[marigold]

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?

[northfifeduckling]

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! 

[kp]

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

[marigold]

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.

[northfifeduckling]

where is it you stay, Marigold? 

[marigold]

I'm near Kirriemuir - i'm guessing you're in North Fife?

[welshboy]

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

[marigold]

What a great link thank you. It led me to video footage of bill Mollison and other exciting things.
Thank you

[marigold]

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.
 

[Carolinajim]

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

[kp]

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

[marigold]

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!

[Carolinajim]

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.

[Gordon M]

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?

[marigold]

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.