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Coppicing - A Lost Art Revisited - Verge Permaculture

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. Setting up these types of systems within our cities and farms would be a way of preventing this as well as providing bee fodder, bird habitat and windbreaks. 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. Related:  Permaculture

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. "Just think that it is a question here of trying to safeguard 1 000 hectares, with success guaranteed, that 16 people will directly find a well paid job, that the equivalent of 480 000 liters of motor fuel will be produced each year, as will 6 000 tons of this precious humic improver which has great value as a fertilizer, and which could even enable reafforestation of the same number of hectares in the same year Brushwood Composting Overview To first understand the process of composting brushwood, Jean Pain set about creating a heaping row of chipped material.

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. 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 Let’s consider several methods of protecting your young trees, and I’ll explain some simple techniques that are effective and inexpensive. It’s most important to wrap the trunk of the tree to protect it from mice and voles. Some materials you can use are commercially available tree wraps. There are 1 1⁄2” diameter spiral plastic wraps that are simple to install and are usually available in 24” and 36” lengths. If you have materials available, home-made tree wraps are a great economical choice.

22 trees that can be tapped for sap and syrup | Wild Foodism As winter wanes and spring approaches, wild foodists all across North America tap into the time-honored tradition of sugar production – mainly, the transformation of maple tree sap into maple syrup and sugar. This process, passed on from the Native Americans to the early settlers, is still quite popular today, and is responsible for one of the few wild foods that can be purchased commercially in most supermarkets. Most people associate syrup with the maple tree, and although much of today’s syrup does originate from the sugar maple, all species of maple can be tapped. Even better, many other trees from other genera can be tapped to extract sap, which ultimately can be turned into delicious syrup. In this post, I won’t be discussing the methods involved in tapping for sugar production. Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) The sugar maple yields the highest volume and concentration of sap, making it a superior candidate for tapping. And there you have it – a list of 22 trees that can be tapped.

The Pawpaw: A Southern Delicacy - Of Mice and Mountain Men Blog I have, on several occasions, heard of a mysterious fruit called a pawpaw. On each occasion it was referred to as a Southern delicacy: a fruit tree whose papaya-shaped fruit have the consistency of custard inside a tough, thin-skinned pod and a vanilla-banana flavor. Benny LaFleur holds two pawpaw fruit from his Del Rio farm. One of my gardening mentors, Benny La Fleur, recently provided me with a pawpaw fruit to try. He grows them on his farm, along with many other wonderful things. As I had heard, it looks tropical: a greenish-yellow pod about 5 inches long with brown flecks. Curious, I decided to poke around and see what more I could learn about this strange tropical fruit. First off, the pawpaw is not tropical, nor is it limited to the south. To further confuse the issue, in Australia the papaya is commonly referred to as the pawpaw, but the two fruits are entirely different. The pawpaw has only recently been commercialized. Pawpaw cluster. A dichogamous Pawpaw flower. Sources:

Horizon Herbs Chinese Licorice Herbaceous perennial native to Siberia and China and hardy to -10 degrees F. The plant prefers regular garden soil and thrives on neglect. This plant produces the fine-flavored demulcent licorice root used as a harmonizer in many traditional formulas. Plant prefers full sun and dryish soils. Scarify seed and sow in spring, or sow anytime in the solar greenhouse. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Item Model Number: SNV7013 Shipping Dimensions: 5 x 2.625 x 0.1 inches Shipping Weight: 0.01 pounds

How to Prune an Apple Tree, a guide for real people with imperfect trees As a long-time teacher of permaculture, I've learned the important thing is usually not so much what you teach but what you leave out. People learn much better if you just tell them what they really need to know and leave everything else - however fascinating it may be - firmly on a back burner. That is exactly what Chloe Ward has done in this booklet and I can't recommend it too highly. For most of us, unless we're fortunate enough to have a real live teacher at our elbow, learning to prune fruit trees is confusing. The best alternative to that live teacher is Chloe's booklet and an armchair. Your tree still may not look exactly like the pictures in the book but you will understand what you're looking at and you'll have an idea of the pruning options open to you and just what you can achieve by each of them. There's information on tools and cutting techniques. Patrick Whitefield is a permaculture teacher and author. Further resources How to Prune an Apple Tree can also buy this from CAT

Tea Plant - Green Tea Plant Camellia sinensis Now you can grow your own tea plants! Fresh green tea leaves, with all of their health benefits, are yours for the picking all year long. Both green and black teas are easily produced from the leaves of this evergreen shrub. Hardy to zone 7 but can be easily grown in a pot and brought in during the winter. Tea shrubs can grow to 30 feet, but are usually kept to 4-5 feet for ease of harvesting. PLEASE READ: Green Tea plants are shipped at the end of April/beginning of May. More Green Tea Growing Information Ships end of April/beginning of May

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. Yet—among that area's craggy hills—a self-taught organic gardener, forester, and biotechnologist named Jean Pain is working wonders with a new technique of composting. 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. [3] Saturation: M. Brush Gas

Nut Trees Walnuts, hardy Pecan, Butternuts, Hickory, Heartnuts, Ginko, Buartnut English Walnut (Carpathian Walnut) J. Regia Zone 4 to 8. Large growing tree with bark turning to a whitish colour as tree matures. Varieties: Hanson, Broadview, Colby 2, Lake, Manregian & Somers. 8 - 12 inches 10.00 13 - 18 inches 15.00 19 - 24 inches 17.00 Japanese Heartnut (Juglan ailantolia var. Zone 4 to 8 SEE ZONE MAP. Very fast growing, hardy, tropical in appearance. 3 years N/A 4 years $14.00 each 5 years $16.00 each Northern Pecan ( Carya illinoensis) Zone 4 to 8 SEE ZONE MAP. A very hardy Northern variety of pecan. 12 - 20" $13.00 each 24 - 36" $18.00 each Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) Zone 3 to 7 SEE ZONE MAP. Favorite of the hickories. 8 - 10 Inches $12.00 each 12 - 17 Inches $15.00 each 18 - 26 inches $17.50 each Shell bark Hickory (Carya laciniosa) Zone 4 to 7 SEE ZONE MAP. 8 - 12 inches $10.00 each 13 - 20 inches $15.00 each Hazelnut or filbert Bush type grows to 30 feet plus. 8 - 12 inches $10.00 each 14 - 24 inches $12.50 each 26 - 36 inches $15.00 each Zone 4 to 7 SEE ZONE MAP.

Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal and other Woodland Medicinals Not all saleable crops are dependent on access to greenhouses or sun-drenched, arable land. Shade-loving medicinal herbs can be successfully cultivated in a forest garden for personal use or as small-scale cash crops. Growing and Marketing Ginseng, Goldenseal and other Woodland Medicinals is a complete guide to these increasingly popular botanicals, aimed at aspiring and experienced growers alike. In this fully revised and updated edition, authors Jeanine Davis and W. Scott Persons show how more than a dozen sought-after native species can generate a greater profit on a rugged, otherwise idle, woodlot than just about any other legal crop on an equal area of cleared land. Popular medicinal roots such as ginseng, goldenseal and black cohosh Other commonly used botanicals including bloodroot, false unicorn and mayapple The nutritious wild food, ramps, and the valuable ornamental, galax.

perennialsolutions - perennial grains co-creation possibilities April 17, 2013 User Admin This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which to complete the book. You can pre-order a copy and help make it possible for me to get this book out soon. Field of ripening intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium) at The Land Institute’s research farm in Salina, Kansas. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Imagine corn, wheat, or rice that comes back every year without saving seed, tilling, or replanting. The dream of perennial grains is getting tantalizingly closer. Perennial grains include cereals (grass seeds), legumes (dry beans), and oilseeds. When compared with other perennial staple crops, perennial cereals have their pros and cons. My own attempts to grow perennial grains here in Massachusetts have all failed. F3 seeds from a perennial F2 rice plant (D.

Permaculture With its system of applied education, research and citizen- led design permaculture has grown a popular web of global networks and developed into a global social movement[citation needed]. The term permaculture was developed and coined by David Holmgren, then a graduate student at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education's Department of Environmental Design, and Bill Mollison, senior lecturer in Environmental Psychology at University of Tasmania, in 1978. [1] The word permaculture originally referred to "permanent agriculture",[3] but was expanded to stand also for "permanent culture", as it was understood that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system as inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka’s natural farming philosophy. It has many branches that include, but are not limited to, ecological design, ecological engineering, regenerative design, environmental design, and construction. History[edit] Several individuals revolutionized the branch of permaculture. In Australian P.A.

Honey On Tap From Your Own Beehive - Flow™ Hive Home soils majority come from weathered rock, approximately a 1/2 come from water and air, and a small portion ( less than 10%) from humus, decomposing but not decomposed organic material. Minerals derived from the soil must be dissolved in water. Otherwise the plant will not be able to obtain them. How does soil structure impact on nutrient availability? Soils are characterized by the particles which make up their texture; they may be described as clayey ( common enough in CC, or sandy ( on the eastern shore) or more ideally as loamy. How do plants obtain the nutrients in the soil? CEC is important for maintaining adequate quantities of plant available calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+) and potassium (K+) in soils.

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