Permaculture, Regrarians, etc. 2017

[baymule]

Did he get sick? They're poisonous and can be absorbed through the skin!

The berries are not poisonous. The SEEDS inside them are. In fact, the berries, dried, taken a half dozen a day, swallowed not chewed, are good for arthritis. The seeds then pass through the digestive system and exit the body.

 

[Amiga]

@Denim Deb

Dave Jacke is owrking on a book about these practices in this part of the world. It is not easy! But I know he is working on it. There is an FB group for this, also.

I will see if I can poke around and find more official information.

Meantime, I can tell you that I have pollarded sugar maple, white ash, red oak, black cherry, bitternut hickory and tulip tree/whitewood/Liriodendron tulipifera (there are just so many names for this one I did not want to confuse you, it is not a magnolia).

 

[Amiga]

@Denim Deb

here we go

http://www.coppiceagroforestry.com/

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That's gotta be it - it's personal, lol! Stoopid berries... Now I might just feed 'em to the goats and hope for blueberry milk!

 

[Amiga]

Hi!

I live in New England, but we have some garden aspects in common, I think.

Calycanthus floridus is a lovely, fragrant flowering shrub. In moist areas, I grow Clethra alnifolia - blooms late summer here, very fragrant, bees love it. Seeds itself nicely so once you have some you can transplant to spread them around.

A local mushroom club may exist near you - I prefer to grow Stropharia rugosoannulata, they are easy to grow outdoors and easy to identify.

For lots of quick flowers the bees love, I plant buckwheat. I got some red amaranth going a few years ago and now it volunteers in a number of spaces. I harvest it for myself and the ducks. We have lamb's quarter, Chenopodium album, too.

 

[Beekissed]

beekissed has the Permaculture principles going in the suggestion to let the chickens enrich the wood chips, so the chips do more than one thing ...I think the coarseness of the chips needs to be considered If the chickens walk on it, yes? Or are chickens' feet less prone to pick up splinters than ducks' feet?

I've used them with ducks and chickens and no problems with splinters, though the wood chips were of varying coarseness. I have such a mix of materials in my coop that the wood chips are just a small percentage of it....I use mostly leaves with small amounts of wood chips, straw, hay, woody weeds, large quantities of garden vines and refuse, kitchen scraps, corn shucks, corn cobs, twigs, flower trimmings, hair, etc.

@Beekissed I saw big bags of BARK chips in the supermarkets here and was wondering if that would be any good?

@sumi , as Bay mentioned, I'd check if they are treated or of the kind of bark that doesn't mulch down for along while, such as cypress. I don't know if such a thing would grow the fungal variety you'd want in composting wood chips....they most likely sterilize those so they won't cause fungal infections in your flowers and such.

I know what you mean about not finding wood chips. If I had to do it all over again, it's likely I wouldn't have started the BTE, as the access to wood chips is minimal here....they have to be hauled far distances, they are hard to find, and it's a lot of work to apply them, so the whole "work free gardening" some call this wood chip gardening is a hoot! I've never worked so hard to garden in all my born days.

 

[Beekissed]

I'd like some definitions....sometimes those permaculture things seem sort of murky as to the definition.

 

[tortoise]

I'm particularly interested in heavy-mulch permanent-bed gardening. We have 1/5 acre veggie garden done with traditional rototilling and it's a weedy disaster every year. Kind of amazing to pull any produce out of that garden when the weeds are waist-high!

I am trying to figure this out on small scale before trying to convert DH. I have some small garden beds near the house to play with. Strawberries, perennial onion, garlic in them. My biggest problem is keeping the chickens out. (Hah!)

 

[tortoise]

@rodeogirl, didn't you say you were interested in permaculture too?

 

[NH Homesteader]

My husband has been researching hugelkultur beds. We are really interested in trying them. I'll be watching this thread. I'm tired of weeding!