Hey everybody. I need some help! I am training a grape vine up my house and over a window and want a simple support structure. I found a cool German website:
http://www.fassadengruen.de/eng/uw/climbing_plants/uw/grapevine/grapevine.htm
*you need to translate most of the pages to english by typing the url into google
anyways.... this is what they have pictures of that i would like to find:
or...
If you have any information about where to get something like this, let me know!
Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture(growing fish) and hydroponics(growing plants in water). These systems seem to fit together well for maximum productivity in your ponds or even in plastic barrels indoors.
This is a great resource for pond management and indoor fish farming. It's called Faith.And.Sustainable.Technology, a non-profit organization which works to teach people how to grow their own food efficiently.
They have a ton of downloadable documents on topics like aquaculture and animal husbandry, . There are plans for a fish farm which uses plastic barrels. I have the barrels, I just need a place to put them! Anyone with some greenhouse space?
I have had several people ask me about where to get rain barrels. I have two on my house, they are 133 gallons a piece, so I have about 266 gallons of rain water storage which can be used for house plants or the garden or simply to let out during drier weather. These rain barrels were installed by Nine Mile Run Watershed Association, which, since i am in the watershed, installed the first one for $100 and the second for $90. This is an amazingly good price.
Here is their website: http://www.ninemilerun.org/
Peace.
Troy
Hey Everyone,
Last meeting of the Permaculture working group we discussed some site considerations and the things to look at when you first walk on a property.
Observation is the first principle of Permaculture. Remember to take your time in this stage. As you progress as a designer, you will more quickly recognize patterns that will lead you to your final designs. Once the overall "dream vision" is projected, it's an easy matter to find the steps required to get there.
Main Attributes of a Site Evaluation
Download the list of considerations below and describe your potential site as best you can. You can post your results on the website for feedback from the group.
Here's a copy of my list (feel free to download and use):
With a rainy day I'm taking a little chill time indoors on a computer, but will definately still be out working with my gardens. The rain is a good excuse for a break from garden work, but it's also a great excuse to be outside observing or collecting feedback from your landscape.
Often when I meet new folks they quickly bring up how much they garden, how long they've been doing it, and where or who they learned from, and most seem to feel they don't know too much or don't grow enough to be considered a "serious gardener".
With teaching permaculture it's difficult to get people to realize they are both teachers and students in their own backyards, and even though an "expert" (not sure what that is) may observe something the "amatuer" (highly ambitious student with a self asteem issue) hasn't yet, it doesn't mean the amatuer needs help, but probaly just some time to see.
With my journey in learning Permaculture Design, I have learned a lot from both the "experts" and "amatuers", but what I value the most is what I've learned from the "students". Some of these "student's" have been world class herbalist who know more about life than anyone I've come across, some have been educated in colleges, some have been educated by traditional native medicine people, but what all of these highly knowledgable people have in common is that they are "students" constantly observing, studying, and experimenting....their "teachers" some would call nature, others the universe, and a few might call it god.
Whatever you call what they are learning from doesn't really matter, what matters is that you (wanting to make good grades) are constantly conscience of your relationship with your teacher. To experiment, observe, accept feedback, and apply that observation is what makes us grow, and what makes our relationships deep and meaningful....the same can be said about our gardens.
Nothing happens without a relationship, but don't worry if you're still single, just be open and keep a beginners mind and soon you may see you've been in a relationship with great teachers since the day you were born....and you're already the expert in your backyard.
Keep your hands in soil, your ass on the ground, and your eyes wide open.... you might learn something
Wiggy
P.S. 27 chickens have arrived @ The Remainder, and are already working...I'll post pics of my chicken setup soon
An Illustrated Guide to the Birth of an Ecosystem
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The above view is looking out from my dining room window. It was important to me that this feature be viewable from the house.
It is hard to tell from this picture but I outlined the shape we had decided upon in spray paint. The first thing I did was dig out the sod around the outside to give myself a buffer to do more wreckless digging in the center.
Here you can see me continuing to remove shovel sized chunks of grass and soil. This was really the hardest part, though not the most nerve-racking. I didnt have a good idea of what to do with the dirt at this point so I made extra work for myself and Andrea by forcing us to deal with the material twice.
Not much left to stand on at that point.
This picture has a few things going on in it. First of all, I had outlined what would be the deeper sections (18-26"), leaving a 1 foot ledge before the drop to deeper waters and a shallow (12") end. I am begining to dig out the deeper parts. The other thing that is important to notice are the hills of soil snaking along the outside of the pond in addition to the metal stud in the background. As I was digging out the pond I was using the removed material to level the surrounding ground. This is done so that when the liner is placed in the pond and the whole thing is filled, the water comes up to the same level all the way around the pool. I used the stud to bridge from one end to the other, adding soil as needed to bring the whole perimeter up to level.
Here I am adding a layer of padding in the form of fine playground sand to protect the liner from rocks or roots. I did my best to remove as much large debris from the walls and bottom but the sand really smoothed it all out.
I was in the pond intentionally, smoothing out wrinkles as it filled up with water from the hose, but I slipped, soaking myself. For this part I used several bigger rocks to hold the liner as I adjusted it and tried to smooth it out as well as I could.
Here you can see the pond finished with duckweed floating in it. The duckweed should be handy in removing excess nutrients and if it gets to thick, I will just scoop it out and toss it in the compost. I used the soil in the background to help regrade around the foundation of the house, which had been sloping the wrong way.
Here is another view of the finished pond.
The pond has already moved along. We have 3 water lilies, the duckweed, anacharis, hornwort and a few gold fish. In the week the pond has been in existance, I have already seen dragonflies and birds visiting. I am not going to use pumps or filters, just a good mix of plants, I want it to be natural, not just another point of consumption.
A pond like this provides a beautiful spot to sit and enjoy whatever may happen as well as diversifying the ecological possibilities of our yard. We now have a small water ecosystem with multiple depths that has a border of its own creating unique conditions for a variety of plants and animals. As always, there is more to do, but thats it for now.
One quick note on hugelkultur. Make sure the materials are wet as you add them, or watering in the pile at the end will not be entirely effective and leave patches of dry spots throughout the new bed.
Now on to the urban swales. My house rests on a flat plain which breaks up a pretty steep hill, the backyard slopes towards the house and then flattens out at the house. This causes several areas of concern which include significant water loss to the slope which could be going to the garden, the potential of soil running off with the water, and of course it causes water to sit around my house, watering my basement rather than the gardens.
Now how to solve this issue.
We know that swales are useful as a rain catchment system, but they can be unsightly or simply cause logistical problems for garden activities (i.e. wheel-barrowing, walking) in small urban lots. Some swales can be filled in with debris, my suggestion is to use garden paths which double as swales. Use the guidelines below and adjust them to your needs.
Your pathway has now become an attractive, useful reservoir for rainwater and alleviates the problems of a sloping yard. Additionally, it will be easy to weed and maintain, it shades the stored water, reducing evaporative losses, provides your garden and soil with water throughout dry weather and it may become home to some plants that love dry gravelly areas like creeping thyme.
Note: If you have paths that run with the direction of water, unless you are trying to guide the water in a particular direction, don't dig a trench or you will simply be guiding the water to get to where it was going (away from the garden) more effectively.
This is my first post, thanks for the space to share my ideas, I hope to get some pictures up soon and meet some folks in the future!
Hey All,
In a different post, Hugelkultur for Urban Conditions, I asked Wiggy if we could use Japanese Knotweed stalks to create a raised bed. I thought his response deserved it's own post. Here goes:
****Wiggy's Response on 07/31/09 ******
Yes, Jap. Knotweed (Fallopia japonica, Polygonum cuspidatum, Reynoutria japonica) seems an ideal species for building up soil. It's listed in the worst 100 invasives list, but is really an underappreciated and under utilized plant.
After studying invasives in school, and observing them daily with a permaculture mindset, I want to let everyone know invasives are not going to go back to where they came from, they've naturalized so well they can outcompete most native plants. Humans did this, Knotweed seed pods and branches were great packaging material for Asian markets. As soon as we put the first crate full of goods from Asia on a train we started planting knotweed in it's prefered riprarian habitat ( railroad cooridors).
This plant is tough, growing in a wide range of soil PH's, and very salted soils, knotweed's roots can spread 32ft horizontally and 9ft deep from a single seed (goodluck digging it out), not to mention being capable of resprouting from a little bit of root cutting. I'd imagine the seed germinates amazing well with the smallest amount of soil and moisture.
The problem is the solution however, and our opinion of invasives is all about perspective. The plant is a commercial source for resveratrol supplements, Hu Zhang root extract is a traditional Chinese medicinal treatment, along with being a source of emodin (a bowel movement regulator). The young spring stems pealed of leaves are a choice edible with a flavor like rhubarb, and I'm sure livestock would have no problem consuming the entire plant. Interesting also is it's potential as a good honeybee plant, being in the same family as buckwheat, it's flowers produce a nectar that bee's convert into a high quality monofloral honey.
The fast seasonal growth, hollow stem structure, and light woody texture make it ideal for composting, growing mushrooms, or launching diverse soil biology. Caution should be used to eliminate mature seeds before using it in composting or mulching applications, roots should also stay out of the beds and compost piles as they quickly resprout.
The method of control or elimination used by our lovely government agencies is the widespread spraying of heavy duty herbicide poisons (great for our drinking water and native plants). We can either utilize knotweed positively, or waste lots of energy and money poisoning ourselves and what seems to be a very useful food, medicine, and mulch plant.
The future potential for utilizing this "Nasty Invasive" is unlimited and well suited to urban environments. I see future farmers using it as a keystone species in mushroom and composting operations, livestock forages, bee forages, and edible greens, along with it's current commercial use as a source of medicinal compounds.
Be creative and remember the problem is the solution.....and may feed many hungry mouths in Pittsburgh's future.
Isaac
Here's a great website by West Virginia University.
WVU Kearneysville - Tree Fruit Research and Education Center
I used this article and some pictures from the website to diagnose a fungal infection on a Plum Tree.
Diagnostic Keys to Major Fruit Tree Disease
Index of Fruit Disease - Photographs and More
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