actually extremely complex and intensive.
And yet many people around the world are choosing to start urban farming ventures of their own to strengthen the bonds of communities and teach people that real food comes from the ground — not from supermarkets. It sounds like an obvious statement, but our food system makes it quite easy to hide all the sweat, work, and dirt that goes into food production and only focus on the finished, packaged products that line the grocery store shelves.
Why Start an Urban Farm?
It’s an unfortunate but true fact that threats to public health are everywhere in today’s modern world. Our food system, one that contributes to the greater problem of climate change, is a huge part of this issue.
How often do we visit the grocery store and buy fruits and vegetables with stickers that mark them as world travelers without ever thinking of how long their journey to our plate might have been? This is even easier to do when the food we buy is so processed that it doesn’t look like real food at all.
In a world where 36 percent of American adults are obese, the state of the food system in the U.S. is a crisis we must address. And what better way to take action against it than to start an urban farm to better feed yourself, your friends and family, and your community?
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Fixes for Nutrient Deficient Soil
FIXES FOR NUTRIENT DEFICIENT SOIL
Basic understanding of plant health comes from the soil they grow in. Their nutrition is vital to their health and overall sustainability, so it’s essential for plants to get all of the macronutrients necessary to thrive.
However, there are times we still struggle with a plant mysteriously dying off long before its time. It happens, but this is often indicative of a bigger problem with the nutrients in the soil. If one plant is struggling, others nearby may be too.
One method that has worked for me is specifying what nutrients appear to be lacking and why. It’s obvious that plants need nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (commonly known as NPK), but plant health is complex and nutrient deficiencies can stem from many places.
1. NITROGEN
Pale yellow, stunted leaves are a sure sign of nitrogen deficiency. Nitrogen is essential in photosynthesis, cell health, and chlorophyll development. Nitrogen depletion in soil happens when large amounts of carbon are added to the soil, typically after nearby plants decay and die. Microorganisms will use available nitrogen to break down the new carbon source and quickly deplete the nitrogen available to the plant. This stunts the plant’s growth.
To correct a nitrogen deficiency, consider planting nitrogen-rich plants like beans and peas nearby. Adding used and rinsed coffee grounds to the soil to promote nitrogen production. Rinsing the grounds will not affect acid levels of the soil. A plant with plenty of nitrogen available to it will appear leafy green.
2. PHOSPHORUS
Phosphorous ensures healthy cell division, fruiting, and root growth. Similar to nitrogen deficiencies, plants with a lack of phosphorus will struggle to grow. The edges of their leaves may darken to a brown or reddish-purple. Flowers or fruits will not grow. Some contributors to phosphorus deficient soil include cold temperatures, heavy rainfall and acidic soil.
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Greening the Desert with Permaculture
GREENING THE DESERT WITH PERMACULTURE
“I have never seen soil like this before” was the comment that Bill Mollison made during a visit to the Greening the Desert Project in 2011. At the time, he was referring to the poor state of the soil in the small village of Jawasari, Jordan. An area of the world where the landscape has been damaged by not only extreme pollution and the overuse of recycling nutrients but also by the climatic conditions of the location. At 31° North of the equator, 400-meters below sea level, in an area that receives less than 50-millimeters (2-inches) in annual rainfall, and Summer temperatures reaching over 50°C (122°F), the Dead Sea Valley is considered one of the world’s worst agricultural scenarios.
So, when I and thousands like me first saw the Greening the Desert video, we thought, if this is possible in one of the lowest, driest, and harshest environments in the world then we can do this—grow food, harvest water, repair soil, enhance the ecosystem and build community—anywhere in the world. The solution has been found, and it’s merely adopting the same design methods, the persistence, and the passion.
Growing up in Jordan I have seen agricultural land being encroached on. The neighborhood I grew up in slowly turned from fertile farming land, growing grains and vegetables, into a residential apartment block that was everything you would expect from a concrete forest. I witnessed small farmers struggling to stay profitable, and confessing to losing their land to salt due to commercial planting methods, the advice they get from agriculture departments, chemical fertilizer salesmen and the lack of long-sightedness in the agriculture policy in Jordan overall.
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Permaculture Chickens–6 Practical Lessons From the Evolution of Chickens
PERMACULTURE CHICKENS – 6 PRACTICAL LESSONS FROM THE EVOLUTION OF CHICKENS
One of the fundamentals of permaculture design is to observe, understand and work with natural ecosystems.
It sounds simple enough to apply permaculture principles to chicken keeping. Can’t we just observe wild chickens in their natural environment? The problem is, modern domesticated chickens don’t exist in the wild. Junglefowl are the immediate ancestor of chickens, however it’s not that simple.
Modern chickens were domesticated more than 8,000 years ago and have changed a lot as a result of selective breeding. To get a more complete picture, that accounts for the differences between modern chickens and Junglefowl, I’ve studied the evolution of chickens from the Asian jungle, to modern factory farming and chicken nuggets.
I have distilled this research into 6 lessons for a permaculture approach to happy, healthy, backyard chickens.
Evolution of Chickens
Before I jump into the 6 lessons for permaculture chickens, I’ll start by setting the scene with a brief history and evolution of the modern domestic chicken.
Junglefowl – The chicken’s immediate ancestor:
Domestic chickens can be traced back to Red Junglefowl, from South East Asia and India. Jungle fowl have small lean bodies and they only lay about 20 eggs each year.
If we trace chickens back even further, chickens are the closest living relative of the T-Rex. This makes a lot of sense because chickens go crazy for meat, hunt down insects and even small rodents. And check out this incredible video of a chicken grabbing (stealing) a mouse that was being hunted down by a cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwtuoHyLEiw .
Domestication and family farming (1900s to 1950):
Junglefowl were domesticated around 8,000 years ago. Despite domesticated chickens being very different ‘physically’ to jungle fowl, studies show that genetic differences are actually pretty small. This study of the genetic evolution of chickens shows there are two important mutations:
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Ornamental Plants That are Edible and/or Edible Plants That are Ornamental
ORNAMENTAL PLANTS THAT ARE EDIBLE AND/OR EDIBLE PLANTS THAT ARE ORNAMENTAL
When I first began growing food and working with ideas of permaculture, I lived in the tropics where many edible plants leaf out large and are exceptionally stunning. Moreover, the places I found myself building gardens tended to be free-for-alls, where anything goes and HOAs didn’t interfere with what people planted on their property.
Last year however, after twelve years abroad, I moved back to the US. Where often people aren’t allowed to grow food at home. Because I’m more into rural areas, I don’t foresee much issue in this regard to me personally. However, I’m often asked for advice and eventually, I may do some consulting work.
Suddenly, the idea of having to gett around these committees and associations seems an important avenue for getting people into home food production. I already knew that it was possible to create an “ornamental” garden entirely with plants that are edible. However, now in the temperate climate, it was time to learn some of the plants with which to work.
(Please follow links, if necessary, for Latin names and more information.)
Perennials
Sticking with the principle that perennial plants are always a plus, I would want to recommend several to go into the garden. The selling points – there are many. Perennial plants put fixed roots into the soil, which take nutrients less intensively than annuals. In terms of appearance, they often appear earlier and provide earlier blooms as well, and in many cases, they hang on a bit longer. Ultimately, they are lower maintenance, often spreading out on their own, which makes for easy gardening.
Hosta
Perennial Edible Ornamentals
There are several ornamental plants that grow perennially, some of which are noted for being delicious as well as attractive.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What to do With Bad Soil
WHAT TO DO WITH BAD SOIL
After watching the sun set and the full moon rise atop my neighbour Sergey’s hill which overlooks the entire eco-village, he walks me back to my tent hidden in the midst of young pine trees upon the insistence of his mother (“You need to walk the young lady all the way to the door of her tent, you hear me?”). His cat Murka (Moor-kah, meaning purr-cat) follows her human grandma’s instructions too, inspecting my tent before heading back home. She spends her summers in the village roaming free and overwinters in a Kiev apartment. When it’s time for her to ride to the village every spring, she stands on the car seat and looks out the window, getting extremely animated for the last 30 minutes of the trip.
Sergey and I walk in the moonlight trying to find where I pitched my tent on my newly purchased 5-acre (2-hectare) plot located about an hour-and-a-half ride west of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. Our feet sink into the soft sand, dry plant stalks crunch under our feet. Sergey sighs: “There’s so much work that needs to be done here”. I cringe at the sound of that, but I don’t know yet why. It takes me another day to understand why I don’t agree with him.
Before our cabin arrived, I slept in a tent, hidden in the emerging pine forest. None of these trees were here 9 years ago.
The abundance of herbs and insects in the midst of pine trees
The phrase “green thumb” doesn’t even begin to describe Sergey’s talent when it comes to plants.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Battery Technologies for Off-Grid Living
BATTERY TECHNOLOGIES FOR OFF-GRID LIVING
There are so many battery technologies out in the marketplace, and it is highly likely between me writing this and you reading it there will be another new fandangled world’s best battery that has hit the market.
What Elon Musk has done with Tesla is to create a market awareness of wanting to install home battery storage and reduce our impact on the environment from burning fossil fuels. This has been fantastic for raising the level of awareness.
As any good permaculture teacher will tell you “It all depends on the situation.”
My experience with batteries is that all the technologies have a place and purpose; it’s about choosing what’s right for you and your situation.
It’s about choosing the right tool for the job and understanding the capabilities of that device. Not choosing the correct tool for the job can end up with a broken machine!
This week I got the inside on the Tesla power wall training I attended about installing home battery storage from the distributor of Tesla powerwall in Australia. It was a fascinating look on what can be done with the technology and it’s limitations.
The three top batteries sold around the world for battery storage are Lithium, Lead Acid, and Nickel-Iron Cells. Australia is currently the largest installer of nickel-iron cells around the world for stand alone solar applications.
Let’s start with the number one selling battery worldwide the Lead Acid Battery.
Lead Acid Batteries
Lead Acid cells have been the biggest selling batteries for home energy storage as they have been the most cost efficient and simple cell to use. Being the battery of choice for cars has helped bring down the cost of production.
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Understanding Biological Farming: A Simplified Understanding of ‘Compost Tea’ a Plant and Soil Probiotic
UNDERSTANDING BIOLOGICAL FARMING: A SIMPLIFIED UNDERSTANDING OF ‘COMPOST TEA’ A PLANT AND SOIL PROBIOTIC
In ideal soil ecosystems, we would have dramatically different soil and certainly a dramatically different level of ‘made made’ toxins. In an ideal soil environment, we would expect our topsoil to contain 10% organic matter, and would also expect to have literally thousands of species of bacteria and hundreds of species of fungi. In most soils today, we often have a humus content of less than 1% with just a few hundred species of bacteria (including plant pathogens) and less than 100 species of fungi (including plant pathogens) this is often due to poor soil management including the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Poor soil management is simply a matter of misunderstanding the importance of building living soils.
The lack of a large diversity of bacteria and fungi in our soils affects plant health and production dramatically because plants naturally have a very close symbiotic relationship with the soil biology. Plants depend on bacteria, fungi, worms, bugs, and beetles, and larger animals to help provide and digest their food for them. Plants don’t digest minerals by themselves; they either depend on a complex relationship of soil biology to provide their nutritional and health needs or they depend on often toxic ‘artificial’ soluble fertilizers and pesticides to provide for their food and health needs. The first is natural and depends on natural processes, the second is increasingly expensive, more difficult to manage and defeats natural soil fertility processes.
In healthy soil with good organic matter and a healthy biology, a soil food web is created. How this works is that the plants exude ‘exudates’ from their roots, these are simple sugars, proteins and carbohydrates in many different forms, which then trigger responses from the soil biology. The bacteria, protozoa, beneficial nematodes and fungi respond to these triggers to provide the plants with nutrition and to protect plants from disease.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Raised Garden Beds in the Bush–Growing Your Own Food in Poor Soil Conditions
RAISED GARDEN BEDS IN THE BUSH – GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD IN POOR SOIL CONDITIONS
When we moved to our bush property two years ago self-sufficiency was high on the agenda. We wanted to produce our own electricity, collect rainwater and we certainly wanted to grow some or if possible most of our own food. This included an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables and we both envisaged a fairly large space for vegetables, berries and flowers intermingled in a lush, productive garden. But for the time being, while we were building a house and joinery workshop, we had to be content with a single ‘temporary’ garden bed so we could start growing some fresh greens. The bed was constructed with two curved, 5m long zincalume sheets that were left over from our roof installation. We screwed the two sheets together at the ends to form an elliptical shaped bed 0.9m high. Working the bed at this height – sowing, planting, mulching, harvesting and pest control – has been extremely convenient and the ‘temporary’ bed turned out to be a great success and supplied us with an abundance of food.
The following spring we added a second, rectangular bed made of other scavenged sheets to accommodate some tomato and zucchini plants. Once you have started to grow your own food you never really grow enough or have enough space. There is always another variety that should be added to the mix. The second raised bed planted with zucchini and tomato plants is pictured in the image at the beginning of the article. The long sheets were not supported and the beds started to budge when they were filled with compost.
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Common Composting Problems and Solutions for the Beginning Composter
COMMON COMPOSTING PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE BEGINNING COMPOSTER
Composting is standard practice on any permaculture site. This is the case for several reasons. It creates a closed waste cycle between vegetable scraps and vegetable production, often with the added bonus (an in-between stop) of animal fodder. It helps to rebuild or maintain healthy, balanced soil by feeding the soil life and creating a steady replenishment of nutrients, and nutrient-rich soil makes for nutrient-rich food. In simple terms, composting is a most useful natural process that any human-supporting, sustainable system needs.
While it is standard practice to compost, that isn’t to say that doing so is always foolproof or works out exactly the way folks are aiming. There are many methods to make compost. Some sped up the process into 18-day creations. Others, such as with composting toilets, go through a year-plus of maturation before they are considered user-friendly. There are even composting systems that gurgle and burp out methane gas that can be used for cooking. In all these incarnations, at some point, something is bound to go wrong.
However, what most people do with compost bins is somewhat in between, something in which the peels of potatoes or bananas, the remnants of breakfast or garden pruning, are meant to decompose into rich earth with minimum effort. That’s a perfectly legitimate way to make compost as well, but it’s also the one from which people are often turned off with composting altogether. These bins turn into sludgy messes or stagnant piles of organic garbage, causing would-be composters to throw up their hands and call it quits.
But, the solution might be something really simple.
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The Benefits of a Natural Pool
THE BENEFITS OF A NATURAL POOL
Nothing is better than having a pool in the backyard, they’re great during the summer, make your backyard look better, and raise the value of your property. On the other hand, they require quite a bit of maintenance to care for. The pH levels have to be carefully monitored, expensive and dangerous chemicals needed to be added, and their filtration systems need to be regularly cleaned out. There is a much easier way to have a pool in your backyard that doesn’t require all of the maintenance or cost that a normal pool involves.
A natural pool is a beautiful extension of your backyard that regulates itself without the need for expensive systems or chemicals. A natural pool uses plants and a simple water pump to keep the water clear and bacteria-free. A natural pool consists of two pools, one pool is just like a traditional pool, it has a cement or plastic liner that can be as shallow or as deep as you would like. The other pool is much more shallow and is host to a bunch of water plants, like cattails or water lilies. A pump cycles the water from the large swimming pool to the plant-filled pool removing bacteria and any contaminants.
A natural pool costs about as much to install as a traditional pool but because you do not have to have to add chemicals yearly it will save you hundreds of dollars every year. The most you will have to do is skim leafs of off the surface. Where a normal pool requires you to not only regularly add chemicals, like chlorine, it also uses quite a bit of electricity to run. With a natural pool, you will start saving money from the day you install it.
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Amazing Apples
AMAZING APPLES
These days when we hear the term apple we sometimes have thoughts of the latest iPhone or what the hottest album on iTunes is. Perhaps if you’re a 90’s fan, the line Matt Damon delivers in Good Will Hunting “How do you like them apples?” is what pops into your head. However, at the core of it all (pun intended) is the delicious, bright, crunchy, crisp fruit that hails from the Rosaceae (Rose) family we call the apple. Along with the wonderful apple (Malus domestica) this family produces beautiful roses, strawberries, cherries, and almonds.
History of the apple is long, and full of some very true stories and some very well-known fairytales. We couldn’t have the story of Snow White without it! Apples have been around since prehistoric times, with remains even found in dwellings in Switzerland. The apple tree is thought to have originated in Central Asia from the wild ancestor, Malus sieversii. From there, thousands of species have spread through Asia and Europe, and eventually brought to North America by European colonists. Although Native Americans did have a version of crab apples growing before the introduction by colonists.
If you would like to grow your own apples you will need a minimum of these four things: space, patience, chill time, and two trees of differing cultivars. Apple trees can grow over 20’ tall; although there are dwarf varieties that only reach a maximum of 10’. Apple trees take a minimum of 3 years to produce fruit and some take up to 8 years. Because apples require cross-pollinationyou will need at least two apple trees that are different cultivars. However, if your neighbor has an apple tree close by this usually works. Apples also need a chill period when temperatures are below 45°F, but above freezing, in order to set fruit. The amount of time needed is variety dependent.
As the spring season rolls around in your area this is the time to plant apple trees. Be sure to plant your trees in full sun and 20’ apart from one another, unless you are using a dwarf variety, which can go as close as 10’. Keep your trees out of low lying areas where cold air settles. Your soil should be loamy and at a pH between 6-7.
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