The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Techniques and skills => Topic started by: marigold on September 14, 2009, 08:24:56 pm
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Is anyone out there working with a permaculture system?
I am just trying to figure out how to develop our field using permaculture principles. Today I got a copy of Graham Bell's book 'the permaculture garden' second hand from amazon - I am going to spend the rest of the evening reading it.
I would love to know how other people start structuring their permaculture gardens and any observations or tips?????
I am starting by building a raised bed for herbs and strawberries outside my front door and mulching a big bed for veggies with horse manure - straw and chicken poo from the hen sheds.
Just wondering whether to invest in some rock dust? any thoughts? :) :farmer:
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I would if I had the time to read up on it! I'm hoping for some weekend introductory courses locally next year.
If you have a good source of rock dust, let us know! :&>
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Hi Marigold, I'm also interested in permaculture, at the moment I garden organically and also plant biodynamically, haven't got to grips with all the hocus pocus stuff involved yet, but in time. I subscribe to the permaculture magazine which comes out quarterly and has mounds of good stuff in it. Let me know if the book is any good as I need to know more.
Karen
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Great to hear that you are interested. So far so good with the book. The SEER centre where they started the rockdust thing is just up the road from me here. I'll give them a ring and ask them for cheap ideas.
My local ironmongers is selling large sacks for £5 each if you buy 10 bags - thats a lot of rock dust. Maybe if anyone else is relatively local we could share a load? I'll ring the SEER centre and see if there is a cheaper source.
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where is it you stay, Marigold? :&>
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I'm near Kirriemuir - i'm guessing you're in North Fife?
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U tube video looks interesting and explains the no dig concept well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIyEQoxgocY&feature=PlayList&p=78BD933732D93CDC&index=1&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL
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What a great link thank you. It led me to video footage of bill Mollison and other exciting things.
Thank you
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I've finished the Graham Bell book.
It was quite good and easy to read. I stopped reading at a chapter about composting toilets. Useful information but not riveting reading. I am looking for another book now that helps with planting schemes...... So if you've read a good one I'd love to hear about it.
This weekend I shall go and get 10 bags of rockdust which our local iron mongers is clearing out. At £5 a sack it seems like the cheapest option, so if anyone within driving distance of me would like a bag or two I would be pleased to split the load.
THis weekend I finished my first large raised bed. I am just beginning to realise that it will take a couple of years to establish the number of beds that I imagine. Has anyone built a tyre pyramid bed? It looked like an interesting idea in Graham Bell's book -
Might try that next for our herbs and strawberries. I have some of my stepfather's specially bred strawberry plants to keep safe over winter so the tyre bed would seem like goo insulation.
:)
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I went to the permaculture institute at http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/classroom/
to see if I had an inkling of what permaculture is:
Here is how they define permaculture:
Permaculture is an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor. It teaches us how build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities and much more.
I thought the concept of guilds was interesting and something I have accidentally been doing on my little place.
Here is their definition of guilds
Guild is a combination of plants, animals, insects and fungi. Guilds can be found in nature, in healthy ecosystems, or they can be designed and planted to make your food forest, garden, pasture or woodlot healthier and more productive. Each guild participant contributes something valuable to the entire composition. For majority of permaculture students, guilds pose a lot of mysticism and seem very difficult to understand. A good way to start learning about guilds, is to begin by composing something very simple - like one planter around a fruit tree and observe how thing are interacting
Anyways, thanks for encouraging me to look into the permaculture concept.
A couple of questions:
Is rockdust ... ground limestone?
Would biodynamics be related to companion planting and insectaries?
Jim
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there is a one day permaculture course in Scarborough on the 22nd october, I'm waiting for details of this to arrive and hopefuly be able to attend.
biodynamic gardening is planting and harvesting ect according to the phases of the moon and other planetary aspects I don't know a great deal about it but I buy 'the biodynamic sowing and planting calender' by maria and matthias thun and plant my seeds accordingly, I havent done any of the 'stuffing animal horns with manure and burying them' things just yet, you have to stir small amounts of the resulting compost in water for about 20 mins and then splash it on the garden at certain times. you can buy ready made biodynamic preparations which would save time. the calender has lots of other interesting info including groupings of plants.
Karen
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Rockdust is the dust left literally from rock quarrying and depending on what type of quarry, it carries different weights of minerals. The Seer Centre in Perthshire is the home of rockdust and Camy and Moira who run it have impressed a lot of people the link to their website is
http://www.seercentre.org.uk
In the early days they used to get the waste products from local quarries and spread it on the garden. They did have a fantastic garden with huge vegetables.
I believe that different types of rocks produce more or less beneficial dust. I would like to see some trials that isolate rockdust from organic compost etc. However even if that hasn't been done yet it seems a like a likely way to improve soil and I think that I will give it a go. Even if I will never know which of all the things I am adding is the magic ingredient.
The short answer to your question though is .........I don't know! ;D
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I believe here in the US the Farmer's Almanac provides detail on planting according to the moon.
I've been told that in the UK marl was spread on fields to sweeten the soil. Marl is the fossilized remains of sea creatures...very base so it reduces the acidity of soils.
Planting animal remains in the garden is a reasonable thing to do. When I kill a deer I bury the hide, hooves, head and entrails in the garden deeply in an unused section.
My peppers really grew well using this scheme.
Very interesting concepts. I look forward to learning more.
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Has anybody here used Rockdust? I've been on Seer's website and also remember a news report about it a couple of years ago.
I would be interested to know if it really does work and helps increase plant size etc as I'm planning to prepare a Veg bed shortly for use in the spring, my soil isn't too great at the moment and it would probably benefit from some feeding.
Anyone have experience from using it?
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I have used it and will put it on our veg beds for next year. I have visited Camy and Moira and their results at the Seer centre are amazing - however I couldn't categorically say that it is the rock dust rather than good compost that makes the difference. The other thing that C and M do (i haven't visited the seer centre - i went to the last garden they worked) is build a raised bank of earth all around their veg patch which keeps of carrot fly and the wind. I am keen enough to buy a few sacks of rockdust but would like the proof of some results from someone elses controlled experiments. Needless to say I am not prepared to do the work myself to prove the case. It would require two beds prepared exactly the same way, same crop one with rock dust one without. That would require a step too far on my part. :)
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Marigold, Did you know there was a magazine called "Permaculture". I came across it by accident. There is always one or two very good articles in it. The rest is always worth reading but, to me, sometimes goes a bit to "hippyish". (Sorry, if that offends anyone). This month there is build your own beehive using the French method (which is more sustainable and less intrusive) and build a solar greenhouse. There was also a small article on building a wormery on the cheap. As I said, I only came across it by accident, so thought I better say. Ros
P.S. What is the "Permaculture" method? Totally self sustained? Sorry, bit thick on this one.
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Hi Ros, Yes thanks
I enjoy reading Permaculture magasine but its not quite practical enough for me. As you say one or two articles are good, like the beehive one, but most of the articles are about how communities can organise themselves in a more sustainable and ecological way.
The permaculture way is about observing nature so closely and then using the what we know works in nature to work help us organise our immediate environment in a way that promotes health and growth. Whoops - its beginning to sound hippy dippy.
So for example observing that nothing grows under a tree and understanding that that is because of the leaves that the tree drop and the shade - we decide to use emulate that pattern to stop weeds growing in the garden. So a carpet or plastic mulch which is good for the soil can be used for weed control in place of chemicals, which we know harm the environment, or hoeing or digging which involves a great deal of person energy. My understanding is that this way of thinking can be applied to every aspect of living. So if you notice that something keeps acting in a particular way and it is difficult to change. Then you find the advantages in the pattern and learn to work with it.
In an permaculture world, hair staighteners would be recycled and people would learn to love wavy hair. We would all accept the idea that there is far too much energy spent in people buying whatever food they want whenever and instead of strawberries in December being a normal meal we would relearn to appreciate local food in season. In the garden we wouldn't grow grass spend every weekend cutting it etc we would replace lawns with something slow growing that doesn't need cut and prefereably has an additional benefit or we would find a non person or fuel way of keeping it manageable - geese or sheep for example. That then gives you a meat and or egg crop.
Hope that makes sense. Its been a long day.
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Gosh, everything has a label these days. I think we all call this just plain old common sense. It is a pity we can't dig up some of the old farmers and ask them how they use to live. One of the reasons people love England (being a foreigner) is because of the seasons. But as usual no one wants to wait for anything these days. "I want strawberries now" is the attitude. But they are so much nicer when you have to wait for them. They become a special treat. What happened to the time when you could only get creamed eggs at Easter? Cadburys worked out that they could make more money selling them all year round. No, like you, I love waiting for the seasons. But I do cheat a little. We are eating the plums I bottled over the summer now. But, that is allowed. Thanks for the explanation. Any tips that you pick up, would be appreciated. PS. In the Permaculture magazine, (forget the page) there are a group of people talking. They are sitting on the floor. Do people with a "natural" attitude to life not own chairs? They are always pictured sitting on the floor. Personally, my bum goes numb after a few minutes and it seems to take me long to get back up!!! Ros
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Yep - I agree, I guess the depressing thing is that 150 years ago, there were so many knowledgeable people around, that information was easily absorbed. Now we have lost so much knowledge and those of us trying to be small holders, need to read books and have theories. And just to convince everyone we're serious we have to sit on the floor!!!!!!!!!!!!! mad times
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150 years ago, there were so many knowledgeable people around,
My wife's still around, and shes knowledgeable about everything....like all women (http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Laughing/drunk-irish-048.gif)
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There is a lot of hocus-pocus in this permaculture which owes more to religion than science. The basic premise is great - less messing about with nature and living lightly on the land.
But you won't get far into a permaculture course before you come across blind faith and superstition.
For example 'rock dust' is more commonly known as sand and is made very effectively by rivers. Its benefit to veg beds depends on what you want to grow. Rock dust of limestone is called lime and is beneficial if an analysis of your soil shows it is needed. Planting by the moon in the middle of the night is called lunacy.
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To be fair planting by the moon is BIodynamic theory not permaculture as far as I am aware
Ed