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Mulching With Purpose and Precision
MULCHING WITH PURPOSE AND PRECISION
To be completely honest, I have been a crazy advocate of mulching, especially when people with modern gardens invariably ask what I think they should do to improve their plots, but I am not always the most productive of mulchers…mulchsmiths…mulchmen. I’m lazy, simply throwing down whatever organic matter is on hand, and perhaps, in my defense, this has been because I’m doing my best to use what’s on site. Despite having had success with my devil may care method of mulching, I know it’s not actually the best way, that just as different plants require different inputs, different mulches deliver different goodies. So, while I know my mulchful ways are a good practice, I’ve decided it’s time to start practicing them better.
A GENERAL RULE OF GREEN THUMB
For me, and I think many fellow permaculturists, the idea of mulching with inorganic materials—those popular plastic sheets particularly—is simply not part of my MO. I’ve also come across the idea of using shredded car tires, which I, of course, appreciate in its repurposing but ultimately would not choose for my gardens.
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A Global Wiki of Perennial Crops, Polycultures, and Food Forest Sites
A GLOBAL WIKI OF PERENNIAL CROPS, POLYCULTURES, AND FOOD FOREST SITES
The Apios Institute is a collaborative network of farmers, gardeners, and researchers focused on integrated perennial-crop agroecosystems (variously known as multistrata agroforests, tropical homegardens, food forests, and forest gardens).
Since 2007 we have worked to address these key needs on our site, a crowdsourced tool featuring perennial crops, polycultures, and food forests. Thus far our focus has been on humid temperate systems, but we are raising funds to expand to a global resource. At the same time we’ll be implementing a major overhaul of our site. This will include the open-access addition of the 700 perennial crop species from Eric Toensmeier’s forthcoming book The Carbon Farming Solution.
Please visit our campaign site and consider making a contribution or sharing our video.
WHO WE ARE AND WHY WE’RE DOING THIS?
Our goal is to transform agriculture and mitigate climate change. We believe we can do this while providing food and other products through the creation of agroecosystems that function at the highest level of biodiversity and ecosystem services – the “epitome of sustainability.”
The Apios Institute, the organization running this campaign, exists to share experience and information about perennial crop polyculture systems in all climates of the world. The Apios Institute works through a collaborative network of farmers, gardeners, and researchers, sharing inspiration and filling critical knowledge gaps regarding the design and management of these systems.
Our current Wiki has worked for thousands of people in cold climates — but it is incomplete. Many people around the world have asked us to expand to include other climates.
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Cleaning the Earth Nature’s Way – Phytoremediation.
Cleaning the Earth Nature’s Way – Phytoremediation.
Phytoremediation1,2 may be defined as the treatment of environmental problems by using plants in situ so to avoid the need to excavate the contaminant material for disposal elsewhere. It can be applied to the amelioration of contaminated soils, water, or air, using plants that can contain, degrade, or eliminate metals, pesticides, solvents, explosives, crude oil and its derivatives (refined fuels), and related contaminating materials. Phytoremediation has been used successfully for the restoration of abandoned metal-mine workings, and cleaning up sites where polychlorinated biphenyls have been dumped during manufacture, and for the mitigation of on-going coal mine discharges. Phytoremediation uses the natural ability of particular plants (“hyperaccumulators”, described below) to bioaccumulate, degrade, or otherwise reduce the environmental impact of contaminants in soils, water, or air. Those contaminants that have been successfully mitigated in phytoremediation projects worldwide are metals, pesticides, solvents, explosives, and crude oil and its derivatives, and the technology has become increasingly popular and has been employed at sites with soils contaminated with lead, uranium, and arsenic. A major disadvantage of phytoremediation is that it takes a relatively long time to achieve, because the process rests upon the ability of a plant to thrive in an environment that is not normally ideal for plants.
Advantages and limitations of phytoremediation.
- Advantages:
- In terms of cost, phytoremediation is lower than that of traditional processes both in situ and ex situ.
- The plants can be easily monitored.
- There is the possibility of the recovery and re-use of valuable metals (by companies specializing in “phyto-mining”).
- It is potentially the least harmful method because it uses naturally occurring organisms and preserves the environment in a more natural state.
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