Permaculture Plants: Oak The majestic Oak. Common Name: OakScientific Name: Quercus speciesFamily: Fagaceae (the Beech family) Ariundle Oakwood, Scotland. One of the last surviving old-growth oak forests in the Scottish Highlands. Angel Oak Tree, outside of Charleston, South Carolina, is over 1,500 years old. Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) Description: The Oaks are a large family of shrubs and trees, about 600 species, which produce acorns. English or Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) Watercolor by Ruth de Monchaux History: Native to the northern hemisphere, oaks are found from tropical to cold climates. Trivia: Oak trees can be deciduous or evergreen (a.k.a. Acorns can feed wildlife, domesticated life, and human life alike. Red Oak (Quercus rubra) Oak leaf and acorn variety. 5 oak leaves and 6 acorns found by Coniston Water by Eileen Postlethwaite USING THIS PLANTPrimary Uses: Nut - the "acorn" is typically dried and ground as "meal" or "flour".
The Jean Pain Way In the book Another Kind of Garden, the methods of Jean Pain are revealed. He spent his entire short-lived life studying brush land and forest protection, specifically fire prevention, alongside his wife Ida. These studies led to an enormous amount of practical knowledge for composting, heating water, as well as harvesting methane, all of which are by-products of maintaining a forest or brush land with fire prevention techniques. While this knowledge is applicable in many instances, it is worth remembering that the root of all of this knowledge lies in forest preservation. All of the activities described below are by-products of that process. The book goes into detail with the economics of such an operation. Brushwood Composting Overview To first understand the process of composting brushwood, Jean Pain set about creating a heaping row of chipped material. Once you have your chips, pile them 1.6m tall with a base of 2.2m. Humus – The End Product Harvesting Heat Harvesting Methane
Paul Wheaton on the Elimination of Irrigation Paul Wheaton from Permies.com Yes you read the title correctly, elimination, not alternative, not creative, elimination. Can irrigation truly be eliminated? In my view absolutely, at least in many instances and one of our all time most popular guests Paul Wheaton returns to TSP to discuss exactly how to do it. Join us today as we discuss swales, key line systems, terraces, hugelkultur, and over a dozen other ways plants get water in natural systems. Irrigation is one of the most costly components of modern agriculture, it is also depleting one of most precious life giving resources, water. The good news is many of them can be done in your own back yard, some are simple and others are complex but just by making a pile of rocks, burying some rotting wood or moving around a bit of soil you can vastly reduce your personal irrigation requirements. Join Paul and I Today as we discuss… Additional Resources for Today’s Show
Introduction to Agroecology: Green Gold- "The Source of Wealth is [are] the Functional Ecosystems" "Kariegasfontein Ranch, Aberdeen, South Africa: Land on the left managed under Holistic Planned Grazing (HPG) in 200 mm [7.87 inches] rainfall, showing a contrast with advancing desertification," Photo Credit: Norman Kroon. Source. I fixed the horizon line from original image. My last diary in this series shared Allan Savory's TED talk on his system of Holistic Management. Recognizing the audacity of such a statement, I provided the following for context: Allan Savory is NOT proclaiming that Holistic Management is the only solution for climate change. In light of the acknowledgement that Holistic Management (HM in this diary) is not appropriate everywhere all the time, nor is it the only solution for climate change, I wish to present John D. Originally aired on Dutch TV by VPRO, Green Gold was made in conjunction with Liu's Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP).2 Green Gold is an extended version of "Hope in a Changing Climate," coproduced by EEMP and The Open University.3 2." 5.
Coppicing - A Lost Art Revisited - Verge Permaculture Coppicing has always been interesting to me as a wood production system (fuel, timber) because it uses trees that can be cut perpetually. In other words, the tree is cut and grows back. This is quite different from the type of forestry we practice here in Canada with spruce, fir, and pine trees. These conifers are cut once and then die. As mentioned in my wood gasification article, if we all moved over to burning wood for heat and power, we would deforest the planet in a matter of years. Here is a great Wikipedia definition on coppicing: In Canada we can grow a number of different trees that can be cut and grow back. Here is a great video on Coppicing from Britain. In addition to fuel and timber coppice systems can be used for basketry, propagation, mulch and fodder. In Ohaton in Camrose County, Alberta, they are using willow to clean up their waste water from a lagoon while growing a feed stock for producing heat for the municipality.
Street Orchards for Community Security Permaculture Research Institute - Permaculture Forums, Courses, Information & News © Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com My view of public streets was radically changed when I heard ecovillage designer Max Lindigger tell a story of an insightful walk he took with his grandfather. “Look there,” said his grandfather, pointing to condominiums being built on the once forested slopes above his village in the Swiss Alps. “That’s where we grew and gathered food during the war. The forests were common land, a reserve of community resources. What commons remain? I then looked at my Sonoran desert city of Tucson, Arizona and asked myself, “Where are my community’s forests, our commons? Over 450 native food plants grow wild in the intact areas of the Sonoran Desert.1 The velvet mesquite tree is one of the keystone species producing a reliable crop of diabetes-deterring, naturally sweet, protein and carbohydrate—rich seeds and seedpods in both wet years and drought.2 Thus it used to be a staple of the indigenous people’s diets. Planting community roots The harvest
Bill Mollison Permaculture Lecture Series On-Line Straw Bale Construction Straw bale construction is gaining worldwide recognition as a viable, high-performance, earth- and people-friendly building technique which utilizes a natural by-product of food production. The Straw Bale Solution is 30-minute video introduction to straw bale building. It offers viewers an excellent look at $1.50 a square foot straw-bale homes in Mexico and the custom high-end straw-bale mansions of Santa Fe... The Straw Bale Solution (#C 01) Building with bales can produce ecological, empowering and affordable housing, and NetWorks' award-winning video provides an entertaining overview of how and why. The Last Straw The Last Straw, the quarterly journal of straw-bale and natural building, began in 1992 with Judy Knox and Matts Myhrman of Out On Bale (un)Ltd at the publishing helm. In 2003, TLS was transfered to, and is now published by the Green Prairie Foundation for Sustainability in Lincoln, Nebraska. Networks still sells back issues (#1-39) of TLS
The Genius of Jean Pain Related Content Phil's Dancing Carrots If you are challenged by growing carrots, you might consider transplanting them and growing some dan... The warm, dry, and rocky Provence region of France is better known for its resorts than for its suitability to gardening. A few months ago one of MOTHER EARTH NEWS' staffers visited Jean and Ida Pain at their home in France, and discussed the techniques which the inventive agronomist has developed to overcome the hardships of the impoverished native soil and become self-sufficient . . . while restoring the ravaged forests of their area to a lushness that the region hasn't known for centuries. The manual labor involved in composting—if one is working exclusively to produce fertilizer for crops—tends to become prohibitive on any large scale. As M. [1] Thicket-trimming: While removing brush from forested areas (the Pains gather their "raw material" in such a manner), it's important always to consider the balance of ecological systems. Brush Gas
What Permaculture Isn’t—and Is Permaculture is notoriously hard to define. A recent survey shows that people simultaneously believe it is a design approach, a philosophy, a movement, and a set of practices. This broad and contradiction-laden brush doesn’t just make permaculture hard to describe. It can be off-putting, too. Humans are a problem-solving species. Thomas Kuhn, in his masterwork, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, uses the word “paradigm” to mean the viewpoint that defines the problems to be solved in a particular field. “Paradigm” has been trivialized through overuse and I’m sure that Kuhn is spinning in his grave. Permaculture and other ecological approaches are attempts to articulate this new paradigm, by framing the problem and offering tools and strategies to pursue its solution. So, why, then, is permaculture so confusing to define? In the 18th Century, combustion was explained by something called phlogiston. In the 1770s, cracks began to appear in phlogiston theory.
Winter Care of Your Fruit Trees — Seed Savers Exchange Why Protect Your Trees? Fruit trees are especially attractive to animals that love to eat the bark and nibble the buds for winter food. If you want to avoid the cost of replacing trees year after year, then a plan for deterring them needs to be considered. Most people usually worry about deer being the worst culprits. Mice and voles actually damage far more trees, especially young trees as they girdle the trunk near the ground line which is harder to detect until you notice the following spring that your tree isn’t growing. The bark on young trees is tender and until six or more years of age has not had the time to produce a thick outer bark that these mammals no longer find palatable. I’ve often encountered homeowners that have become completely discouraged from raising trees as they have had so many problems with animals eating them. Protection from Rodents It’s most important to wrap the trunk of the tree to protect it from mice and voles. Deer Protection
Milkwood: permaculture farming and living