Thermophilic Composting (Hot) | A Permaculture Design Course Handbook. Making a good compost pile is like baking a cake with no specific recipe. Yeah you know the ratio’s of butter to sugar, flour to eggs, but you throw it together hoping that the ratio will turn out some good German chocolate cake, nice and crumbly, full of texture and rich smell. Well, that is similar to hot composting as the end product we want it to look like good German chocolate cake; crumbly, 70% cacao dark brown, producing the stable carbon compound known as humus.
Unless done in a round cage with specific cage link interspaces as measuring tools, the recipe is done mostly by hand and feel. Even then seasonal variations and materials will produce different end results so it truly is an artisanal experience. It’s quite a science but a really fun farm task to take on and perfect over time. Having built countless compost piles in my ten years of Permaculture as well as studying and working with Dr. Steam from the hot compost turning process Basic Pattern Process: Materials: Temperature: Five of our favourite Plant Databases. Choosing the right plant for the right spot, working with its behaviours and getting it to cooperate with others can be a little difficult at times. Before you go getting yourself a little too lost in the world of plants (actually that sounds pretty darn good) take a look at these five plant databases… Tatiana’s TOMATObase This beauty of a site has to be one of the largest collection of heirloom tomato seeds we’ve seen in one place.
Aside from the extensive seed catalog that includes over 750 varieties of open-pollinated GMO free tomatoes for sale – along with a select group of fruits and vegetables including squash, peppers, lettuce and onions among others – Tatiana and her crew, based in Canada, endeavour to share the historical information of each plant. The site also includes a complete database of growing information, pictures and descriptions for over 4,700 tomato varieties. Www.tatianastomatobase.com Apios Institute www.apiosinstitute.org Plants for a Future www.pfaf.org Oaks of the World. Practical Plants. Polycultures, Guilds & Companions... In addition to each plant being able to record interactions with other individual plants, users can also create polycultures or guilds of known plant combinations that work well together. We are at the very start of our collection of polycultures with The Three Sisters set up as a quick example.
You can create your own favourite polycultures here: An open encyclopedia of plant information There are plenty of sources of plant information online. It belongs to all of us Everything is editable by anybody, and licensed under a Creative Commons license to be used by anybody. A specific focus for a broad audience It's simple: if a plant has practical uses, inform how to propagate, cultivate, and use it. It's practical Covering edible, material and medicinal uses, design functions, propagation, cultivation, environmental preferences, interactions, polycultures (and so on...) The flexibility and strength of a wiki-base Curious about getting involved? Welcome to Guerrilla Grafters. Preter un jardin | créer potager | partager son jardin - Savez-vous planter chez nous.
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