Senda Verde

Animal Zen in puppy slippers

2011-11-19T20:43:00.007Z

Dizzy and Mrs McGoo

Freeranging on the river bank

Isnt it great to be doing something you love. Even if you dont love it all the time, just now and again. Even if you have to do it 7 days a week during most of which your actually not loving it at all.

Shakin Stevens the new billy in the center of the photo

But then comes that special moment, the indescribable je nais cest pas of creative perfection. The rolling tight cast to a rising fish and dinner that night, a Eureka moment over some hard worried problem. It can come in many forms and the only commonality I can find in the absurd enjoyment I get from moments such as those, is that you appear to have to work, sweat, curse and sometimes hurt yourself in persuit of it.
Today was one of those days.

Josie, No6 and Crystal

Dizzy gives a litre of milk every morning

My morning routine starts with collecting up my milking gear, a bucket of grain and a milking jug, then bait for my fish traps and a sack or two for driftwood. Then its down to the goat shed followed by an excitable pack of dogs and cats.

Goat paradise

My Goats. Mrs Mcgoo the matriach and her daughter Spot. Dizzy and her kid Wings and little Annie the orphan. Not forgetting my most recent addition, Shaking Stevens a beautiful sturdy 1 year old billy goat.

Shakin Stevens the Billy goat

I milk on my river beach with a little grain to keep Mrs McGoo and Dizzy occupied while I take about 1.5 lts a day from them, Im only milking in the morning leaving the rest for the kids.

Crystal and her pack of puppies

The cats are going fairly crazy at this point as they know next job is fish traps. Im working with 3 traps at the moment baited with bread, dog biscuit, sometimes bones and im bringing them in every 2nd day or so. This morning was a good catch with 10 or so 5 inch barbel plus the usual collection of small minnows and 5 crayfish. The second trap was mainly crays, around 12 and a few small ones, the third trap didnt come out as the water was too high and my chest waders have a small leak, just didnt fancy it this morning.

Bitsy the kitten and her mum Itsy

The dogs eat the crays fresh just like biscuits, but somedays I stock up my small aquaponics operation ive got running up at the farm. Im holding up to 100 crayfish in a large tank and harvesting them every 3 weeks or so.

Once the dogs and cats have had a little breakfast and the milk and fish are hanging safe in buckets up a tree, its off for foraging with the animals.

Whiney whitey, DJ and No6 checking out Dizzy

At this time of year the river is up and down maybe 10 feet on the river bank every couple of days, leaving a driftwood tide line that takes just 10 minutes to get two good sacks of nice burning fire starting wood. I use far less hard graft logs this way and I like to harvest something every day, even if its just wood.

One of my favourite spots is a south facing lazy bend of the river just on the boarderline of my property that leads into a narrowing and faster water with towering granite cliffs rising either side of the river. The goats just love the fresh grazing and a chance for a little mountain climbing.

Little Annie the orphan maybe a little small for breeding this time but we will see

Wings going for some low hanging Mimosa on the beach

I watched fascinated as Skakin Stevens started to bark a bit like a dog and quiver, Spot was twitching her tail and showing interest and without more encouragement Shaking Stevens was mounted and doing his thing. He mounted twice and Id give it a thumbs up for precision and rhythm.

The morning sun caressed my face, the river gurgled by, Itsy clinch pawed my shoulder and purred in my ear at the delight of fish breakfast. Puppies nipped my fingers and my goats started to double infront of my eyes.

Creating in harmony with my tools and environment, walking away in every sense from the crazy that is overtaking the world, being happy with simple things that cost nothing apart from work, sweat, cursing and sometimes hurting yourself.

In Lakesh

Land share for Permaculture driven offgrider.

2011-09-06T13:26:00.002+01:00

Traditional stone bothy and two large terraces need keen permie/s who want to walk their talk.

I'll need a very basic rent in the first year as I need to be sure that whoever takes it on is serious about the journey. If they are then the money thing disappears, as it will anyway.

I manage a heard of goats, make cheese and live as self sufficiently as possible. Im looking to share my land as the quinta is too large to be worked efficiently on my own.

If you are interested in escaping the collapse, living simply in nature on a small off grid traditional quinta close to Coja in the Sierra de Estrella mountains of Portugal and have a background in permaculture or self sufficiency then please leave a comment on this blog post with your email and I will get back to you.

A journey starts with the first step

2011-03-12T22:37:00.007Z

Puppy Crystal MIA

Somedays it seems easy to navigate the gnostic path. In my self created pod of good vibes I float along bouncing practically frictionless off the sporadic contacts with consensual reality. Gently cocooned in my higher frequency pod floating softly on the cosmic ripples.

At other times, specific times that seem related to solstices and equinoxes I am called to the job at hand. I have moored my pod in the galactic current where it hovers gently, waiting, whilst I concentrate and engage with the energies that seem to want to tussle with me again.
There is no free lunch as they say, and as Im called to duty it makes me appreciate just how good that last little trip was and how much Im looking forward to finishing business and getting back to my galactic cruise.

Carmela and Crystal, mum and pup playing, MIA

As the battle commenced this week I have to report some casualties.
My girls, Carmela and her puppy Crystal disappeared from the farm last Saturday followed by Lilly the goat, followed, on Tuesday by my new male rabbit, Hamish 2, he went off to his watership down in the sky.

A photo never lies? I hope so, in 3 weeks we will know if Hamish 2 left his genetic mark, RIP Hamish 2

This week also saw the start of the 9th level of consciousness according to the Mayans. There is little reason to believe that this body of knowledge has not been corrupted to the point of disinformation, but as with all things, a grain of truth probably rests within the bullshit. The 9th level is conscious co creation and Im consciously co creating the return of Crystal, Carmela and Lilly. MIA.

The fires of last summer, I learnt when I painted in Oils that the darkest dark is closest to the lightest light.

This week hasnt seen much in the way of farming, mainly meditation, and walking the hills and river vally looking for my girls. Spring is my favourite time of the year and as I walked and whistled and hollered I savoured the fantastic displays of nature as the hills bloomed with wild flowers and insect life. Such strong and vivacious life springing forth in such contrast to the inside of an oven blackness that was those same terrains just months before after the wild fires of last year. Take heart those little flowers said to me, out of blackness comes the light, just another few steps, the girls are just around the next corner.

Fertility on the farm.

2011-03-02T20:17:00.005Z

Itsy came of age today, good luck Itsy

Today the 2nd of March and Itsy the cat came into season.
Ive never had a cat before, always a dog person, but Itsy has taken my heart.
I got her when she was about 5 months old back in May 2009. My friends Helen, Nuno and Eli gifted me a very ferile kitten who Helen named Itsy black beard and had to stuff into a cardboard box wearing big big gardening gloves. I didnt have the courage to do anything but let her out on the mezzanine floor in the barn and rename her Itsy.
3 months past, I fed and watered her daily, occasionally a hiss or a russle of maize stalks was the only sign of Itsy.

Then came the fires in August, Itsy still up in her mezzanine palace rided them through without a care. She was coming to me a little during feeding time, rubbing my hand and purring, but still very skittish. I decided that was enough and one evening I grabbed her and told her straight.
"your part of the community, come and join in"

Home

Whether my words or just "live and let live" demeanor had anything to do with it, Itsy has turned into the most amazing cat I have ever known. She sleeps with me on cold nights, she loves attention, she comes walking in the mornings with the dogs and goat, scrambling high up trees and crying out "look at me"
She is, and has been a brilliant companion for crystal the 7 month old puppy, the two play for hours and have a real bond.

I hope she finds a suitor, shes out most nights hunting mice, tonight it might be a tom cat, good luck Itsy.

Hamish 2 and Morag singing sweet lullabies

With the energy of fertility running round the farm I thought it a good time to introduce the rabbits. Hamish 2, my new male has settled in well and been getting to know the girls, Morag and Heather, through the chicken wire.
This morning during feed time I grabbed the nearest female, Morag, and put her with Hamish in his batchelor pàd, the two have been making sweet music all day practically from the offset and tomorrow I will swap and give Heather her turn.

Carmela and pup of 7 months, Crystal playing

Spring is in the air and Im revelling in the sap thats rising, the animals that are mating and the veggies that are sprouting. Senda Verde cruised through the winter even with low food stocks and little money, it gives me confidence for the future.

Living life post apocalypse but pre apocalypse seems a bit disjointed at times but Im glad to be doing it. History shows that 95 percent of the people are wrong and change happens sporadically and rapidly, not slowly and linearly. Dinousours died with food in their chops, perhaps they were the lucky ones as currently I see the Middle East bedlam being the kick starter to the Peak Oil reality and most city dwellers will be lucky to go the same way.

For now Im happy to be on the fringe, looking at self sufficiency, peace, harmony and nature. If your not doing the same you need to seriously question your survival instincts, walk away from your job and save the world, become independent in food, energy and water to whatever degree you can. Buy food and seeds, take your money out the banks. Wake up to the ship going down.

4 new hens, 2 Frenchies (black) and 2 Spanish

If you would like to volunteer on the farm I would appreciate a few extra hands over the spring. The polytunnel is going up, irrigation systems, raised beds, ponds, animal husbandry, seeding, planting and eco building are all on the agenda. If you have an interest in any of those and would like some hands on experience please drop me an email.

Farming Rabbits and Chicken tractors

2011-02-20T16:13:00.007Z

Rabbits

Ive really appreciated the fact that my Goat and my Rabbits dont need any type of special feed, they will eat what grows naturally and the Rabbits are happy with weeds that would be good only for the compost.

Ive been keeping Rabbits since mid October when my sister and family were over for a week.
Edhan and Eilidh treated me to three, two does and a buck, Morag, Heather and Hamish.

Edhan and Eilidh helping build the roundwood porch

Unfortunatley Hamish, the buck, exploited a leak in my rabbit hutch and Carmela took her chance. I finished him off for Sunday dinner.

Rabbit easier than plucking chickens

I also appreciate how easy and quick it is to prepare Rabbit, much faster than plucking chickens so Ive decided to up my Rabbit production.

In John Seymours excellent book "self sufficiency" he reckons with two does and a buck you can produce up to 90kg of Rabbit per year, fantastic for me and also for the dogs.

On breeding them he says:

"You can leave young Rabbits on the mother for 8 weeks, at which point they are ready to be killed. If you do this you should remove the mother 6 weeks after she has kindled (given birth) and put her to the buck. After she has been served return her to her young. Remove the latter when they are 8 weeks old and the doe will kindle again 17 days after the litter has been removed, gestation being about 30 days."

Buck HQ on right hand side Does and family on left

I have just finished the Buck HQ using recycled materials, an old desk I found rammed down the side of the barn, roundwood cut from my land and bits and bobs of timber. Wood mulch from the river as bedding and a few logs here and there and it looks good.

Recycle, repair and reuse

The buck will have an outside run too but its been too wet to work outside and change the combination of chicken wire that will seperate buck, does and chickens on the outside of the barn.

Outdoor run for all with private access to duplex suites

Tuesday is Viseu market where they sell all the livestock so Mr Rabbit might have to spend the first few days indoors till I get around to rejigging the partitions and giving them all outdoor space.

Carmela demonstrating the new chicken tractor

Chicken Tractor.

I mentioned in my last post that the chickens have been running totally freerange. I saw no point in confining them after the ducks mullered the veg garden and they have been doing a grand job of scratching and cleaning different beds. As spring approaches and im getting ready to plant out, that has to change.

My first chicken tractor, more or less recycled materials

Ive just finished building my first chicken tractor, it can be moved around the land and allow them fresh grazing whilst being secure and water tight at the same time. Im going to use some metal arcs Ive got with a shade netting covering to extend their run, it will also fit to any shape or size of raised bed ive got.

Run can be extended with more metal hoops and shade netting to fit raised bed size

The indoor chicken coop and outside run is still a little up in the air at the moment. I had some meat chickens, naked necks, that Im currently culling and they are around 3 to 4 kg and taste very good so I might go that route again.

6 berth with perch

My friend and chicken aficionado Lynn has put some eggs in her incubator so I could use it for those keeping the best of breed to use in a second chicken tractor and filling the freezer with the rest at 3 months. We will see.

The chicken tractor and egg machine

Senda Verde Planting Diary 2011

2011-02-19T11:54:00.009Z

Bill Mollison says you shouldnt do anything on your land till youve been on it a full year and as I approach that mark I can understand the reasoning. I feel I understand the land so much better than last year. To participate in the four seasons and to see how the land reacts to each gives a fundamental understanding that no amount of theory can replicate.

Last year was hard core learning, from the extremes of fire and no water to building everything from scratch with just booked based learning. One year does not a Mollison make, but I feel confident in my decisions and excited to be here and doing my thing.

The polytunnel is laid out and I hope to begin the construction over the next couple of weeks. Im waiting for the local metal shop to cut me some short tube that I will concreate in the ground and then big boy meccano starts.

Ive not decided on the final size, the width is fixed but I can space the arches out to a maximum of 3 meters, Ive got 12 arches and enough plastic to do it.

The chickens are running totally freerange at the moment so this shade netting is protecting my bulb onions, chard,and lettuce ive got in 3 raised beds

Jan. 15th
bulb onions, Chard, turnip green and red, salad
Dry terrace. Green pasture, Grellos, Turnip red and green,

My little temporary greenhouse come potting shed has handled the lot, fire, wind, rain and snow and its doing me proud till I get the big one up.

Jan 15th Potting shed greenhouse,
Cauliflower, turnip, green spiral calabrese, purple headed brocoli, lettuce

beetroot, beans, peas, rhubarb, herbs, citrus trees, cork oaks

Jan. 29th. Covered raised bed
Onion valencia, Parsley root Atika, carrots

There is not much topsoil on this little patch of the riverbank, perhaps a foot or so of errosion soil from my main field. I thought I would try an experiment with some carrots as they like well draining sandy soils.

Easy watering with the river just infront but not much topsoil.. we shall see

Jan 29th Riverbank
Carrots, Long de meaux, white green top, early nantes

Feb 5th Greenhouse
Flowers x 4, Herbs x 5, celery, beans x 4, peas x 2, parsnips,

Ive got a sort of half terrace thats on the riverbank, catching the run off errosion from my main flat field. Before the fires it was unworkable, a tangled mass of brambles but with a few hours work I got this little spot into reasonable shape and decided to give a few different vegetables a go. It gets alot of moisture down here so it might not requiere any irrigation but as I spent most of last summers afternoons lazing on the river beach, literally 5 meteres from the spot a waterering can will do the job.

Feb 7th Riverbank
Chard, onion, carrots, sorrel, parsley

My greywater irrigation system with Rye sown

9th Feb greywater terrace
Rye

10th Feb Food forest
Hazel cuttings x 6

14th Feb River bank
Carrots, radish

19th Feb
Garlic 1kg

28th Feb
Planted out brocoli, cauliflour, beetroot, lettuce, sorrel, red cabbage, white cabbage, perrenial cabbage, chard

25kg Mona Lisa Seed potatoes layed out to chit

2nd March

Planted out Milan white turnip, Navet de Nancy,

2nd March Greenhouse. Seeded

Brussel sprouts Sanda, Beetroot, Quiabo Clemson spineless, Minidor dwarf yellow bean, Milan white turnip, Navet de Nancy, Grandpa Admires butterhead lettuce, Autumn giant cauliflower, Purple Autumn Cauliflower, Green headed Brocoli, Sunflowers.

Greywater irrigation system

2011-02-08T12:26:00.004Z

Recycle and reuse materials

Ive been very grateful for not losing the lot during last years wild fires, you can check out some photos of the fires here.

Drip feeding my greywater to the animal feed terrace

My caravan miraculously survived the blaze and post apocalypse, on analysing the site, I realised that it was my greywater that saved it. The caravan is sited just above a small terrace that the greywater pours onto through a simple black 50 mm irrigation pipe. An apple, a plum and a few vines were all it held, but the fruit trees were high yielding even though I didnt get to taste their delicacies, cremated pre harvest.

Cleaning the prepared bed with chicken tractors

Ive been thinking on how best to process the greywater and maximise this terraces use. Obviously I didnt want to have food crops growing in the greywater but a self irrigating terrace is just too good to waste. Ive decided to use the space to grow animal feed and bedding, thanks go to Josh and Veronica for the donation of a bag of organic Rye seed.

Recycle and reuse are my maxims. With some half burnt 60mm irrigation tube and a 3 meter piece of PVC guttering donated by Tom and Lynn Ive put together a nice drip system that should even out the flow of greywater so the whole terrace gets a better share.

Manuring the bed before seeding Rye

The soil looks in excellent condition and im going to scatter some corn on the turned land over the next few days and let the chickens tractor it through and pick up any weed seeds. Perhaps I can get two grain crops a year from the patch, this first one will Rye, good for animal seed feed and the straw will do for bedding. Ill figure out the next crop when I see the harvest timeline on the Rye.

Running on synchronicity, rice and beans.

2011-01-16T14:44:00.004Z

Rolling the dust from my last tabacco and savouring the last glass of red from the wine box I felt confident that cold turkey would not be too hard.
Back in November I did 3 weeks of off grid, by that I mean no money, no outside inputs.
Christmas came and I was invited graciously back into the busom of consensus normality which I accepted with appetite. January, so far has been a continuation as Ive slowly drained my funds, glug by glug.

I am a creature of habit and if my 42 years has taught me anything its that changing my environment is much easier than changing my habits. A terrible weakness of spirit I know, but im a product of my environment, a mind controlled drone. Connecting the dots of my life, my personal history, have shown me that if I force myself into strange and alien environments they force me out of strange and alien antilife programming without the whailing of spirit, so in a way I relish the challenge. I wish I was a more balanced person that could do it without the environmental extremes. Balance is what I seek but its atypical to my nature and I know I would not be here today, on the ragged edge, if I had ever achieved balance without the extremis of my life.

An expert in solitude develops the ability to hold interesting debates with onself.
Somedays my mind runs riot like Alex Jones on speed, my head propped on a spade handle or saw half way through a tree trunk, the debate arises like the Mondego river in spate.
The Prussian education system oposed the Trivium and Quadrivium; 911, but thats a short one not worth debating. Is the New World Order a physical blood line or an off planet DNA controlled manifestation aka Ickes philosophy?, or both?. Fractional reserve banking, Freeman on the land, propoganda; am I a mind controlled slave?, DNA, quantum physics. Keylontic DNA upgrading.
The white noise reaches a cresendo, then thankfully its outplayed by the waterfall and bird twitter. Breath deep, study nature, draw up some maharic current, protect and appreciate. Start digging.

My conviction to extract my energy from the parisitic status quo system means off grid and no money, with my definition being: permaculture lead self sufficiency. How the future will pan out I dont know, Im not a fortune teller. The system is coming down and with it what most take for granted, thats not conjecture but well documented fact. Visit transition towns or the oil drum web sites and you will get consensual reality and collapse in equal measures. It all seems rather doom and gloom unless you look at the expansion of consciousness which is the road I arrived from.

After a triple heart attack and 10 day coma in 2006, my Near Death Experience (NDE) slowly started to permeate my being at about the same rate as my physical recovery to full health. A full and very powerful kundalini awakening happened in 2008 and repeated connections with the gnostic galactic internet, as I call it, from then till now has opened me up to the limitless possibilities of consciousness and the human condition.

As I fully connect to my dharma; doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way for the right reason, vibrating in positive and loving energy with harmony in nature, in a state of statelessness and moneylessness, Im relying on syncronicity and the gnostic connection, and if thats no good, theres always rice and beans.

If you feel a connection to project Senda Verde and would like to volunteer, contribute, learn or just spend some time on the farm please leave a comment on the blog with your email.

Ducks, Rape and Cabbage.

2011-01-11T12:04:00.003Z

Day old ducks are cute.
They spent their first 6 weeks in relative obscurity in the chichen run, captured by a sun drying screen propped against the chicken keep wall, keeping them and their special food from the grabbing ckickens. I visited once or twice a day. Water change and food top up.

Week 6, solid birds, big beaks, varacious appetites.

The palacial duck palace finished, they moved.
A home of round wood construction, pine plank flooring, watertight iron roof, an impressive split level ramp good for small gauge wheel chair access. A stream of water from the the laid played melodies on the flow form as it replenished the pond that dominated their environs. No better in duckism was seen.

Week 9.

Big birds, big beaks, varacious appetites, big shitters.
Just 6 of them convinced me with their never ending quacking and the two rivers just a lob away that they should range free, free as a bird, free as a duck. Off they went. For a week it was as shephard and flock, a handfull of grain and they came, with a terminator like destructon through the veg garden. Chickens peck, Ducks muller, no way back for a cabbage.

Week 10
My shepharding abilities seemed demeaned, a handful of grain or two? who you kidding. 3.30 pm I saw them last, happily mullering another raised bed then no more.
Downriver they went never to be seen again.
Its a real hungry gap this year.

Property for sale in Ribamondego Quinta Pimpao, close to Gouveia.

2010-12-27T14:00:00.008Z

1.1 hectares with very good access and electricity near by.

Recently dug 125 meter bore hole providing year round fresh water and great views of the Estrellas and down into the Mondego valley.

Quinta Pimpao, Ribamondego, close to Gouveia.

Various trees including mature pines and cork oaks with good flat areas for cultivating. The quinta would make an ideal on or off grid property with heaps of solar and wind potential.

There is a small 40 sqM ruin with a unique and huge rock making up one of the walls, the granite stonework is sound but the roof needs new timbers.

The land has planning permission to develop a home with a footprint of up to 200 sqM in addition to the ruin.

The property is 1km from the village of Ribamondego, a smal friendly and helpful community and only 5 mins from the train station in Gouveia which links to Coimbra and the rest of Portugal.

The property is also for sale with Belaserra, a local trustworthy estate agent in Seia, go to belaserra.com for more pictures. However if you would like to contact the owners directly you can email them at notbob33@hotmail.co.uk
This is a great opportunity to deal direct with the owners, no hassle or complications. The owners, an English couple, live nearby and will make sure the sale is smooth and hassle free.

Crystal at 7 weeks, Itsy at 4 months

2010-09-27T21:19:00.003+01:00

Crystal is about 7 weeks old now, how time flies.

She is a beautiful puppy and going to make a fantastic farm dog.

She and Itsy the kitten have bonded and play for hours daily.

Carbon “Fixing” Plants

2010-09-04T00:32:00.004+01:00

Mulch from carbon “Fixing” Plants

Most gardeners are aware of “nitrogen fixing” plants; those plants, typically legumes, that have formed symbiotic relationships with soil bacteria to take airborne nitrogen and fix it into water-soluble form. As far back as the Romans, humans have fostered this natural occurrence to increase yields and increase fertility. What we hear about much less is carbon “fixing” plants – in Permaculture speak – biomass or mulching plants. In the past year, as I have learned more and more about soil ecosystems, I have become far more convinced that these “carbon fixers” are even more important in early successions as we heal our suburban ecosystems.

I have developed a mantra over the summer as I have worked to sloganize what it is that we are doing. The result has been my oft-repeated imperative to: Heal the Soil, Store the Water, & Plant Useful Plants. In a nutshell it is a roadmap to maximize the potential of any garden space – if the soil is alive it has more nutrients cycling in it, if the soil has sufficient water stored under mulches and in humus then the potential increases again. And once these two are in place, one can maximize the solar potential by filling in the canopy. Of these, I feel the first is the most important as it makes the others possible. And to heal the soil, you need carbon (organic matter).

Plants are truly the conduits of energy into the earth – by capturing solar energy and turning it into simple sugar they supply the foundation for 99.99% of all life on the planet, whether it is through root exudates in the rhizosphere or nectar through their flowers, plants make life possible. But life also needs carbon, and most life on the planet gets its carbon from plants in the form of organic matter – the main food source of the bacteria and fungus in the soil. But some plants do this better than others.

There are the grasses with their dense root systems that build soil visibly every year, and there are trees that cover the ground in a thick blanket of leaves every year. Finally there are other plants that form stalks and stems that form significant amounts of soil as well – the tall grass prairies, corn/sunflower stalks, and windblown branches from softwoods such as willows, sycamores, and poplar. What these have in common is tough, long carbon chains in their cell structure that resists decomposition. This resistance to decomposition -in lignin, cellulose, etc- is what forms humus. And it is humus that forms rich soils. This is something to be very mindful of as we mulch our gardens.

If you were to build a compost pile of nothing but greens, with only the barest amounts of “browns”, the pile would heat up very quickly, but would decompose down to almost nothing – 75-90% of the bulk would be gone. That is because greens lack cellulose and lignin and are mostly water and nutrients – vital to soil life, but almost completely consumed in the decomposition process. Compare this to a similar sized pile of shredded leaves. It will take 4x as long to decompose, but the result will be 400% more humus with only a 25% reduction in size.

In most of my permaculture guilds I have stressed the green mulches of comfrey, sorrels, chives, etc to pull and cycle nutrients, and for several years I have imported my cellulose and lignin in the form of dozens of yards of wood chips. Now that my gardens are maturing, I am starting to pay more attention to including plants specifically to “fix” carbon to maintain soil humus levels. In the 6 years I have lived here I have lost about 1-2″ of total height in our 3 oldest perennial beds compared to the sod. That is because the humus in the perennial beds is degrading over time, while the roots of the fescues in the lawn are forming .25″ of humus a year. I had not been mulching these beds much as they have almost completely closed “canopies” of thyme ground cover that I didn’t want to smother. I will try mulching more aggressively this year.

Nitrogen fixers such as Russian Comfrey

While all my guilds include nitrogen fixers such as leadplant, false indigos, New Jersey Tea, Serviceberry, etc and green “mulch” plants such as Russian Comfrey, I am beginning to either add in “carbon fixers” and am planting guilds specifically to grow brown mulches. Some of this I am accomplishing by letting box elder seedling mature in my guilds as they sprout in the wood chip mulch. In one spot, I have planted a 20 tree “short rotation coppice guild” of willows, poplar, and box elders. In my annual gardens I am taking much inspiration from John Jeavons and planting “stalky” plants such as corn, sorghum, and sunflowers specifically to produce compost carbon in addition to edibles. Once you change your mindset it isn’t overly hard. Of course, having a chipper to use can become important as well – though many plants such as sunchokes, and weeping willows produce stalks and “leaf” mulches that are laid down without chipping and fast growing trees such as Empress and Sycamore have HUGE leaves that really add up.

Nitrogen fixers such as Serviceberry

As my gardens have matured, and I seek to support the soils I have built using primarily the inputs of my site, I find myself planting more and more of these carbon trees to grow my soil. In doing so I help to maximize the potential of my site by using these fast growing plants to sequester carbon to build the soils beneath my edibles, while also pulling carbon from the air to heal our climate.

Prime Short Rotation Coppice Trees: Black Locust

Willow, Hybrid Poplar, Black Locust, Box Elder, Empress, Sycamore, Ash, Hazelnut, most Standard fruit trees (annually pruned)

Sunflower prime “Carbon Fixing” Annuals/perennials

Prime “Carbon Fixing” Annuals/perennials:

Sunflower, Corn, Sorghum, Cupplant, Sunchoke, Small Grains, Amaranth, Quinoa, etc.

Many of these trees are useful in many other regards – Black Locust is a nitrogen fixer, provides rot resistant wood, and its flowers are a great early nectar source. Black Maul willow is one of the most striking plants I have ever seen and the new growth makes incredible baskets. Hazelnuts and Sunflowers are some of the best ways to grow healthy fats in the northern hemisphere. Carbon gardening is by no means boring or a wasted effort!

Productive soils need to have all their nutrients cycled, not only the water soluble ones, but also carbon to replenish that which is lost due during the respiration of the soil organisms. If we are to truly garden in the spirit of nature, we need to make sure that the carbon is replaced with the same diligence that we give nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and the 96 other macro and micro nutrients.

Posted on September 3, 2010 by onestraw- Rob

Crystal, new life for Joe and Carmela and fat as butter

2010-08-21T14:26:00.006+01:00

Crystal new life arrives as old life is consumed, a good start for Senda Verde

As fat as butter and she is packing on the oz, carmela is a great mum

Crystal, yes after three weeks of my amateurish inspections and two outside opinions, shes a she and she is called Crystal.

In honour to the crystal pool where im drawing my life saving water and to the fact that she cried and cried yesterday till I lifted her out her basket and she let a big crystal stream go on the floor, what a dog, house trained, all be it her house is the dog basket, but house trained at 3 weeks.

Welcome Crystal.

My friend told me she was sheep dog stock with 4 white paws which fires the ball right back into Joes court, she was also early as I caculated 6th to 12th of August as delivery date but Carmela delivered 29th July, again firing the ball back into Joes court, Carmela escaped once, the penultimate day of her heat, Joe followed and came back wrecked, battered bruised and scarred so obviouslly defended Carmela till the end, but with a 29th delivery date that would put conception right into Joe and Carmelas honeymoon period, no other dogs around, just the two of them glued at the hip.

My boy Joe and my new sweetheart Carmela are the proud parents of Crystal a fat as butter, as my friend is fond of saying, Pyreness Sheepdog, Griffon, Portuguese Setter, Estrella cross.

The Biggie 2...just when you thought it was safe to go back on the farm

2010-08-16T18:46:00.003+01:00

Sunday 13th August, day two of the biggie.

The far bank of the Mondego had practically burnt to a cinder, there was not much left to go and I was feeling like I might have escaped. Rob had been over to inspect the damage, we had been for a cofeee and smoked a cigar and congratulated ourselves on getting away with it. At around 2pm the wind did a complete reversal from blowing from the South West to howling like a banshee from the North East. It skipped over the Mondego river without pause and started in my direction in earnest.

I was sitting on the computer, drink in hand thinking that Senda Verde was a blessed place when I started to see horrid acrid smoke fly past the window. I ran outside and onto the house roof and realized that it wasnt over the nightmare was only just starting.

I managed to wave down a helicopter, Id see this guy many times pulling water from my river over the last two weeks and always gave him the thumbs up and a cheery fist salute. This time I had a sheet and was waving it madly and pointing to the ridge line, jumping around like a mad man. He did his best, he pulled 8 bucket loads from the river in front and dropped it on the lower ridge line, the area that would potentially stop the fire from crossing the small river where I draw my drinking and irrigation water from. He circled me after 8 loads, seemingly saying, "sorry mate I can do no more" and headed off to save a village or something.

I turned the landrover for a fast getaway, started her up, put the wee man and carmela in the back, shut the caravan, loaded the tractor and all I could find into the barn, gave the cat a bucket of water and chucked two buckets onto her mezzanine floor area. I ran with lilly down to her animal house and did the same trying to clear as much loose hay and burnable crap out of the stall. I left her with a kiss, some water and a prayer.

I took my last photo as the fire engulfed an old ruin that sits at the same hight as my water fall pool. I decided that when it reached there I had to go, I wasnt so sure about the geography on this one and the road out of Senda Verde runs very close to the ever rising fire line. I realized I was pushing my luck, so with one more snap I got Joe in the car and we raced upwards to the village and the community center for another 24 hours of nail biting waiting.

I was allowed back down at 4am Sunday morning, I managed to kick the door in on Lillys house, it was burning up when I got there and I got her out, the poor thing was in shock but shes gone to Rob and Fis with fresh green grass and lots of love. Im going to visit with Maggie on Wednesday and I hope theres no lasting damage and Maggie can give her a good check up, physically she was fine on the outside.

The cat seemed like nothing had happened which is a blessing, the barn and the house got hit very little, a tribute to swales and decent irrigation.

I have some videos which I will post when I have some time, some powerful pieces of nature red in tooth and claw.

Life goes on, ive still got 5 or 6 raised beds with plants growing and tomorrow I hope to fix some sort of irrigation system so they dont die a slow death, Im down to my last 500 lts in the tanks so its a water tonight and tomorrow and then I better get some water from somewhere.

Sepp Holzer: A Permaculture Worldchanger

2010-08-14T14:03:00.001+01:00

He is the author of several books, works nationally as a permaculture-activist in the established agricultural industry, and works internationally as an adviser for ecological agriculture.

Permaculture as a systematic method was first practiced by Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer in the 1960s, about 10 years before it was scientifically developed by Australians Bill Mollison or David Holmgren and their associates.

Sepp Holzer, work with nature instead of confronting it and working against it.

Without trying to describe his method in particular, I simply want to point out a few things why this man is so important and why he is even more important TODAY:

45 hectares of forest gardens, including 70 ponds and tens of thousands of fruit trees, shrubs, vines and highly productive vegetables and herbs at an altitude of 1500 meters

- His expanded farm now spans over 45 hectares of forest gardens, including 70 ponds and tens of thousands of fruit trees, shrubs, vines and highly productive vegetables and herbs at an altitude of 1500 meters (~5000 feet). He has created a self-sustaining landscape in which he produces many varieties of the best quality fish, fruits, nuts, vegetables, mushrooms, pork, poultry and even citrus and kiwi without irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides or weeding. His farm is said to be the most consistent example of permaculture worldwide.

- He is the author of several books, works nationally as a permaculture-activist in the established agricultural industry, and works internationally as an adviser for ecological agriculture. He is often asked by desperate governments to rescue big areas of land (he currently has projects in: Austria, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Poland, Ecuador, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland, Russia, Montana, Columbia, Brazil, Thailand, and Ecuador). Governments turn to him and big corporations turn to him; it is about time to grant people like him more attention.

He actively fights for farmers’ most basic rights

- He is getting older and has gathered much precious, relevant experience and knowledge. In his latest talk I experienced his strong urge to share this knowledge. To that end, he gets involved in bigger and bigger projects, to show and prove that his "alternative method" is the only method that is actually working for permaculture.

- He actively fights for farmers’ most basic rights, such as the right to plant the crops the kinds of plants they want how and where they want.

- He uses rare and ancient seeds and crops to promote more variety in the ecologic system and is therefore one of our most important activists against institutions such as Monsanto and genetically manipulated food (which is now also legal in Europe).

- One of his biggest and most relevant truths is to work with nature instead of confronting it and working against it.

- Last, and I find most importantly, he puts trust back into people's hands. He claims anyone can do it!

To check his latest projects visit his website or YouTube. He is working on a radical book that will come out next year.

Image Credit(s): Photos of Sepp Holzer and his farm in Austria via Der Krameterhof.

Uleshka Asher is a writer always on the lookout for inspiring people who have something to say. She is also a regular Worldchanging Correspondent.

Senda Verde survives massive forest fire, still an oasis of green

2010-08-13T04:08:00.006+01:00

Portugal is in flames, on the 11th of August according to the mainstream national news more than 128 forest fires were burning. The Bombieros are stretched to maximum many of them having gone 3 days straight fighting forest fires. The sound of spotter planes and buzzing helicopters which seemed so novel just a few weeks ago had merged into the background white noise, then it was my turn for a close call.

Towards the South near Nelas a forest fire had been raging for a couple of days, plumes of acrid smoke chocked and made breathing a strain, then the wind turned and started blowing North East and the fires started getting closer to my Quinta.

My local fisherman friend came down and suggested I load up the landrover with the dogs and head up to the village, but the wind was pushing the fire towards me but on the opposite side of the Mondego river, I made a calculated decision and told him I was staying put for the time being. He headed up to the village on his motorbike and I made sure he understood to tell the bombieros that I was still down here, just in case it all went bad.

I sat and watched as the fire slowly engulfed the far side of my mountain valley, the wind pushing it along the ridge line and with the natural river barrier I thought maybe I could escape. Over the brow of a hill came another seperate fire front, pushing directly towards me, it still had to cross the river but it was low in the valley and I realised I was in trouble.

I jumped in the landrover and went up the track to view the danger zone only to meet the bombieros on their way down. The insisted I get out now, so I did a quick U turn and headed to pick up the dogs and essentials, said a small prayer to Senda Verde, Lilly the goat and Itsy the kitten and headed up to the community center in the village.

Im writting this at 4am, the house, the caravan, Lilly the goat and Itsy the cat are all ok, Ive not seen the damage done yet, but thank you to the Bombieros of Mangualde proffesionals and volunteers alike, your all hereos, thank you to the villagers of Cervaes for your kindness and support and thank you for letting me pick up the pieces, whatever they may be, and start again tomorrow.

Regenerative Permaculture with Darren Doherty

2010-08-11T11:31:00.002+01:00

In this 100th episode of the Agroinnovations Podcast we are joined by Darren Doherty, a permaculture designer and consultant who is an expert in keyline design, broadacre permaculture, and agroforestry. Topics of discussion include Australia as a source of innovation in agriculture, regenerative vs. sustainable agriculture, the life and work of P.A. Yeomans, the keyline orders or permanence, open source agricultural implements, and the Spanish Dehesa as a model for broadacre permaculture. This episode is a tour-de-force of many of the critical issues facing the permaculture movement.

click here to listen to the interview or download to your player

Congratulations Frank on your 100th episode looking forward to many more.

Carmela and Joe create the first new life on Senda Verde

2010-08-01T15:22:00.004+01:00

After a nights sleep and a good feed for both Mum and pup

Carmela and puppy, Joes not allowed near yet

Saturday afternoon Carmela my 1 year old bitch came into the kitchen and laid herself out on the sofa. She had been showing signs for the last few days, nest building and general agitation and she hadnt touched her food the night before.

Carmela never comes inside the house so when I saw her on the sofa and panting heavily I sprung into action and got all the old sheets and towels I had laid aside for this moment and made her a comfy nest.

Just a few minutes old and yet to home in on the nipple

It was only around 10 minutes after when the head appeared, I cleared the placenta from the pups head and Carmela did the rest, what a moment, my old faithful dog Joe was banished outside and Carmela and our new addition have taken up residence in the kitchen.

Mum and pup sleeping happily

Last night was comfortable for all concerned I slept just a meter away from them and Carmela drank plenty and eat a few dried biscuits, this morning she had a bowl full of dried food and puppy has been suckling and sleeping. With no competition as a 1 pup litter the wee fellow will be packing on the weight.

Its a great start for the future as animals are a major part of my off grid self suffciency plans and also the first time ive assisted at a birth. I hope they all go as smoothly as this one did.

Senda Verde welcomed the first volunteers during July.

2010-08-01T14:19:00.005+01:00

Bugui rotivating the new terrace

Christina and Onza moving goat poo to the newly cleared and rotivated terrace.

Christina from Italy spent just over three weeks here and Bugui and Onza came down from Galicia where they are very active in the network of Permaculture in Galicia. I spent most of last winter with my caravan parked up at Buguis finca while I got to know the permaculture crew up there and looked for some land to start Senda Verde.

Make hay when the sun shines and it has certainly been shining with temps over 40 degrees these last weeks.

I didnt find the land in Galicia but ended up finding this amazing place but good friends were made in Galicia and Bugui and Onza made the first visit down and really put their heart and soul into helping me out, clearing terraces, making hay and generally lifting the energy of the place.

Bottom terrace cut for hay and ready for a winter crop of rye and cabbage.

Onza and Christina crossed the Mondego and climbed up to the ancient standing stones, this Dolmen seems to balance the energy from the Mondego river which runs north to south and the water fall river that falls from the west, these standing stones give a double energy vortex with its center right in the middle of the Mondego river, where I spend most afternoons cooling off and meditating.

Thank you so much for all that you did and as we say in Spain, me casa es tu casa.

Lilly the goat joins the Senda Verde project

2010-07-08T17:57:00.006+01:00

Lilly a five month old Cabrita joined the project on Friday and is settling in well.

Carmela has taken the role of Goat dog and its great to see her naturally abilities as a working dog shine through. She is also pregnant and due from August 6 to 12th so I hope the Senda Verde family will be expanding again in a few short weeks.

Lilly follows without a rope very easily and its a lot of fun to take a ramble with her.

I will be looking for another Cabrita of a similar age so Lilly has company and in November bring in the services of a Billy goat. Its a 150 day gestation so around April they should kid and 3 or 4 months later once the new kids are weaned, Lilly and her companion should continue to give milk for up to two years, and it should make Senda Verde self sufficient in diary and a cash crop of goats cheese.

'Striato d'Napoli' the first courgette of the season

2010-06-26T13:00:00.000+01:00

'Striato d'Napoli' Courgette from the real seed company

A good early courgette from Italy. Big bushy plants giving lots of long, pretty fruit with alternating light and dark green stripes. Perfectly smooth and round in cross-section, and the flesh doesn't go as 'soft' when cooked as other courgettes do.

Thanks to the real seed company for this years excellent range of heritage hierloom seeds.

The first courgette of the season wont be turned into soup, but with many more to follow a freezer full of soup seems like a good idea.

Courgette Soup Serves 4 or fill the freezer.

Ingredients
* 1 kg courgettes - any size and colour
* 250g potatoes (suitable for mashing), peeled or scrubbed
* 2 cloves garlic, peeled & crushed
* 1 medium onion, peeled & chopped
* 30ml olive oil
* 150g soft cheese (see note below for alternatives
* Handful fresh chives, chopped
* Handful fresh summer herbs of your choice, chopped
* 1 ½ pints water (or mild-flavoured stock

The method
1. Wash the courgettes and chop them into chunks. Cut the potatoes into cubes (smaller than 1 inch).
2. Heat the oil gently in a large pan. Add the onion and garlic.
3. Gently cook for about 5 minutes, to soften.
4. Add the potatoes. Stirr. Cook gently, covered, for about 15 minutes, until about half-cooked.
5. Add the courgettes and stir. Cook for about 5 minutes until softened, stirring occasionally.
6. Add 1 1/2 pints of water - just enough to cover the contents of the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.
7. Remove from the heat and liquidise the soup.
8. Add the Cheese & herbs.
9. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Cupboard-To-Table
About 40 minutes. (Most of this is waiting, so actual preparation time is about 15 minutes

Thanks to veg Box recipes

The Milk Thistle guild

2010-06-25T18:58:00.004+01:00

Milk Thistle... a candidate for "food from the gods"
...im going to try and make friends

With a date fixed for the arrival of Liliput, the first Cabrita at Senda Verde I have been reading a couple of books on goat keeping and mentally sizing up the job of repairing her sleeping and living quarters and securing an area on the main terrace where she can graze freely but not get at the veggies.

I intend to get into the habbit of a morning walk with Lilliput, the goat, Joe and Carmela the two dogs, Itsy the kitten but its wishful thinking that she will ever make the break from the mezzanine floor of the barn.
Perhaps, rod over shoulder and a can of worms from the worm farm I can make the most of early morning fishing opportunities whilst Liliput grazes on river bank lushness.

I met my friend Maggie last weekend at the monthly farmers market in Baril de Alva. Maggie is a veteran small holder of five years, self sufficient, off grid and an expert on goats. Maggie kept a small herd and made cash from the sale of goats cheese and various other homesteading craft spin offs, from carpets to purses. In the permaculture tradition Maggie expertly manages an input, her goats, and maximises their uses right through her sustainable system, from manure for the permaculture garden, to milk, cheese, skins and meat, Maggie also tells me they make great companions.

Animals are an integral part of self sufficiency and are essential to a sustainable permaculture design. After three months on the land I realise Im still making big decisions way to quickly but the luxury of waiting is not mine at present. Phase two of the project, Animals, is being forced by the impending over production from phase one, the raised bed veggie gardens. The plan is working even if it feels a little racy at present. You can imagine it was with great pleasure that I set up my stall next to Maggie and we got down to some serious goat talk.

Liliput is due mid July but Maggie advised that I start collecting Cardamon thistle or Milk thistle, as the crushed seed heads are used to turn the curds and whey, a natural process rather than using rennet. Im currently on the solar dryer project at the moment so was hunting the finca for wild fennel to dry with one eye out for milk thisle and I think I discovered some.

I also discovered a mountain of very interesting information on the health benifits of milk thisle,

Milk thistle seed extract protects the liver from a variety of common toxins, including alcohol, pesticides, heavy metal poisoning, pollution, and medications of all kinds. It has been used for more than two thousand years for medicinal purposes, and its use as a detoxifying agent and treatment for liver disease is well validated by research.

In the permaculture tradition im going to collect seeds and grow this as a cash crop. I can sell the plants, prepare a tincture and use it as a natural rennet replacment for making goat cheese. Maggie told me she got a premium for her cheese that was prepared using crushed milk thistle pods. An excelent guild, milk thistle, goat cheese and a tincture of silymarin, all from a wild growing plant.

Ive also been looking for something to detoxify heavy metals, recent water analysis research on the effects that chemtrails have on the water table show high, off the scale concentrations of barium and aluminium, both heavy metals.

Here is a good article on the many health benifits of the Milk Thistle

Milk Thistle: Benefits and Side Effects

A short, wide, prickly plant known as milk thistle (Silybum marianum) is the source of a popular herbal remedy that is widely used to detoxify the body and to treat liver disease. Milk thistle seed extract has been shown to have antioxidant properties that help the liver function and stay healthy.

As the name suggests, this herbal remedy is derived from the seeds of the milk thistle plant. Many people take milk thistle seed extract as protection from environmental toxins, such as second hand smoke. People with liver disease, including hepatitis, cirrhosis, jaundice and inflamed liver, use the herb to protect and regenerate that vital organ.

Milk thistle seed extract contains active compound known as flavonolignans, which can protect the cells of the liver from toxins as well as encourage cleansing and detoxification. When damage has already been done to liver cells, milk thistle can stimulate protein synthesis, thereby helping the liver to repair injury and generate new cells.

Milk thistle seed extract protects the liver from a variety of common toxins, including alcohol, pesticides, heavy metal poisoning, pollution, and medications of all kinds. It has been used for more than two thousand years for medicinal purposes, and its use as a detoxifying agent and treatment for liver disease is well validated by research.

Milk thistle seed extract is an excellent tonic for anyone under stress. It is also useful for people who use alcohol, recreational drugs, performance drugs such as anabolic steroids, as well as prescription medications. In addition, anyone living in a heavily polluted environment can benefit from supplements of milk thistle seed extract. The herb has a gentle detoxifying effect, and its ability to increase bile secretion and flow in the intestines makes it effective as a mild laxative. Milk thistle seed extract can regulate bowel function as well, making it useful for people who alternate between diarrhea and constipation.
Special hybrid seeds are usually used to prepare herbal supplements of milk thistle seed extract. Supplements should be standardized to contain 70-80% of a class of flavonolignans known as silymarin. Silymarin is a powerful antioxidant that is ten times as potent as vitamin E. Three compounds in the silymarin class, silybinin, silydianin and silychristin are the specific substances that produce therapeutic effects in preparations of milk thistle seed extract.

The active ingredients can be extracted with alcohol to produce a tincture, or pills can be prepared using the seeds. Milk thistle teas made from bulk seed are also available, but very little of the active ingredient is present in steeped teas. The recommended daily dosage of milk thistle seed extract is 140 to 420 mg in tablet form. This should be divided into two or three smaller doses. Tinctures of milk thistle seed extract should be mixed with water or juice according to instructions on the package. Tinctures can also be taken directly under the tongue.

Few side effects have been reported from the use of milk thistle seed extract, though the tablets sometimes cause stomach irritation. A mild laxative effect has been reported as well, but this is often a desired effect of treatment with milk thistle seed extract. The herb is considered safe for, and has long been used by, pregnant women, though it may still be advisable for them to consult a physician before using it. There are no known drug interactions with milk thistle seed extract.

Thanks to andwelove for the Milk Thisle health info

The Peach and Raison Jam Jam

2010-06-23T15:30:00.007+01:00

I have two small peach tress that have been bursting with fruit.

I did the main harvest yesterday and got 6 kg of sweet tasty peaches which Ive been enjoying on my muslie in the mornings. I bought a pressure cooker last week with just such a moment as this in mind. It was time to try my hand at jam making and preserving my summer bounties for winter leanties.

I got this receipt from the internet and added the raisons and lemon juice myself. I cooked the fruit and lemon juice slowly before adding the sugar and then brought to the boil and let it boil for 15 mins.
I should have left it longer as the jam didnt set, got to reread that bit on setting points and dropping spoons and saucers again, so ive frozen this lot and it will be used for crumbles or fruit flans.

Im happy with my first attempt and looking at the fruit trees it will be the plums turn next.
Anyone got an easy plum jam receipt?

How its meant to look...next time

Ingredients

2 kg peaches
2 kg sugar
Juice 2 lemons
2 cups of raisons

Directions

Bring water to a boil. Put peaches in the boiling water for just 1 minute or under. Take them out with a slotted spoon and place them in cold water. Peel and slice peaches. Discard peach pits. Put peaches into a large (wide-open) heavy bottom pot and add the sugar. Bring to a boil. Continue to boil mixture and stir frequently. Mixture will thicken in approximately 45 minutes to an hour. As mixture thicken, you must stir more frequently to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pot. To test whether the jam is ready, place a cold metal spoon in the mixture and tilt. The jam should form a single stream.

Note: The faster you cook the jam the brighter the color will be.

First wild fire of the summer

2010-06-23T15:03:00.009+01:00

Os incêndios, um em Contenças e outro em Póvoa de Cervães, começaram a deflagrar pouco depois de almoço e ficaram um só ao meio da tarde.

Ao que conseguimos apurar houve alturas em que as chamas estiveram bem perto de habitações, mas em momento algum houve perigo de arderem já que os homens da paz tinham a situações controladas. O que não conseguiu ser evitado foi o encerramento da linha da beira alta por algumas horas, já que as chamas deflagravam mesmo junto à via-férrea.

17.20 - Nao Circunscrito

17.28 - Grupo de Reforço para Combate a Incêndios Florestais de Santarém accionado para o local.

17:53 Accionado 1 Helicóptero Bombardeiro Pesado Kamov

18:21 Accionados 2 Aviões Bombardeiros Pesados CANADAIR

18:42 No local Engenheiro do Gabinete Técnico-Florestal da Câmara Municipal de Mangualde.

18:47 Flanco esquerdo extenso, a arder com intensidade, algumas projecções.

21:23 Incêndio circunscrito.

21:43 Incêndio Dominado

23:12 Incêndio em rescaldo

A team of fire fighting helicopters worked furiously filling and refilling the water buckets in the Mondego river infront of Senda Verde.

Apparently the fire started at two points, the two villages closest to Senda Verde.
Senda Verde sits at least 50 meters below the villages in the river valley.

Fire should only move uphill. I did consider the massive downdraft we get each night as the cold air rushes down the valley, but overall felt it safer to sit tight than drive uphill into the smoke.
The water supply from the waterfall was at pressure and the team of helicopters filling up in the river infront, whilst working fast, looked in control.

Boiled frog sends you all a reminder.
Take total responsibility for naked flames.
The summer is only days old and the heat just starting.

Seed Drying & Storage

2010-06-15T10:35:00.006+01:00

You need to dry your seed out, or it will not keep.

Seed that is air-dry is not really properly dormant - its just napping; so it is still burning through its stored reserves of energy and will soon run flat - like a mobile phone left on.

Also, you can't put it in a sealed container as it is still breathing - it would suffocate. And without a sealed container, it will soon reabsorb water from the air on the first humid day, and start getting ready to germinate.

How can we dry the seed at home?

We'll use dry rice to suck the water out of the seed & get it really dry. Then it will hibernate completely.

You need to get:

a big jam-jar with a good lid,
an old pair of tights,
a rubber band,
and some rice

You need to use at least twice as much rice as you have seed. It doesn't matter if you have too much rice, but too little won't work.
Bake the rice on a tray in the oven for 45 minutes until it is bone dry. While it is still hot, put it in the jam-jar , about half full, and screw the lid on .

Wait patiently until the rice is cool. (If you rush this you'll cook your seeds.) So you now have a jam jar 1/2 full of very dry, cool rice.

Put your seed in a bag made by cutting off the foot of the tights, and tie it in with a rubber band. Put it in with the cool dry rice. Put the lid on tightly, so damp air can't get in.

Leave your seed sealed in the jar with the dry rice for a fortnight, and the dampness in the seed will be drawn out into the rice.

You now have bone-dry seed that you can safely seal in a plastic bag, and it will keep for several years.

Passing it Round
This is also important. You will have huge amounts of seed. If you are sure you avoided crossing, and that your plants were nice and healthy, then you have a valuable thing there.

You will get about two and a half kilos of seed from a 20-foot-long bed of 30 plants. Now that's actually three-quarters of a million seeds - and if every one of those was given away or swapped, and then grown, you will have created more than 500,000 kilograms of kale! More than enough to feed all your friends and neighbours, and their families.

So you can see that even one person, on a small scale, can make a real contribution to local food security. Take your spare seed to a local seed swap, or even better, organise your own. Get to gether with your friends or family and set up a seed-circle: one person can grow kale seed, another parsnips, another cucumber, etc etc. You'll all have bags of seed - you can all just swap with each other, so no-one has to save seed from more than a couple of things, yet you all get seed of everything.

It will save you a fortune, and you'll get great, locally-adapted varieties. Just remember, all this is only possible because you are growing real, open-pollinated seed. You can't do this with hybrid (F1) varieties. Funny how the seed companies are so keen on selling you hybrid seed, isn't it?

Thanks to Real Seed company for the article and some excellent seeds and great service.

Experimenting with mulch.

2010-06-14T11:32:00.005+01:00

Jungly is fine but useful jungly is what I want. This means stacking useful plants and eliminating with good mulch techniques the not so useful ones.

Over the last three months I have been experimenting with different types of mulch materials and different ways of preparing the raised beds.

My Japanese bed is out of control and this needs sorting with the sheet and river mulch combo when i replant.

Using what I have to hand is the first priority and I have an abundance of river mulch, small twigs, bark, sticks and leaves washed down the river and left in tide marks on my river beach. Its easy to collect and breaks down fast, perhaps a little too fast as the beds I prepared using just this mulch on top are pretty much out of control with weeds.

A three sisters bed working well using only river mulch and the ground cover given by the pumkins.

My vision of a Permaculture kitchen garden doesnt involve hours and hours of weeding and so a good mulch that stops the weeds is important if Im going to get the project running efficiently and have time to do other things.

Cardboard sheet mulch is added then the bed is planted, finally 4 inches of river mulch is added ontop.

The winner looks like a cardboard sheet mulch followed by a topping of river mulch.
On the beds I prepared like this Ive done no weeding and the soil under this double combo is moist and full of life. I have a good source for cardboard so it the method ive decided on for all new beds and for replanting the other beds as I start to rotate the crops

An alternative or in addition to sheet mulch is to plant ground cover crops, these pumpkin and squash are shading out other plants, ideal for the pathways between raised beds.

Getting to know my neighbours II, the Jha-DA’ Body Orb Vehicle

2010-06-06T01:47:00.005+01:00

The Silver Seed Awakening, the Jha-DA’ Body Orb Vehicle

The Silver Seed Awakening, the first spark of the Silver Seed of the Mashaya-Hana Hubs of Aquareion Matrix; activation of the Sphere of Destiny, which is a 6-dimensional transharmonic protection sphere that turns into our Jha-DA’ Body Orb Vehicle, giving us the ability to eventually biologically Orb; and activation of the Lotus Bud Vehicle, which is the access code for the 48-Strand DNA imprint that connects us into Higher Earth.

More info
Azurite press
Sliders 6

Getting to know my neighbours, the Horseshoe Whip Snake

2010-06-04T18:10:00.004+01:00

My first close encounter with a Portuguese snake.

I found this one basking on the rocks near to the house

I believe its a Horseshoe Whip snake, this is a photo of one from the internet

Non-Venomous

English: Horseshoe Whip Snake
Scientific: Coluber hippocrepis (Linnaeus 1758)
Castilian: Culebra herradura
Catalan: Serp de ferradura
Portuguese: cobra-do-ferradura

Family: Colubridae
Distribution: Portugal except north, Spain except north and much of Castilla la Mancha. North west Africa and south west Sardinia

The Horse-shoe whip snake can reach a length of 180cm although they are often less. They are fairly slender, shy and fast moving. Although mostly diurnal they can also be seen out on warm evenings. The pattern is brighter and more obvious on juveniles with the main colour varying between yellow, off white, olive, grey or sometimes brown, this is marked by large black or brown spots uniformly placed along the dorsal line with smaller alternating spots along the flanks. In adults the paler areas within the pattern are much finer giving an overall darker appearance. The belly is pale in shades of peach, yellow, orange or red with dark marks openly dispersed near the head and more dense near the tail. The name stems from a shape on the head which looks like a horse shoe with the points facing back.
Their habitat ranges from coastal plains with low vegetation to dry scrub covered mountains up to 1,800m within the southern part of their range. Most of the population is found below 700m. They also live close to humans in cultivated areas and orchards, hunting around buildings or ruins and making use of dry stone walls. Generally ground dwelling and moving very quickly these snakes are also agile climbers going into bushes or along rough vertical banks and can move along dry stone walls searching the crevices for prey.

Their diet consists mainly of small mammals, the largest being rats, occasionally taking lizards and small birds. The young eat mainly lizards and also invertebrates. They actively seek out their meal, grasping it in their strong jaws and swallowing it head first. Horseshoe whip snakes may occasionally constrict their prey and do not have fangs or venom. This species of snake will always try and avoid detection, fleeing rapidly from human disturbance, but if cornered and handled will defend itself by hissing and biting.

In warmer zones of their range they may be active throughout the year, otherwise taking a short hibernation period during the colder times between November and March. Mating takes place in the spring with the female then laying a clutch of around 5 or 10 eggs (occasionally more than 20) under a rock, in an existing mammal tunnel or in old wood. Around two months later hatchlings will appear at a length between 15 and 35cm. The females are not sexually mature until they are about 8 years old and the males 5 years.

Similar species: none with these markings

Thanks to Wildside holidays for the info

Albert Bates describes the difference between "organic" and "biodynamic"

2010-06-03T10:27:00.003+01:00

Click here to listen or download the podcast

Albert Bates describes the difference between "organic" and "biodynamic," and why people might still be drawn to the ideas of Rudolf Steiner in an era when less woo woo but equally effective options exist.

Thanks to KMO

Flood irrigation in the main kitchen garden

2010-05-18T18:44:00.005+01:00

From Project. The kitchen garden pond and flood irrigation

Im hoping that I can use the natural irrigation channel that runs along top and behind the sloping raised bed kitchen garden. At the moment im using a tube to deliver water to the paths between the beds but its helping me to see the way I need to sculp the rest of the raised beds so that the water simply cascades from one swale to the next, back flooding I think its called.

From Project. The kitchen garden pond and flood irrigation

My mind is turning to irrigation systems as the weather hots up and I see that my loamy soil dries out very quickly. Ive got a timer and drip irrigation planned for the main poly tunnel, potting shed and new tomatoe areas, but I think for the kitchen garden it would be great to have a slow seep irrigation.

The ancient irrigation water course that runs right along the back of this veg garden is fed from the waterfall and I doubt better treated water to irrigate food crops could be found.
I was leaning on my shovel the other day taking a breather and I imagined the water tumbling down this massive 30 plus meter fall, the rocks, the pools, the pure nature of the surroundings and the water being totally in a natural ellement.
Victor Schauberger and Masaru Emoto theories were very much in mind when I thought of flood or slow seep irrigation, what a shame to stick this beautiful water into a black plastic irrigation tube when I can simply clear and repair the ancient stone canal and allow the water to caress only natural materials as it slowly seeps down from the high point through the land and into my permaculture kitchen garden.

Ive been enjoying the first salad greens of the year and they are exceptional confirming my belief that if we pay as much attention to the treatment of the water as we do to the treatment and creation of fertile soils we will see massive improvments in taste, hardiness and yield.

From Project. The kitchen garden pond and flood irrigation

Ive not done much to advance the kitchen garden pond but its doing its job, the garden is full of frogs and lizards, my 24 hour 7 day a week pest control.

Building a yurt deck by Awakened Life project

2010-05-12T17:30:00.002+01:00

The Awakened Life Project takes YouTube by storm!

A couple of weeks ago we made a new yurt deck. I wrote about this in a post called Building a Yurt Deck in Cosmic Flow. Well now hot off the presses, the whole process is captured on this short 10 minute video.

Eco Construction building with roundwood

2010-05-11T18:34:00.000+01:00

Wolfe in Transition

About our project in Northern Portugal to renovate some ruins and abandoned land. But more than this - to apply building and energy systems that are local, renewable and less polluting, more efficient, healthier and cheaper. And to actually learn about how they work practically, so one day we can teach others here and in other parts of the world where crises and poverty are permanent overlords. This is our story, our search, our transition.

This issue of using wood close to the ground in building is a classic design fault common all over the world. In 1997 I worked with Movimondo in Guatemala where a part of their community development project involved showing locals how the use of around 70cm of stone footing for their homes would extend the life of the wooden walls, saving them the financial burden of rebuilding their homes every five to ten years.

Here in Portugal, and also in Scotland, I know that people generally believe it's sensible to sink a post deep into the ground, often bedded into cement for "extra strength". We are also advised to paint the end of the post in tar, or burn it first to prevent rottage.

But Paulo has introduced the idea of using rocks as the principle footing to ensure the posts stay dry and last many times longer.

Small metal bars, around 8mm diameter are inserted into the but of the post, and a similar hole drilled into the rock.

This merely holds it in place - it is really wobbly and insecure at this stage.

.

Once a few posts are erected, a beam joins them together along the top, with simple lap joints with more metal bar to keep it together. This helps to secure the wobble a bit, but it really starts to get more secure when you link up the posts in both directions and add cross bracing. Rafters helped with stability too.

Read the rest of the article here

KMO launches his new podcast ETC Voices

2010-05-10T16:40:00.003+01:00

KMO is the host and creator of the C-Realm Podcast.

He currently resides at the Ecovillage Training Center on the Farm.

ETC Voices Podcast 001

KMO talks with the other folks who live, learn, and work at the Ecovillage Training Center in Summertown, Tennessee. This week, KMO talks with Merry Moore, the ETC innkeeper about the kitchen co-op she conceived and continues to refine, then comes a walk and talk with Cliff Davis, ETC Head Gardener, about collecting and using local micro-organisms to make compost tea, and finally Garrison, an ETC permaculture apprentice, shares some surfer lingo.

The Permaculture Kitchen Garden Pond and Relax Area

2010-05-09T17:41:00.008+01:00

This is a project update page for the kitchen garden pond and relax area.

A series of these project description pages will give multimedia coverage of the process of designing and researching a particular project right through to doing it. Making mistakes and getting it wrong are perfectly fine ways to go about learning.
I hope that these pages might inspire others that are interested in self sufficient off grid living.

You can find all the other ongoing project update pages on the sidebar link list.

Kitchen garden pond with water fall and flow form.

A terraced area with Gazebo and seating.
Research aquatic plants, flood or marsh plants for food or medicinal use.

So far all the fish ive added have died or gone over the edge or perhaps been prayed upon. I have found 1 dead so the whereabouts of the other 29 is a mystery.
Ive raised the rock dam wall a little and I will try another 15 fish next time I go fishing.
These will mainly be Minnows, some Barbel maybe Perca Sol.

I plan to continue clearing the old water canal and if it runs unbroken to beyond the ridge line of the veggie garden then I will be able to irrigate through the slow seepage of the water through the irrigation canal. Alternativly, I can direct a flow from the irrigation canal onto the paths between the raised beds and flood irrigate, perhaps leaving a good quantity of manure on each path that will slowly seep into the beds with each flood irrigation.
Im hoping this natural watering system will be relativly maintenance free and use no plastic pipe or external energy.

First photos from Senda Verde Permaculture Ecocentro

2010-05-06T15:22:00.005+01:00

With my new camera a new leash of life is promised for the blog.
Im not sure what direction I will take with this but im going to start posting regularly and feel my way into the style and presentation.
Welcome to the next chapter.

The first visit and a new camera

2010-05-06T13:44:00.017+01:00

Duncan the first WWOOF er at Senda Verde

I moved onto the farm just over two months ago but Senda Verde recieved its first visitor and willing worker on organic farms (WWOOFer) when my brother Duncan came out for a 5 day visit.

Thanks Dunc for your visit and helping out, some jobs need more than two hands and we got loads done and discussed much.

Everything is growing so quickly you can practically see it..

A small array of 4 x 100 watt panels is more than enough for 12 volt lighting, computers, music and a 12volt deep freeze.

The solar panels are now properly mounted on the roof and with the extra power that the better positioned panels give I hooked up the Steca 12 volt 166 lt chest freezer direct to the batteries. Ive now got all the kit working and power to spare.

The 12 volt lighting that I made up at the green gathering is running direct off the batteries and to light the house Im using 4 spots at 2.5 watts each and 2 arrays of 5 coloured luxeon stars, more for the atmospherics but at 0.5 watts I can afford a little interior lighting style.
Thanks to Dave at LED Fantastic for the knowledge.

Steca PF 166 Solar refrigerator/freezer

With the Steca plugged in and working I can turn off my caravan 3 way fridge freezer thats been running on gas. I will use cool boxes with ice packs from the steca for my refrigeration and the house is cool and dark. One step closer to off grid living.

Rob Fi and Duncan chilling on the beach

We spent a great day on Sunday chilling on the river beach and catching a few tiddlers from the river, followed by BBQ spare ribs and baked potatoes all done in the wood stove. A tricky piece of equipment to master but im slowly getting to know its fobiles and adjusting my life and cooking to suit the equipment.

Building raised beds as I go and experimenting with sheet mulch and river mulch

Big love and thanks to Finn and Woody for the camera as my birthday gift and a hong kong fooey birthday wish to you Woody for Saturday.

Lynn and Tom Hart are pleased to announce that Quinta Sao Domingos, holiday apartments in Guimaraes are now open.

2010-04-27T16:39:00.001+01:00

Lynn and Tom Hart are pleased to announce that Quinta Sao Domingos in Guimaraes, near Viseu Portugal is now open for business.

Swimming pool, BBQ, terrace and gardens with your own luxurious apartment

A restored farm house and adega (wine house) on the edge of a small village in Central Portugal. The village, Guimaraes, is located about 8 miles north east of the town of Viseu about three miles off the road to Satao.

The Viseu skyline

There are two apartments in the Quinta, (farmhouse) one 2 bedroom, and one 1 bedroom.

Quinta Rosa is on the ground floor and has a kitchen, utility room, toilet, large lounge, and double bedroom with ensuite bathroom. Across the small internal courtyard there is a further double bedroom and ensuite shower room suitable for people with disabilities. It should be noted that the rooms are on different levels so internal access with a wheel chair is limited.

Quinta Azul is on the first floor with access up the staircase at the front of the Quinta with 14 steps. There is a large open plan kitchen and living room, double bedroom and ensuite bathroom.

We offer four self catering apartments, 2 x 2 bedroom and 2 x 1 bedroom. There is a 12m x 6m outdoor swimming pool, with an outside kitchen to enjoy barbecues and the local wine. This is a beautiful largely unspoilt area and is ideal for a quiet restful holiday. The apartments have been refurbished over the last two years, and furnished and equipped to a high standard, they are kept meticulously clean.

Adega Tinta is on the first floor up 10 steps to an open plan kitchen and lounge. There are two bedrooms with shower rooms, one double with a view of the lagar (wine making room) and one twin.

Adega Branca is an upside down apartment, reached up six steps,†with the double bedroom and ensuite bathroom underneath the lounge and open plan kitchen

The village is quiet and peaceful with virtually no traffic and looks over a beautiful rolling landscape to the Serra de Estrela Mountains in the east.

Our garden contains orange, tangerine, lemon, grapefruit, peach, apple, pear, fig, pomegranate, walnut and chestnut trees, together with a small vineyard and flowers.

For more information please visit our website or contact us.

Quinta Sao Domingos

Guimaraes

Sao Pedro De France

Viseu 3505-350

Portugal

00351 232 924 154 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 00351 232 924 154 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

lynnhart49@gmail.com

www.quintasaodomingos.com

Skype tomatmill

The nasty secret in your kitchen cupboard.

2010-04-15T12:31:00.003+01:00

18 of 20 most popular tins made with controversial bisphenol A in lining

By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent, Independent

Some of Britain's best-known foods contain the controversial chemical bisphenol A, The Independent can reveal.

Tins of Heinz baked beans, soup and beans, John West and Princes fish, and Napolina tomatoes are lined with a membrane containing bisphenol A, or BPA, a molecule of which is pictured top left. Other companies using it in their tins include the biggest retailers in the UK, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda, who use it for tins of tuna and sardines.

Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) has given the chemical the all-clear, in contrast to the US Food and Drug Administration, which in January expressed concern over its impact on the brains and development of young children and said it was "taking reasonable steps to reduce human exposure" to it in the food supply. After the American U-turn, the EU-funded European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) launched and is still carrying out a review of BPA.

Read the rest of this article here

Here comes the long emergency

2010-04-13T19:09:00.004+01:00

Surplus oil production capacity could disappear by 2012 a report from US Joint Forces Command, says. Photograph: Katja Buchholz/Getty Images

Lets Get Real
Posted on April 12, 2010 by onestraw

There has been ALOT of buzz about the Peak Oil Guardian Article today. And with good reason. For years we, on the “lunatic fringe” have been crying from the roof tops that the sky is falling. And now, the US Joint Forces, is saying the exact same things we have been. HA! We were right! Now who’s the lunatic sucka! But then, within seconds – IT hits. OMG – I’m right. THEY’RE right. Oh.My.God. …2011 oil surplus is gone. Um, that is 8 months from now! 2015 the world is 10 million barrels short. A DAY. In 2008 the US used 19.5 million brls/day. Aw, shit.

Oh, but it gets so much better. I hate reading reports of reports, so I spent 5 minutes tracking down the original Joint Forces Report to learn more. The data they are basing their predictions on is the IEA World Outlook. So lets look at that for a minute:

Right. See the light blue – that is our current oil production. It drops like a rock. Not good for Business as Usual. So if I am reading this right, the IEA says, well what if we put like a bajillion more drills into the current reserves? That gets you the dark blue block- pulling the oil faster, not adding more oil. This is wicked expensive, and won’t really happen any time soon. Why not? Because it didn’t happen at $150/brl oil so there is no way in hell its going to happen at $87/brl oil. But the beauty thing? The billions of infrastucture in drilling only gets us flat for a year, and then 10 million barrels –per day– short by 2015. 4.5 years. Ah but what about the red, gold and green splotches? Notice the lines through them? I translate that as IEA speak for “good fucking luck” or “Cheney made us put that in to stop world panic”.

But back to that JOE report I linked to. The JOE report is the Joint Operations Environment report and sets out to paint a backdrop for strategic planning for the next 25 years. Its the military so they spend the first half dozen pages talking about honor and history and manifest destiny with the obligatory quotes from Ancient Greece. But then they get into a sober frank telling of the Big Issues of the coming decades. Their conclusions should scare the shit out of each one of us. 5 of the Top 1o will sound very familiar to readers of this blog:

* The Economy
* Oil Scarity
* Climate Change
* Water Scarcity
* Food supplies.

Are Rob Hopkins, Richard Heinberg, and David Holmgren working for the Joint Chiefs? Remember that this is based on the largest and best funded intelligence gathering entity on the planet. Let me state this again – at the highest levels our military views oil, water, climate change and food as strategic issues. Let that sink in for a good long minute.

But as I read through this I was struck by the same thing I almost always am (except when I read the 3 authors above). While the JOE report talks about Oil scarcity by 2015, and 40% of the world being thirsty by 2030 and millions of people under water by 2030 they don’t connect the dots. What they don’t get is that we will be out of oil, thirsty, under water, hungry AND broke. At the same time.

4 years ago I started this blog to document our attempts to be more sustainable. Buying organic. Installing CFL’s. Driving a hybrid. I read and read and my concern deepened so I started growing more food. And working on energy projects. I began to question if these were problems to be solved or if, as John Michael Greer stresses in The Long Emergency that these issues were now predicaments to be reacted to. I guess I have answered that question for myself. We saw the effects of $4 gasoline. Ironically, the recession bought us “time” by reducing oil consumption. We are now seeing the economy resurge. But it will smack into the energy reality before the end of the year or so and we will see economic growth sputter again. But this time we will have less capacity – no more stimulous and unemployment will still be 10%+ so we will likely fall farther and take longer to rebound.

Problem or Predicament, we have our design criteria. Water, energy, “money”, and food will all be scarcer in the future, and likely the near future. Our solutions and preparations will be as diverse as we are – and rightly so. But they must focus on being 3 things:

* Local
* Resilient
* Regenerative

I am scared shitless about how fast we have crossed the tipping points and how even those of us who have been working so hard aren’t ready. Greer nailed it – this will be a LONG emergency sparked with respites, like the one we are in now, where things feel good and we can get our feet under us. But we will get thrown again, and all the uncertainty and fear that we all felt last year will return only to recover again, but to a lower level of “prosperity”.

There is much to do.

Be the Change.

-Rob

The Three Sisters guild

2010-04-02T00:59:00.000+01:00

The three sisters is a term used by some North American native people to refer to a grouping of plants that work well together: CORN, BEANS, and SQUASH.

In 2006, the three sisters will be planted in Sonoma County in as many locations as are provided by persons volunteering in support of this growing process. All work will be done by volunteers. Food, transportation, music and prayer will accompany all the plantings. Corn, beans and squash produced will be given to volunteers according to their needs, and all surplus will be donated to local charitable food distribution centers.

The three sisters is a term used by some North American native people to refer to a grouping of plants that work well together: CORN, BEANS, and SQUASH

The intention of the documentation of this process is to provide a simple working knowledge for anyone to grow these basic staples of life. The reason for providing this information is that so few people in the USA have any connection to growing their own food. Farming ancestors are three or more generations in the past. In many other countries, even the city residents have parents or grandparents who worked the land, and could provide survival information for younger generations.

Here’s an outline of how it is done. First, determine the earliest planting date in the area for hard corn, which takes over 100 days to become mature. Some of the corn types are heirloom varieties, and may take nearly another month to finish. Also, some time for the corn to harden and dry in the field is needed.

When the corn stalks have reached an average “waist high” then a single bean of the climbing or “pole” variety is slipped gently into the earth in the “toes” of the corn, so that gophers don’t readily find the seed. In a few weeks more, the bean sprout is climbing the cornstalk as a support, and also “fixing” nitrogen for the corn. This soil enrichment can result in an extra ear of corn for the stalk.

Depending on the soils, and rainfall in the area, winter squash is then planted in the spaces between the corn stalks, and the broad leaves shadow the earth and provide cool moist climate for the roots of all three plants. The squash can be planted from seed if there are not too many weeds, or transplanted in as larger, faster growing plants after cultivation and weed removal in the field of corn and beans. Once the squash begins to vine, no more work is done in the field until harvest.

Another valuable aspect of all three of the sisters is that no special means of saving the food is needed, such as refrigeration, canning, cooking, drying, root cellars, etc. The foods are field dried and then placed in the home until needed. Winter squash can sit happily under the table or on a bookshelf and provide interesting conversation. Beans can wait in jars, and corn can be tied in bunches by the husks and hung on the wall

Contact Steve Tinling
0191 278 1969

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Native American tribe were the first to tell the story of Three Sisters, who grew up together in harmony – corn, beans and squash. It is a story that is shared by people in the Caribbean, and one we can learn from here in Britain. In Newcastle upon Tyne in the cold North East of England, an innovative project aims to investigate how different Native American cultures have developed sustainable horticultural methods and demonstrate how these principals can be applied over here.

Good Road community garden is an experiment in ecologically sound approaches to vegetable gardening, such as organic composting, companion planting and biological control of pests. This is a wonderful urban green space, which can be used as an inspiration and a resource by community groups interested in food growing or in cultural diversity.

Meanwhile, visits from Native American teachers introduce school children to accurate information about the lifestyles of First Nation peoples, who often lived in harmony with nature, and whom the children may otherwise never have the chance to meet. This project highlights the fact that interest in different cultures is not about focussing on the countries of origin of local ethnic minority groups. For there is no significant community of Native Americans living in Britain; yet through projects like Three Sisters, white children are able to learn about the richness of other cultures, and how this can be drawn upon to enrich their own culture.

`The corn, the bean and the squash are three loving sisters who must always live together to be happy. The older sister is tall and graceful, the next younger loved to twine about her and lean for strength upon her. The youngest rambled at the feet of their sisters and protected them from prowling enemies. When the moon drops low and the summer night is lit only by the mysterious light of the stars, these three sister come forth in human form wearing their green garments and decked in blossoms. They have been seen dancing in the shadows, singing to their mother earth, praising their father sun and whispering words of comfort to mankind. And women and men, to show gratitude, call the three sisters Dyonheyko, “they who sustain our lives”'.
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois `Longhouse' people) legend

I first heard this story when I lived in South London, it was told to me by my elderly neighbour, Uri Peart, who in his youth had been a farmer in Jamaica. He did not mention mother earth and father sun. He was a devout Seventh Day Adventist. But he did explain to me that people in the Caribbean have long since practised companion planting – growing certain plants together, so that they support and protect one another. He recalled being taught as a boy to put the three seeds – corn, bean and squash – side by side in one small hole in the soil, so that they would grow up together.

First the corn would sprout and grow up tall and strong; then the bean would twine around it's stem, so there is no need to build a `tipi' of bamboo canes as gardeners in Europe tend to do. In return for this support, the bean converts nitrogen from the air into food for the roots of the growing corn, so the gardener does not need to apply fertiliser. Then the squash will spread as ground cover, its broad leaves shading the soil to preserve moisture and protect the roots of the taller plants, while preventing weeds from taking hold, so again the gardener need not apply mulch.

Mind you, Mr Peart also told me about how he used to pick a banana from the wayside tree to eat on his way to school, or pick up a ripe avocado fallen from a tree as big as the Horse Chestnut which grew opposite our block of flats. It all sounded rather exotic and I was not confident that it would work over here where the climate is very different.
Inspiration for organic gardeners in England and Wales

We had a tiny pocket handkerchief of shared garden surrounding our building, in those days, and those who were fit enough and had some spare time would share responsibility for tending it. At the front our English neighbours kept a neat lawn and straight rows of flowerbeds in red, white and blue. But out the back my partner and I experimented with growing food. Our Ghanaian neighbours laughed heartily at our first small crop of potatoes, suggesting we should take them to the supermarket to sell. When we grew pumpkins, however, there were plenty to share with all our friends and we distributed seeds widely among our women's group and across the South London Permaculture network. Pumpkins are surely one of the most fertile kinds of squash we can grow.

Then when I heard about the Good Road project, I was very keen to visit and see for myself how companion planting was working successfully in the Jesmond Dene district of Newcastle upon Tyne, way up in the cold North East of England. Steve Tinling is the man behind the project. I met him on a cold winter's day, in his little port-a-cabin office alongside the council's plant nursery. Steve runs the Home Composting Project from here, distributing big plastic compost bins to encourage people to recycle kitchen waste in their own gardens. His office is beautifully decorated with garlands of colourful cobs of corn, such as you might see in the USA around Hallowe'en and Thanksgiving time. Steve told me how, very often people who have just come to pick up a compost bin will spot this display and comment, opening up conversations about the wider issues around sustainable horticulture.

In 1997, the Home Composting Project together with friends, colleagues and interested customers set up Good Road Community Garden to investigate traditional plant uses and historic growing methods of various Native American cultures. There is a demonstration garden, where you can see three sisters growing in the summertime, together with various wild or semi-domesticated plants. Sometimes visitors are surprised to see such an informal arrangement of plants in a garden. Well, that was the reaction of the first Europeans arriving in the New World. Native American agriculture was rather different from European methods, so the settlers did not recognise what they saw as farming.
Sustainable agriculture of the Original People

The indigenous peoples often practised forage-harvesting for their food, medicine and amenity plants, alongside farming which worked with, not against, natural ecosystems. Only small areas of forest were felled for farming. The three sisters were planted on small mounds, not rows. Planting in rows can cause soil erosion whereas mounds help to retain moisture and soil fertility, encouraging strong, healthy plant growth. Healthy plants are more disease resistant. And grown together, they attract beneficial insects, which prey on those that are destructive. This system is known today as biological control.

A key partner in this project is the International North American Indian Association, who have a base in Edinburgh. They hold the view that all peoples share one Earth and so have a responsibility to keep abreast of environmental issues which affect us all. They monitor the effects of industry on wildlife in America, and the introduction of beaver and other species into the UK. The project is also closely linked to the Lenni Lenape Resource Centre UK, which provides information and advice about specific Native American cultures to schools and community groups; and the Lenni Lenape Historical Society / Museum of Indian Culture in Pennsylvania USA.

The Lenape people occupied an area of Turtle Island (as America is known to them) stretching from Delaware to Long Island New York. Named the Delaware Indians by white people, their own name for themselves, Lenni Lenape means `original people' in Algonquin dialect. For 15,000 years before the arrival of Columbus they lived in small villages connected by a criss-cross of footpaths. They farmed, fished and hunted many species of animals and birds. To read the sad story of what became of the Lenni Lenape, please visit the website
Bringing the lessons home

Carla Messenger, Director of the Museum of Indian Culture, visited Newcastle in July 2002 to show an exhibition and give a series of talks to local school children about Native American sustainable lifestyles. The talks were held at Good Road in a polytunnel (polythene covered, tunnel shaped, plant-growing greenhouse) not unlike a Haudenosaunee Longhouse in construction. Carla talked about Native American technologies and cultures, including the re-use and recycling of plant and animal materials.

Steve Tinling showed me some artefacts of the type used by American Indians, including gardening tools made from a deer's jawbone and antlers. The antlers would be used for digging and the jawbone, complete with teeth, for removing grains of maize from the cob. He also showed me a great many varieties of seeds from the types of corn, beans and squash grown traditionally by the Lenni Lenape and other tribes.
Seeds of Heritage, Seeds of Diversity

These are heritage seeds, in that they are not registered in seed catalogues and so cannot legally be sold in Europe; but they can be shared and grown quite happily. And many people consider it increasingly important to do so, saving seed each year and keeping these ancient, rare varieties alive for the benefit of future generations.

I am starting to notice seed-swapping events cropping up around the UK in early spring. Perhaps we can hope to see exciting varieties like these become more readily available. Networks are beginning to emerge of people keen to share not just the seeds of special plant varieties but also the heritage of stories that go with them – stories about how the plants grow and what they mean to us.

For as well as complementing each other in the garden, the three sisters have for centuries lived in harmony in the kitchen. Corn gives us energy food, and some protein to help us grow strong like her. But when eaten together with beans, the protein from the beans combines with that of the corn to produce maximum benefit in our diet. (Think of tortilla and refried beans – they go together just like rice and peas, dahl and rice or bean or toast!) Now add some juicy squash, full of vitamins, and you have the perfect balanced meal.
And it works in Wales too!

Since moving to Wales and getting a bigger garden, last year I decided to have a serious go at growing the three sisters. I did not have success starting the three seeds together in each pot. But I did manage to start of first the corn, then the beans and finally courgettes – a kind of squash familiar to Europe. I used ordinary packet seed from the shops. And they did very well together. We were lucky to have a lingering `Indian' summer so the corn eventually ripened in September, and my family enjoyed a harvest festival feast of the sweetest corn you could imagine. I am sure my old Jamaican neighbour, Mr Peart, would be so proud of me, if only he were still alive to see my little raised beds, home-made organic compost and fine healthy crop of food.

Next year I hope to get hold of some heritage seed and contribute to the growing movement for conservation of plant diversity. You can get more information about plant diversity in an information sheet from Steve Tinling at Good Road.

2010 Spud Season Begins – New Technique!

2010-03-30T20:05:00.004+01:00

Last Friday I got a call that my seed potatoes were in. This year I used one of the several organic farms in central WI that specialize in spuds to source my seed – I save a bundle in shipping, and they make a bit too. Its all good. But as this was an ad hoc deal, communication was not ideal and some wires were crossed. Apparently some of “Rose Finn Apple *OR* La Ratte; German Butterball *OR* Kennebec” got a lost in the shuffle and all those “or’s” got changed to “and’s”. So I have an extra 150#’s of potatoes — not a huge deal, but its an extra 20% more space. And were were already feeling the crunch on the farm as each of the tenant farms is looking to expand this year. Might need to rethink some of my cover/compost crop experiments…

Running the math – 750#’s works out to just under 6000 row feet with 12″ spacing. The Kennebecs and Yukons get more like 8″, but still, that is well over a mile of potatoes to hill, water, and harvest. Good thing I have that extra day off! With seed in hand and low tunnels up, it was time to get crackin on planting. 2010 is going to bring several changes. First, I am growing even more varieties: Desiree (storage), Carola (melt in your mouth good), Purple Viking (al purpose and gorgeous), Kennebec (baking), Nicola (favorite of my Chef client), Yukon Gold (early/potato salad), German Butterball (storage), “Flaming” (no idea, it was a substitute for Red Gold), and 3 fingerling (La Ratte, Rose Finn Apple, and French). Second I am planning the harvest more betterer since harvesting/selling 8000#’s of spuds in a part time one man gig is no mean feat. And finally, I am getting much more intentional with my growing technique which is what I would like to get into in this post.

Last year I ran 2 experimental plots. The first, the potato towers, were an unmitigated failure. The second was using deep straw mulch over fertile soils was a spudtacular success –netting over 3# per plant. If I could get the same yields in field production my harvest would be over 9 tons this year from 750#’s of seed (24:1) – or more importantly I could cut my seed order and acreage in 2011 by over half. Doing more with less sounds great to me.

2 30" beds with a 1' center path to fit under the Low Tunnels hold 4 rows of spuds

Here is the technique I have worked out and will be field trailing as much as time allows:

2 30" beds with a 1' center path to fit under the Low Tunnels hold 4 rows of spuds

You may have noticed that it is still March and I am planting potatoes – this is the bed under the first low tunnel I built this past Febuary. The rye crop LOVED the cover and was 18″ tall by March 22! – I mowed and turned it under last Friday using the rotary plow and then formed this bed. The bed design is taken straight our of 4 Season Harvest: 2 30″ beds divided by a 1′ middle path. This allows it to snuggle under a low tunnel (hoops laying to the left, plastic to the right) allowing me to plant as early as the soil can be worked – in this case 3 weeks early due to having to till under the cover crop; 2011 I will be in March wk 2.

But I am not one to rest on anyones laurels, not even Eliot Coleman’s. In Chapter 12 of Alcohol can be a Gas, David Blume talks through a really intriguing method of doing raised beds. Essentially a contour swale is dug every few beds and then this swale is filled with compost material and wood chips. In Blume’s idea, these mulch filled swales are then inoculated with red wigglers who munch away, merrily composting in place. But Blume is a Grade A permaculturist so look how cool this gets: these are contour swales – so they fill with water every good rain. That alone is great as each raised bed is now sitting on top of a lens of sub soil water greatly reducing or eliminating irrigation. But his swales are full of worm turd, which is water soluble and that lens of water is now super fertile. Plus the worms can’t live in the swale during the flood so they high tail it into your raised beds and happly munch away in there while manuring and opening up air passages with their burrows. Awesome. But the swale function stacking ain’t done yet. Blume doesn’t mention this, but being full of wood chips – they will act as nurseries for soil fungi. The paths are never tilled, just added to, so the fungi lives on. And on and on to recharge your beds with mycelium even after the disruptive potato harvest. How cool is this?

It just so happens that the rotary plow is wicked good at building raised beds with 1′ deep swales on each side. Oh, and I just bought a cool Italian chipper that eat 2″ trunks for breakfast. AND I am planting coppice trees by the hundreds. Look at the picture again, you see the start of the wood chip swale (not on contour in this plot) for my own little Chapter 12 experiment. This week I will get another 20 yards of chips in BART (it will take about 90 yards to fill all the swales!!) And this afternoon the farm owner and I staked out the contour lines of the new potato plot (65′x170′). This week we will disc it to give the horses a workout, and then build the beds with the Grillo and the rotary plow: 6′ beds each surrounded by a 2′ wide swale. On contour and full of mulch and worms. Gods I love this plan!

Mulch rather than hilling: 1 bale every 40' of 30" bed.

Mulch rather than hilling: 1 bale every 40' of 30" bed.

So the beds are made, but I want to take the learnings from my uber successful trial last year and scale them up. The trial consisted of 3 things – shallow planting of the seed potatoes for easy harvest, then covering the seed in compost and a foot of straw. the yeilds were insane and weeding and watering were almost eliminated. So here we go: enter a crap ton of compost and straw and I am planting shallower to hopefully allow me to use the root digger for the Grillo (good thing with 6000′ of row to harvest!). The photo at right shows me half way done with one of the 20 beds. The spud seed is planted about 4″ deep, the soil raked flat and then I applied a .5″ layer of 3/4 finished compost and watered well. Over this I added a 1-2″ layer of straw. This works out to 1 bale every 40′ of 30″ bed. As I expect to “hill” the potatoes again in about 4-5 weeks with another layer of mulch I expect each 6′ bed to take 8 bales total which works out to 160 bales for the entire plot. Bales are about $2 each, but seeing as I sell my potatoes for $2/lb I fully expect to earn that back in harvest and the reduction in weeding, hilling and watering should more than make up for it regardless.

Here is where I get really excited about this plan. First – there is 3 acres of prairie on the farm. We burn an acre a year, and the farm owner has always dreamed of using the biomass (3-4″ of straw) off on of the others on the farm each year. I’d rather not spend $300 on straw if I don’t have too, so we took a fork and a rake out to the blue stem prairie today for a look see and the straw came up fairly easy. Next week we will drag a harrow across one of the prairie plots with the Draft Team to collect the straw to one side and then pile it up for future use as potato mulch. Awesome.

I’ve been writing about the MASSIVE amounts of compost we will be making this year – 40 tons or so. That is flippin awesome in and of itself, but it also takes ALOT of machinery and making the fuel for that machinery is alot of work. Using the bed method above nature is doing much more of the work – Moving wheel barrow loads of mulch around ad forking it into the paths is pleasant work. Chipping the coppice wood will still need fuel, but my chipper has a 5hp engine vs. the Bobcats 45hp one. Also, this system can get very close to no till in a very big hurry. Ruth Stout would be very pleased with all my mulching and I’d like to think that Fukuoka would be pleased with my letting the worms do my composting in place. Its all coming together.

This system makes all kinds of sense so we are moving forward. It will be a CRAP TON of work in the first year as I have to build 20, 80′ long raised beds from scratch, and then fill 1700′ of swale with 90 cu yards of wood chips. But once the system is in place the work should drop off quickly as is to be expected in any permaculture design. Stoked as all hell about this.

Be the Change.

-Rob

Posted on March 29, 2010 by onestraw

Monsanto monopoly held up to some light

2010-03-16T22:43:00.006Z

Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybean is genetically modified to survive dousing by a weedkiller made by Monsanto called Roundup

Monsanto says competition is healthy in agriculture. Above, a Monsanto researcher in Missouri last fall.
Regulators Offer Competitors, Farmers and Activists a Platform to Gripe About Crop Biotech Giant

Crop biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. has the most at stake in the first of an unprecedented series of public meetings that the antitrust wing of the Justice Department is holding across the Farm Belt.

In January, the Justice Department launched a formal antitrust investigation of the St. Louis company's handling of the most widely planted genetically modified crop in the U.S., a herbicide-immune soybean.

Now, Justice's tight-lipped antitrust division is taking the unusual step of inviting competitors, farmers, politicians and activists to air any gripes about Monsanto - and to suggest ways to limit the company's reach before a high-profile audience.

The Obama administration disclosed Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Holder will speak Friday at the first of five such meetings, billed as joint "workshops" with the Department of Agriculture on competition issues.

Friday's meeting in Iowa will focus on genetically-modified seeds, the 14-year-old market largely created and led by Monsanto, which has at least one of its patented genes in about 90% of soybeans grown in the U.S. and in about 80% of U.S. corn.

Monsanto declined to make Hugh Grant, its chairman and chief executive, available for comment, but issued a statement that "an objective review of the agricultural sector will reveal that competition is alive and flourishing." A Monsanto vice president is scheduled to speak Friday.

Frankenfoods by Monsanto your caring sharing multinational...

Farmers and the seed companies that license genes from Monsanto have long complained about the prices it has been able to command. The price of a bag of soybean seed, for example, has roughly quadrupled since Monsanto began licensing genes.

Pioneer Hi-Bred, the seed unit of Wilmington, Del., chemicals concern DuPont Co., has alleged that Monsanto is trying to use gene licenses to limit competition. Monsanto has also tried in recent months to dispel fears among some farmers and seed breeders that Monsanto will make it hard for them to use generic versions of genetically modified crops after the company's patents expire.

Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybean is genetically modified to survive dousing by a weedkiller made by Monsanto called Roundup. Introduced in 1996, the seed made it so easy for farmers to chemically weed their fields that many stopped using other herbicides or mechanically tilling their fields. With that seed losing its ability to draw royalties after 2014, Monsanto is trying to get farmers to switch to a second generation of Roundup Ready seed that it has patented.

Rising US farm acreage using Monsanto

Mr. Holder will be joined Friday by Christine Varney, his antitrust chief, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and several states' attorneys general, some of whom have been investigating Monsanto's business practices for years.

"Seed technology is pretty heavily consolidated," said Mr. Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, a state where Monsanto and Des Moines-based seed giant Pioneer Hi-Bred are locked in a bitter fight for farmer loyalty that includes dueling lawsuits in a federal courthouse. "I'm not taking sides," Mr. Vilsack said Wednesday. "What I'm really concerned about is farmers getting a fair shake."

The USDA estimates that U.S. farmers spent $17.2 billion on seed in 2009, up 56% from $11 billion in 2006.

President Obama promised early in his administration to "reinvigorate" antitrust enforcement, which involved the Justice Department disavowing Bush era guidelines. His antitrust chief has largely pushed on her own for a closer look at agriculture, where everything from hogs and cattle to corn, soybeans, milk and seeds are processed by a handful of big corporations.

Ms. Varney said she came up with the idea for the workshops a year ago during her nomination hearings, when Sen. Russ Feingold (D. Wis.) and other farm-state legislators complained the Bush administration permitted a merger wave among agricultural processors that undermined farmers. More than 15,000 people have submitted comments to the Justice Department on the workshops.

GMO a risky business buy organic find a CSA

Ms. Varney, who said she worked for a time during her youth organizing farm workers, said she feels a personal connection to farmers, who by nature of their business are usually dwarfed by the companies they buy from and supply. "I don't have any preconceived notions," she said, adding that the Friday workshop is arranged in a way that will allow her "to get a variety of views" on Monsanto, among other things.

Still, several of Friday's slated speakers have been critical of Monsanto, and the meeting is an opportunity for them to present to senior government officials what they see as remedies for curtailing its influence. While it is far from clear that the Obama administration will adopt any of these ideas, which mostly touch on how Monsanto licenses its genes, it's probably the best chance that many speakers will ever get to present their arguments. "This is a rare opportunity," said Diana Moss, vice president of the American Antitrust Institute, a Washington think tank.

Your only power is your purchasing power dont buy this crap

Neil E. Harl, a retired Iowa State University economics professor, says the meetings are "a very different tactic for the (antitrust division) to go public like this," he said. "Maybe they think just talking about these things might have an impact on the boardroom."

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson, for example, filed a comment for the workshop that calls on the federal government to stop biotechnology companies from using gene licenses to block independent seed companies from stacking genes from various companies in a plant.

By Scott Kilman
Wall Street Journal
© Reuters

Thanks to SOTT for the post

Bartering is back

2010-03-12T11:43:00.003Z

Valerie Gates is not exactly the person you'd expect to go public with the declaration: Will work for food. But that is just what the Wellesley creative-marketing designer and mother of two did last month.

When her business began to lag in the fall, Gates, a 43-year-old who entered the marketing world nearly 15 years ago after working in the Los Angeles entertainment industry, devised a creative way to reach new clients, feed her family, and help the community all at the same time.

The concept was simple: She would offer the creative services of her firm, Gates Studios, to five local farmers in exchange for food or shares in Community Supported Agriculture programs. Gates sent out about 60 e-mails notifying area farms and farming organizations and waited to see if her idea would catch on.

Will Work for Food gives farmers access to branding and marketing skills to grow and sustain their way of life and, at the same time, teaches her family about where good food comes from while putting healthier food on the table each day.

A family affair

The entire family is in on the project. From Dad and business partner, Barry, who is learning to cook all the great food stuffs, to Gates and their children -eight-year-old Olivia, a vegetarian, and 13-year-old, Cameron - the family is on a journey to discover the wonder of where food comes from and the people who grow it the slow and natural way.

"It's fun for me," said Gates, whose energy and enthusiasm is contagious. "I'm pretty much a city girl. I appreciate my food more. I appreciate where my food is coming from more now."

The family went on one of their first farm visits today, an event televised by the local news. The big news? Olivia held a newborn lamb, the family learned farmers don't name their animals (for obvious reasons), and they got to see an ingenious mobile hen house. Better news yet? The family is gaining a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the natural world, the pressing need to be sensitive to the earth, and the vital role of food in daily life.

And the farmers are equally thrilled. Sixteen have lined up to work with Gates Studio. Gates and her family are at the precipice of a trend.

Now, someone get Barry a copy of Ruth Reichl's classic Gourmet Cookbook and Deborah Madison's fabulous Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

Bull frog Acres new logo

WILL WORK FOR FOOD PROJECT UPDATE.

We are currently working with our first group of farm partners on our design for food barter tier but are also available to offer our complete marketing and design services to other local and national small farms and growers on our next three tiers of the project as follows on a first come, first served basis: 1) Second five growers and farms 75% off our fees. 2) Third five growers and farms 50% off our fees. 3) Fourth five farms and growers 25% off our fees. If interested, please contact us at valerie@gatestudio.com

Listen to the Eco Shock radio interview, right click to download

David Holmgren the co-originator of Permaculture with Bill Mollison in a two part interview

2010-03-07T18:20:00.004Z

David Holmgren, the co-originator of Permaculture

David Holmgren, the co-originator of Permaculture. Holmgren is co-author of Permaculture One, the book that introduced Permaculture to the world. In part one of this interview, Holmgren speaks about the beginnings of Permaculture, his home Melliodora; one of the best documented and well known Permaculture demonstration sites, and his book Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change. Interview by Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World, and Wes Roe of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network.

Click here to listen or download this interview Part 1

Click here to listen or download this interview Part 2

Part 2 of a 2 part interview with David Holmgren, the co-originator of Permaculture. In part two of this interview, Holmgren talks about his book Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change, and shares with us his ideas of what living in an energy descent world might be like, and why "the party may not be over".

Interview by Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World, and Wes Roe of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network.

Mesoamerican Permaculture with Juan Rojas

2010-02-22T00:15:00.003Z

Juan Rojas speaks about permaculture in Central America

Juan was born in Sonsonate, El Salvador in 1958. He studied permaculture with permaculture founder, Bill Mollison in Austrailia during time in exile from El Salvador. Juan returned to his country after peace accords of 1992 to help rebuild the country utilizing his skills with permaculture design. He teaches permaculture courses throughout Mesoamerica.

Listen to the podcast here or download to your player

Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute

In this excellent podcast Juan Rojas speaks about his work in the Campesino a Campesino (Farmer to Farmer) movement and the impact that Permaculture is having in Central America.

More info
www.permacultura.org
http://www.sustainabledevelopmentinstitute.org/AdvancedPermaculture2009/index.asp

Geoff Lawton explains the power of permaculture

2010-02-21T08:48:00.003Z

Geoff Lawton talking the talk and walking the walk

Crossing the Line with Geoff Lawton and Nadia Abu Yahia Lawton
Geoff Lawton is an internationally renowned permaculture educator, consultant and practitioner. Nadia Abu Yahia Lawton travels with Geoff for aid project and permaculture consulting work and assists in teaching permaculture design courses.

Click here to listen to the show or download it to your player

More info on Geoff

Thanks to Sustainable World Radio for this excellent podcast and the archieves which Im slowly working through, excellent work.

The environmental movement has been hijacked

2010-02-17T00:09:00.000Z

Peter Taylor from Ethos UK sketches in the background leading to Climategate

Peter Taylor from Ethos UK joins us to talk about The Corporatization of the Environmental Movement, The Fraud of Cap and Trade, Al Gore, the Computer Models Predicting Global Warming and his experience of how Greenpeace and other Environmental Organizations have been hijacked. Peter provides the ecological science background for the Ethos team. He has extensive experience of research and policy analysis across a wide field of environmental issues, having advised governments, the European Commission, and UN organizations. He has made a significant contribution to international treaties on ocean protection and the development of the precautionary principle. Recent work has included consultancy to UK government agencies and non-government organizations on renewable energy policy and rural issues he sits on the National Advisory Group for the Community Renewables Initiative, a joint Countryside Agency and DTI program.

Listen or download the podcast from Red Ice Radio here

Allan Savory gifts us holistic management with animals

2010-02-15T22:15:00.005Z

Allan Savory is the pioneer of Holistic Management, a decision making framework that has had exceptional success stories in the areas of range and livestock management. In this interview, Allan lays out the basics of Holistic Management, how he discovered it, and how it works. This is part one of a two part series.

Part 1 Listen or download the MP3 here.

Part 2 Listen or download the MP3 here.

Allan Savory is the pioneer of Holistic Management

Allan is also the founder of Holistic Management International. Please visit their website to learn more.

In part two of our interview with Allan Savory, we discuss the process of developing a holisticgoal, the role of monitoring in Holistic Management, and the scientific evidence that supports the claims of Holistic management.

I conclude with a brief summary of the work Agricultural Innovations is doing with Holistic Management International, and some other general comments about the podcast.

More info from the Holistic Management website

Allan Savory is the pioneer of Holistic Management International

Thanks to Frank at Agroinnovations for another excellent interview, keep up the great work.

Composting to rebuild soil and get closer to zero waste

2010-02-15T21:25:00.007Z

Composting is easy and we all need to start

This page is primarily designed for those looking to start gardens on dead soil in new subdivisions, but the techniques are universal and will work for fields killed by industrial/chemical Agriculture, or just to improve your yields if you are looking to shift from Miracle Grow Gardening to Organic. Feed the Soil, not the Plant! Thanks to Emily for the idea to put this together.

I live in a new Subdivison. Besides good insulation and resale values, I also got a denuded yard with no topsoil. I am no different than hundreds of thousands of households out there. Growing things organically on what starts as essentially subsoil takes some doing, but it is very possible. Here are some of the things I learned in the past 3 years getting my gardens to produce 500#’s + on 500 sq ft in Zone 5 on what what started as soil that not even weeds grew on.

The micro organisms in the soil are alive, feed them..

First off the main difference between “Topsoil” and “Subsoil” revolves around two critical aspects: Organic Matter and the Soil Ecosystem. Organic Matter creates air channels and holds water between rains, but most importantly it supplies the raw materials that the Soil Ecosystem (bacteria, fungus, nematodes, protozoa, worms, etc) use to make nutrients accessible -be it from minerals or dead plant debris- to plants. Subsoil is essentially dead -Organic Matter levels below 1% and virtually no soil life to speak of. Luckily it often has rich levels of minerals and trace nutrients, so all is not lost. To make Top Soil from the Subsoil (or dead denuded soils post industrial Ag) you will need to restore both Organic Matter and foster a thriving soil ecosystem.

A home made compost bin from recycled materials, inside and out

Organic Matter

Here at our home we have trucked (ok, trailered) in literally TONS of organic matter. If you want to build soil, you have to find the raw materials. Here is a short list of things I have scrounged here on the fringes of Suburbia:

* Coffee Grounds from local Coffee Shop
* Resturuant Waste
* Woodchips and Compost from the Municipal Yard
* Straw Bales from garden shops and local farmers
* Leaves from ALL my neighbors
* Grass Clippings and other yard waste

The thing to remember is that the soil isn’t picky, in fact a diverse mix is better than one particular source. But SOMETHING is better than nothing. Some of the above list should be composted first-notably any animal manures, and kitchen and resturaunt wastes. The others can be applied to the soil as mulches to feed the soil from the top down, as nature intended. More on that in a bit. Wood chips are for my numerous paths which I rebuild annually -the bottom 25% of each path decomposes nicely providing me with almost a yard of compsot annually -with very little work and no bins!

When we started our gardens, just three years ago, I double dug the beds ala John Jeavons’ Biodynamic techniques. This was necessary as the soil was horribly compacted from the Heavy Equipment used in the home construction. As I went to turn the “top” soil back in, I added compost in with the original soil in a 1:1 ratio. This took ALOT of compost-more than I had, but our Village has a compost pile the size of a small house. This also innoculated the soil with a living batch of decomposers to get things going-more about this later as well. I also mixed in a few bags of grass clippings to give the critters something to munch on. Careful to mix it well -large clods of grass will spoil in the soil due to lack of air. Once this was mixed in I planted the gardens, but as the soil was still pretty dead it wasn’t a great year. As my compost batches finished (I turned them very aggressively to speed it up to about 2 months) I side dressed the rows 1″ thick with the compost.

After the growing season, I added chopped leaves (run them over with a power mower with a bag on) and composted manures/kitchen wastes in a thick 4-6″ blanket for the winter. By May the next year, this was about 50% composted and I turned it in with a single pass with a garden fork and then topdressed with whatever compost I had ready from the fall piles -even if it was only 75% done, it goes on. After seedlings are up, more straw mulch between the row to feed the soil. Rinse and Repeat!

Soil Ecosystem

The truly depression thing about my subsoil was it was dead. There was almost no life in it at all. Topsoil is a living thing- actually it is hundreds of trillions of livings things, but you get the picture . It (they?) needs air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat. A compacted soil effectively removes the first two, and as I already discussed, without organic matter you don’t have the third. To fight compaction, I double dug the beds to aerate them down 18″ which opens the soil to air and water passages. Adding the organic matter gets food into the cycle. But you still really don’t have many critters at this point. Given time, simply having air, water, and food will be enough to attract a thriving soil system, but we are a frenetic society and have issues even waiting for a You Tube movie to start let alone giving our soil 2-3 years to begin to wake up.

So to speed things up: innoculate the soil. If you noticed above, I added compost… alot. In fact I added about 3″ of compost per sq ft per year for 3 years now. That is about a cubic yard of compost annually per 100sq ft. That may seem excessive, and I have toned it down now as it served its purpose. See, compost is alive. That is not some Earthy Granola Get-in-touch-with-your-Mother talk …it is literally true. When your compost heats up it is due to the metabolic heat from bacteria reaching critical mass. In the cooler sections of the pile are billions of protozoa, fungi, and thousands and thousands of larger critters like pill bugs, worms, millipededs, etc that are all doing their part to decompose your kitchen and yard wastes. When you load your finished pile into your barrow and trundle it into your beds, all those buggers come with and they will continue to decompose the wastes of your garden soil and multiply in the process. Congratulations! Your soil is now alive! Now lets keep it that way:

The dying roots of your garden plants each season supply some of this food, but continual mulching will help even more. Nature feeds the top of the soil, and immediately under your mulch the soil will be alive with the Front Line decomposers that take some sustenance, and in turn break down the material further to allow even more and varied critters to further complete the work. In time the material will be completely broken down and distributed through the top 6-12″ of the soil by worms and other animals. This is how all the leaves in the forest are gone by the time the next season’s Fall approaches. The previous year’s leaves have fed the soil, which in turn fed the trees and allowed them to make more leaves… which in turn feed the soil. Perfect and Beautiful. Since we harvest much of the surplus of our gardens we must insure we add back those nutrients in the form of compost or mulches.

It should go without saying that spraying and “-cide” on the garden -plants or soil- will take you back to Step #1 in a very real way and is to be avoided like the plague. A Dairy Farmer would never take a shotgun to his herd and hope to stay in business. We are all ranchers, it is just that the Vegetable Garden’s herds live underground!

3 years ago I had to water my “soil” to even be able to get a sharpened spade into it, and ended up using a pickaxe (literally) to break it up. Now I can stick a 2×2″ stake in 6″ by hand when I string my pea trellis and I expect fertility gains for at least 3-5 more years. Nature wants healthy soil, and has a gazillion tools to help create it. All you have to do is rebuild a suitable environment, and either wait for the magic, or help it along with compost. Re-Building our soils is perhaps one of the most important legacies we can leave to future generations. Be the Change!

Good luck and Great Gardening!

Thanks to one straw for the post and

The revolution will not be on TV

2010-02-08T21:26:00.001Z

Bill Mollison spoke of this, back in the days, are we there yet? one can only hope.

House offered in return for looking after the land

We have 5.5 hectares (organic already 20 years) close to Montemor-O-Novo, Alentejo.
The land consists of olive, fruit trees and arable land.
Basically we are looking for someone willing to farm/maintain the place - for which we offer a lovely equipped house in exchange for vegs/fruit/oil for our household needs. We are open to suggestions from prospective interest.

Super Market Secrets... wake up and start your veggie patch today

2010-02-06T15:57:00.000Z

This two part documentary should make everyone think again about their weekly food shop.

Supermarket Secrets - Dispatches part 1

How and what we eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are we paying for the homogenised, cheap and convenient food that supermarkets specialise in? In a two-part programme, journalist Jane Moore investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on our plates and reveals the tell-tale signs that the food we buy may not have been grown in the way we think. Using a combination of undercover filming and scientific analysis, Supermarket Secrets investigates whether the food on supermarket shelves is really as good as it looks, whether prices are as good as they seem and what happens behind the scenes in the production of supermarket food. This documentry is in two parts. This first part deals with Factory Farming, chickens, and general quality of supermarket food. The second part deals with Cows milk, food standards, food waste, pesticides, food globalization, and loss of quality of our produce. A very important watch for everyone, gives you facts about the meat and food you eat. After watching you will have more of an understanding of the rational behind Vegetarian, Vegan, Organic, and grass-root eating practices

Supermarket Secrets - Dispatches part 2

The Seed Monopolies, game set and match for Monsanto...

2010-02-05T14:03:00.004Z

”Essentially the same thing is happening in agriculture that happened in 1913 with the Federal Reserve. Thomas Jefferson gave us a stark warning during his era….”The central banks & the corporations that grow up around them are more dangerous than any standing army”.

I’ve got a new company slogan for Monsanto, “PROFESSIONAL THIEVES & LIARS”

By: S.D. Fields
The warning signs have been around for years, so have the predictions. When I was a kid I remember a conversation between my dad and two neighbors. It was spring planting season during the mid 1970’s and we were standing along the road visiting. The focus of these men was the PVPA label on the bags of soybean seed. One remarked “You wait, one of these days those bastards will end up stealing this from us!” At the time and for several years to follow I had no clue what they where talking about; but I do now.

The PVPA was not a totally welcome event. Our genetic infrastructure had been loaned to private industry to enhance & market under their label. The fears were soothed by the exemption from infringement of “farmers’ right to save seed”.

Fast forward twenty five years. The ignorance of Congress to foresee the future when designing a reward system for plant breeders has been exploited. The introduction of biotechnology brought about an entirely new set of language. What was once referred to as enhancement by the “Plant Variety and Protection Act, (PVPA) is now called intellectual property. The checks and balances established and honored by the PVPA has been deleted by the use of patent law. Added expense and “no seed saving” restrictions also followed. The public was furious, along with farmers and seed companies alike.

Farmers were slow to warm up to this new concept. Yield drag, arrogant company reps, a confusing document to sign and an added $5.00 per unit technology fee (a fee which has increased substantially many times since) were common complaints. The added expense was soothed by a promise it would go away when the development investment was recouped. This turned out to be a predatory lie. The only reason the concept took off was purely coincidental.

The chemical event farmers relied on was called” Pursuit”. Its effectiveness wore out almost overnight; weeds became immune, and farmers were thirsty for something to work with. Seed companies took potshots in the media against this new marketing behavior. The use of our genetic infrastructure to deliver a patented chemical event was more than competitors could handle.

The developer of this technology was a company named Monsanto. Almost overnight all was quiet from the seed community. Monsanto said, ”Hey be quiet, come over here. We’ll license this technology to you, and keep farmers from saving seed. You’ll get rich!’

Seed companies were now willing to prostitute themselves because of greed. They completely ignored the past behavior of their new friends and the possibility of becoming victims was completely off the radar.

There was still unfinished business in the arena of legal authority. The people wouldn’t allow legislation to get past them. Monsanto’s buddies, Pioneer Hi-Bred International aided in orchestrating an opinion from the Supreme Court.

Opposing arguments were made by a completely untalented attorney by the name of Bruce Johnson. The case completely lacked merit; the arguments deviated way away from the alleged particulars and the Justices were lost. Not wanting to admit their confusion, they agreed to vote on their opinion, as opposed to referring the issue to Congress to be resolved.

Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion on behalf of the Justices. And, why not?

Although Thomas was a former corporate attorney for Monsanto (1977-79) when appointed to the Supreme Court by George W. Bush, the lawsuit singled out only Pioneer Hi-Bred. Thomas claimed no need to remove himself even though he clearly was in a unique position to have intimate knowledge of his former employer’s agenda and knowing full well any decision or opinion he rendered would have a direct impact on Monsanto’s conduct and would be conducive to their long term goal of monopolizing the seed industry. As a result, an overly broad opinion was written, clearly benefiting companies such as Monsanto and thus, creating law as opposed to ruling upon the validity of law; the genetic gold rush was on.

Seed companies raced to our Land Grant Universities and pulled nearly a century of public funded research off the shelves, committing a fraud by patenting something they neither developed nor owned. This event halted all free flow of germ-plasms. No more complete genetic diversification for the public good. Individual companies only had a few parent lines to work with now and any exchange was kept hush.

Monsanto’s predatory licensing targeted seed cleaners specifically. Not wanting their no.1 competitor to have access was an important goal. Initially most lost a significant portion of their customer base and many more lost their families income completely. By eliminating this industry and hi-jacking our genetic infrastructure, no new seed companies could enjoy the same humble beginnings as today’s consolidated giants.

Just as important was the goal of being in a position to bypass the wealth of the land from the seed cleaner’s respective communities, to their own corporate banks. In today’s money the average seed cleaner has the ability to pump over $13,000/per hour into the economy. Those numbers are expected to climb to $15,000/per hour, or more, in coming seasons. Combine these numbers with the thousands of cleaners forced out of business and it is easy to identify with how a community becomes depressed.

This same predatory behavior put competing seed companies in jeopardy also. They had to discontinue their non-gmo lines, give up their customer records and report any seed cleaner activity in their area. But those agreements were so expensive many seed companies couldn’t cross the financial threshold and became consumed in a leveraged takeover.

Farmers often opted not to sign these documents only to learn many times, their signatures had been forged later as was documented in the Center for Food Safety report, “Monsanto vs US Farmers” in 2005. Today’s user agreement is activated when they open a bag; the full text of the contract more than 30 pages long is not available for viewing at the time of purchase. The contract calls for an electronic signature whereby the farmer accepts responsibility for pollen drift and essentially forfeits their Constitutional rights and exposes complete indiscriminate access to land and any USDA and personal individual financial records. Essentially everyone has to get naked in front of this new beast.

Organizations & associations that claim to represent the public also lost their credibility because of well placed moles that interfered with potential policy & action. This commonly occurs within the upper commands. The Soybean Assn. lobbied very hard against new policy in Ill Farm Bureau. This policy called for the PVPA to be the exclusive statute governing all germ plasm propagation. But the real battle occurred from the paid staff of IFB. Once the policy was adopted, the national level was to pick it up & run. This is where the real dead end occurred. Too many with their fingers in the corporate money jar.

Never mind the media. Soybean Digest, Agri-News, CBS, NBC & others. Everyplace you turn,advertising dollars are being blown putting a spin on how great Monsanto has been for agriculture. Fantastic PR claims confuse everyone but those of us that know better. Their feed the word campaign is nothing more than a chemical event being consumed by the masses. Recently claims have surfaced linking GMOs to organ failure in livestock. If this were to be proven in humans, wouldn’t this this be the ultimate in population control?
Essentially the same thing is happening in agriculture that happened in 1913 with the Federal Reserve. Thomas Jefferson gave us a stark warning during his era….”The central banks & the corporations that grow up around them are more dangerous than any standing army”.

I’ve got a new company slogan for Monsanto: “PROFESSIONAL THIEVES & LIARS”

Thanks to the PPJ Gazette

Homemade Hydraulic Ram Pump

2010-02-04T16:49:00.009Z

This is a pump I made with off the shelf plumbing parts, a few nuts and bolts, a coil spring and some inner tube and only a little soldering. The design was adapted from a larger steel pump in a book, and uses 'rule of thumb' calculations.

If you have a water supply (spring, brook or river) below the point where you need the water, and the source is higher than the lowest part of the property, then a hydraulic ram pump may be the solution. Hydraulic ram pumps are powered by a portion of the water running through it. If the cost of a commercial pump puts you off, or the water volume is too little to operate the pump, you can make one to suit your conditions at very little cost.

There are two excellent books published by Intermediate Technology on making your own ram pump. One is "Hydraulic Ram Pumps: A Guide to Ram Pump Water Supply Systems" by T.D. Jeffrey, T.H. Thomas, A.V. Smith, and P.B. Glover. The other is "A Manual on the Hydraulic Ram for Pumping Water" by S. B. Watt. I would recommend you get both; they do complement each other. They also explain how to design and build the whole system. The pumps featured in the books do require welding and threading equipment, and the smallest pump has a 2" diameter body which requires a fair amount of water to operate. However, the principle also works on a smaller scale, and I have made a pump from standard brass 28 mm compression fittings, with 28mm, 22 mm and 15 mm pipe (all readily available) and with soldering equipment. It is not scientifically worked out, but it works and is about as efficient as a commercial pump, and it takes the elbow grease out of pumping by hand or the expense and complications of an electric pump.

I don't know what the maximum lift would be with a pump this size, but in a test with my own it pumped water approximately 15 - 20 feet up with a drive head of about 5 - 6 feet. Even in such a small pump the pressure is enormous, and I believe it could pump water much higher. This pump also works on relatively small volumes of water. Even the smallest commercial pump requires large volumes of water to power it, making a ram pump unsuitable for many situations, where this smaller pump would still be able to operate. I have even operated the pump on about 25 gallons a day during a dry summer by running it intermittently from a holding tank. However, the pump only delivers about one 10th of the volume, wasting the rest, so I only ended up with about two gallons out of that tank. It also required manually opening and closing the stop cock or some complicated automated system. Self-siphoning may be a possibility I have not yet tested, but the tight pipe bends may hinder the flow too much.

I built this pump nearly 12 years ago, and did not take pictures during the build. Due to limited material choice, some parts have corroded, and some of the information is based on memory, so the instructions are a little incomplete, but hopefully there is enough information to build your own. A lot of the measurements for this pump were indeed rule of thumb - "that looks about right", and it worked. Of course, your thumb may differ in size from mine, but you get the idea.....

A typical situation where a ram pump may be used

momentum building

shock wave pushes water into delivery pipe as impulse valve shuts

Water enters the ram from the thick drive pipe and runs out of the impulse valve, which is held open by a spring (or weight in larger pumps). As the momentum increases, the pressure of the water will drag the impulse valve shut. This creates a shock wave inside the ram body, pushing water past the delivery valve (a non-return valve). As the pressure subsides the impulse valve opens and the cycle begins again. This takes place more than 100 times a minute, depending on the head pressure and tuning of the impulse valve, and each pulse pushes up a small quantity of water through the thinner delivery pipe. The air chamber cushions the flow. The tiny snifter valve below the chamber allows a small quantity of air into the air chamber with every pulse to replace air lost into the deliver pipe. A small squirt of water will come out on the recoil.
Building the pump
Materials

* approx. 1 meter of 28 mm copper pipe for body and pressure chamber
* 22 mm copper pipe for supply pipe
* 15 mm copper pipe for delivery pipe
* connectors as needed
* two 28 mm compression 'T's
* one 28 mm compression elbow
* one 28 mm solder blank end - optional
* one 15 mm ball valve
* one 28 mm to 15 mm reducer - solder type
* one 28 mm to 22 mm reducer - solder type
* flat piece copper for valves (pipe cut open and hammered flat on metal surface)
* small bore pipe to form guide for impulse valve
* inner tube for delivery and snifter valves and mounting shock absorbers
* rubber and copper disk (psst! don't tell Her Madge - a coin) for impulse valve
* tiny nut and bolt cut from earth connector of light switch for snifter valve flap
* two nuts and bolts for the impulse and the delivery valve - brass or s/s
* a steel spring removed from a cabinet ball and spring closure (brass would be better if found) for the impulse valve
* 1/2 tea strainer (wire globe type) clipped to tank outlet
* approx 1 ft of 22 mm i/d reinforced automotive rubber pipe as shock absorbing section in supply pipe
* two hose clamps for above
* one 20 gallon tank as buffer and filter at spring
* one 22 mm tank connector
* two exhaust pipe brackets to hold pump body to base
* section of steel I-beam for base, or similar
* concrete to hold pump base
* solder, flux

Note on fittings - these compression fittings are typical for the UK, and are somewhat different from those available in other countries. Your fitting may look different, but should still work. It is important to use threaded fittings, as the rubber gaskets in the pump body would be damaged when assembling a pump made with solder fittings. Threaded fittings also allow access to the inside of the pump in case of debris entering it, or to replace worn gaskets. Although I used joint tape, it is probably not necessary, as a slight seepage is of no consequence in the pump setting, and the amount of water lost miniscule.

You may be able to obtain the short length of pipe and fittings for the body from a plumber doing a remodeling job. If you buy new materials, shop around. I have bought the fittings at an agricultural iron mongers for about one third the price a builder's merchant charged! The most difficult thing to obtain is the right size brass nuts, bolts, and spring. DIY shops have very little choice - if you get the right length bolt, it may be too thin.

You may be able to scavenge them from some old electrical equipment, as did I, if only I could remember what from. Make sure it is solid brass as any plating will soon wear off. Valve gaskets can be cut from inner tube, preferably car tube, as it makes flatter gaskets. Avoid seams. The spring for the impulse valve came from a cabinet ball snap closure. It was just the right size and tension, but made of galvanized wire, which did not last long. You may be able to make one from s/s or brass wire. This is the part which needs some experimentation.

Delivery and Snifter Valve Assembly

delivery valve disk and solder support

Cut a disk of sheet copper (a piece of opened up pipe, hammered flat) to fit inside the approx. 2 1/2 inch section of 28 mm pipe. Drill one hole in the center to take a small bolt, and holes all around to allow as much water through as possible, but not so many to weaken the disk. Leave a solid edge for the gasket to overlap enough to prevent leakage. File the holes clean with a round needle file and rub surface with abrasive paper to prevent sharp edges and to ensure the gasket makes good contact. Solder the disk into the pipe about 1/2 inch below the edge. Rest the disk on a piece of 15 mm pipe cut to the hight of the disk position. Keep it to the center and avoid excess solder, or you will solder this pipe to the disk too.

Drill a 1 mm diameter hole about halfway down the pipe, and clean the edges. Drill another hole about 1/4 inch below, making it the size of a tiny bolt. Cut a small flap of inner tube to cover the 1 mm hole and extend beyond the bolt hole, and cut a small hole in the rubber for the bolt. Attach the rubber flap with the bolt and nut. If you can't find a tiny brass nut and bolt, you can improvise with the small grub screw and the threaded counterpart of the earth terminal of a redundant plastic electrical socket. The threaded brass block should be sawn in half to reduce drag.

cutting of brass terminal block to make nut for snifter valve

Cut a disk of inner tube to fit snuggly inside the pipe, but not touching the pipe, as the flap must be able to move freely. Cut a small hole in the center and bolt it on top of the metal valve disk with a small washer between the gasket and the nut.

Impulse Valve Assembly

This one is more tricky to make, and will need some experimenting and improvising with available materials. I will describe the one I made, but there are many ways of doing it. The main principle is a rigid disk with a rubber surface (for good contact) on a guided support which allows the disk to travel in a straight line. The disk is held away from the opening with a spring or weights, which should not prevent the shock wave from slamming the valve shut. The valve disk should be smaller than the inside diameter of the valve body to allow water to pass around it to exit from the outlet holes which need to be big enough to allow the water to pass through with as little resistance as possible to build up momentum. In practice this is a compromise between the disk size and the outlet holes. If the outlet holes are too big, then the disk would have to be correspondingly big to cover the holes in the shut position, thereby allowing little water to pass around the disk when open. The area of the holes should be about equal to the area of the space around the disk, taking into account a small area where the disk overlaps the outlet plate to ensure a tight seal.

Impulse valve assembly and top plate

Cut a section of 28 mm pipe to about 2 - 3 inch length. Make a flat piece of copper to cover the top which overlaps the edge to give a sufficient mounting surface for the valve stem guide. Shape is not important, though square is probably easier, unless you already happen to have a suitable round disk.

Drill a large enough hole in the center to allow the spring to pass through without catching the edge, and drill more smaller holes around this big one, using the above thumb formula. I am not sure why I did not make a larger hole instead. The reason may have been drill size. I suppose, one large hole should work as well, as long as it is a smaller than the valve disk to allow the sealing overlap. Make sure the holes and surface are smooth. Solder a frame to the top of the plate to hold a piece of tube just big enough to allow the bolt to pass through and guide it in a straight line. I happen to have had some thin copper tube scavenged from a gas installation of an old caravan.

There were two diameters, one fitted snuggly inside the other. The inner was just big enough for the bolt (taking into account that the thread will be filed off the bolt inside the guide tube), but did not have enough substance to split it into four extended legs to support it above the plate, but the larger tube served that purpose. I then soldered the legs to the top plate. The guide tube should also be small enough for the spring to but against it, and not slip inside. The height should allow for the spring to be in the relaxed position with the valve disk about the same distance below the top plate in the open position as the space around the disk. It should also allow room for compression of the spring when the valve shuts, i.e. the spring should also be long enough to allow this compression without the bunched up wires crowding the small space between the guide and the top of the plate, which would happen with a short and tightly coiled spring.

To assemble the valve drop a copper or brass disk onto the bolt head followed by a rubber disk, a washer and a nut to secure the disks. Measure the length of the spring and the guide tube and file the thread off the bolt for this length to prevent snagging, and leave thread on the last section for the nut and counter nut. Drop the spring onto the bolt and feed the bolt from inside the valve body through the center hole and the guide tube and secure the bolt in place with the nut and counter nut.
Assembling and Installing the Pump

Assembling is very easy, just follow the diagram. One point to watch out for is the location of the snifter valve. When inserting the deliver valve assembly between the elbow and 'T' make sure the snifter valve is on the opposite side of the delivery pipe exit to prevent the air being lost up the delivery pipe. The top of the pressure chamber can be capped with a blank end or simply hammered flat, bent over like a toothpaste tube, and sealed with solder run into the joint.

It is critical that there is enough water to power the pump, as any reduced flow would simply trickle out of the open impulse valve without causing the shock wave to slam it shut. The pipes need to be filled and no air should enter the pipe. It is also important that no debris enters the pump as it can easily jam the valve open. Some kind of intake tank is advisable, and a filter at the tank exit. I used a 25 gallon plastic tank and clipped one half of a s/s fine wire mesh tea strainer (the wire globe type with sprung handle) over the tank connector nut - just happened to be perfect fit.

The water also came from a covered spring with very little debris entering it. The drive pipe needs to be as straight as possible, with any bends kept very gradual. Stop cocks must not hinder the flow, therefore a ball valve would be best suited. The jolt of the valve slamming shut creates a fair amount of pressure in the pipe, and it needs to have some shock absorbing section of strong reinforced rubber hose in the upper section. The pump body must be fixed to a base rigidly, but with some cushioning.

I clamped the pump to a section of 'I' beam which is embedded in concrete, and used exhaust pipe clamps, cushioned with some inner tube wrapped around the pump body. There is a stop cock on both pipes entering and leaving the pump. For the longer delivery pipe Medium Density Polyethylene is best suited for longer sections, and can easily be joined at or near the stop cock with a copper to MDPE adapter.

Thanks to Judy of the Woods for this excellent post. For more photos of this DIY ram pump check out the Flickr page

Open source appropriate technology with Marcin Jakubowski

2010-01-24T09:59:00.001Z

an open source compressed earth block press

We are building the world's first replicable open source self-sufficient high-appropriate-tech permaculture ecovillage—to transcend survival and evolve to freedom.

Factor e Farm is the land-based facility where we put the theory of Open Source Ecology into practice. Agricola sum. We are farmer scientist, working to develop a world-class research center for decentralization technologies.
Now there's a tool for doing this: open source permaculture and technology deployed via flexible and digital fabrication. Open engineering is applicable to our technology base, and from that, to providing basic needs. That is a stepping stone to evolution.

Factor e Farm is not a factory farm. Why “e”? It is a transcendental number. We aim to transcend. We push towards open source, with a factor 10 reduction in price. Or at least e. Ten times cheaper means ten times the freedom. It is Factor e improvement in quality of life. It is technology for ecology: evolve to freedom.

We started with raw land. We paid our last electricity bill three years ago. We are getting our power from waste vegetable oil and the sun. We drink pure free rain water. We grow most of our food. We are free. Welcome to our life. We want to help others do the same: decentralization. Regain control of your life. Be your own boss. Evolve to freedom.

The Global Village Construction Set is the first experiment of Open Source Ecology. Our challenge is to see how far we can reach into human prosperity on a small scale. Can we create an advanced, largely self-sufficient “civilization” on the scale of villages or farmsteads? Have we overlooked something? If so, what else is needed? Could this have the potential to transform the world?

Open Farm Tech with Marcin Jakubowski

Listen or download this interview from AgroInnovations podcast

Marcin Jakubowski is one of the premier pioneers of open source appropriate technology and agricultural innovation. Guided by Gandhi’s principles of swadeshi, Marcin has made great strides in moving towards community-based development and local autonomy. One of his first great innovations is an open source compressed earth block press, which he discusses at length in this podcast.
Visit Open Source Ecology

Thanks to Frank at the excellent Agroinnovations podcast for another great interview.

Pesticides responsable for high-profile die-offs among amphibians, bees, and bats.

2010-01-23T21:10:00.001Z

Yale's Environment 360 has a new must-read report

by Sonia Shah linking pesticides to the high-profile die-offs among amphibians, bees, and bats. What makes this news timely isn't necessarily the toxicity of the pesticides per se, it's the indirect effects on these animals of chronic, low-dose exposure to chemicals:

In the past dozen years, no fewer than three never-before-seen diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, bees, and - most recently - bats. A growing body of evidence indicates that pesticide exposure may be playing an important role in the decline of the first two species, and scientists are investigating whether such exposures may be involved in the deaths of more than 1 million bats in the northeastern United States over the past several years.

... The recent spate of widespread die-offs began in amphibians. Scientists discovered the culprit - an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, of a class of fungi called "chytrids" - in 1998. Its devastation, says amphibian expert Kevin Zippel, is "unlike anything we've seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs." Over 1,800 species of amphibians currently face extinction.

It may be, as many experts believe, that the chytrid fungus is a novel pathogen, decimating species that have no armor against it, much as Europe's smallpox and measles decimated Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But "there is a really good plausible story of chemicals affecting the immune system and making animals more susceptible," as well, says San Francisco State University conservation biologist Carlos Davidson.

White-nose Syndrome, named for the tell-tale white fuzz it leaves on bats’ ears and noses, has killed more than a million bats in the northeastern United States.

Shah goes on to explain a mechanism whereby pesticides applied to fields in California's Central Valley drift into the Sierra Nevada mountains "where they settle in the air, snow, and surface waters, and inside the tissues of amphibians." A scientist who studied the matter "found a strong correlation between upwind pesticide use ... and declining amphibian populations."

Some scientists believe a new class of chemicals based on nicotine may be to blame for “colony collapse disorder” that destroyed nearly 35 percent of the U.S. honeybee population between 2006 and 2009.

Meanwhile, bees and bats have suffered a similar fate - killed off by powerful pathogens that in theory could be novel but in practice seem to have taken advantage of animal populations immuno-compromised by pesticides.

One of the most interesting aspects of the piece was the description of an Italian scientist's unpublished research that suggests the "missing link" between neonicotinoids, a powerful pesticide already banned in Europe but still in use in the U.S., and bee colony collapse. It relates to the practices of using neonicotinoids-coated seeds planted by machines that kick up clouds of pesticide as they work:

... In as-yet-unpublished research, [University of Padua entomologist Vincenzo] Girolami has found concentrations of insecticide in clouds above seeding machines 1,000 times the dose lethal to bees. In the spring, when the seed machines are working, says Girolami, "I think that 90 percent or more of deaths of bees is due to direct pesticide poisoning."

Girolami has also found lethal levels of neonicotinoids in other, unexpected - and usually untested - places, such as the drops of liquid that treated crops secrete along their leaf margins, which bees and other insects drink.

But Shah concludes by observing that this accumulating evidence comes with challenges and caveats that, I would point out, industry ruthlessly exploits:

Proving, with statistical certainty, that low-level pesticide exposure makes living things more vulnerable to disease is notoriously difficult. There are too many different pesticides, lurking in too many complex, poorly understood habitats to build definitively damning indictments. The evidence is subtle, suggestive.

Subtle and suggestive though it may be, it's extremely unlikely that these chemicals aren't also acting on us. This news plus the data surrounding the consequences to human health of low-dose exposure to chemicals like atrazine, BPA and phthalates should have us in a panic and our government in a regulatory frenzy. Instead we get paralysis and promises of "further study." As we wait for a chemical "smoking gun," I wonder what animal population will die off next. Anyone care to wager?

Thanks to SOTT for the post

Messages from water - Masaru Emoto

2010-01-22T21:22:00.000Z

Fujiwara Dam, after offering a prayer

Fujiwara Dam, before offering a prayer

How water structure reflects our consciousness
Water has a very important message for us. Water is telling us to take a much deeper look at our selves. When we do look at our selves through the mirror of water, the message becomes amazingly, crystal, clear. We know that human life is directly connected to the quality of our water, both within and all around us.

You Make Me Sick, I Will Kill You

The photographs and information in this article reflect the work of Masaru Emoto, a creative and visionary Japanese researcher Mr. Emoto has published an important book, "The Message from Water" from the findings of his worldwide research If you have any doubt that your thoughts affect everything in, and around you, the information and photographs that are presented here, taken from the book of his published results, will change your mind and alter your beliefs, profoundly.

Sanbu-ichi Yusui Spring water

How the molecular structure of water is affected...

From Mr. Emoto's work we are provided with factual evidence, that human vibrational energy, thoughts, words, ideas and music, affect the molecular structure of water, the very same water that comprises over seventy percent of a mature human body and covers the same amount of our planet. Water is the very source of all life on this planet, the quality and integrity are vitally important to all forms of life. The body is very much like a sponge and is composed of trillions of chambers called cells that hold liquid. The quality of our life is directly connected to the quality of our water.

Thank You

Water is a very malleable substance. Its physical shape easily adapts to whatever environment is present. But its physical appearance is not the only thing that changes, the molecular shape also changes. The energy or vibrations of the environment will change the molecular shape of water. In this sense water not only has the ability to visually reflect the environment but it also molecularly reflects the environment.

Love and Appreciation

Mr. Emoto has been visually documenting these molecular changes in water by means of his photographic techniques. He freezes droplets of water and then examines them under a dark field microscope that has photographic capabilities. His work clearly demonstrates the diversity of the molecular structure of water and the effect of the environment upon the structure of the water.

Adolph Hitler

Discover how each source has an effect on the visual photographed structure...

Kawachi Folk Dance

Snow has been falling on the earth for more than a few million years. Each snowflake, as we have been told, has a very unique shape and structure. By freezing water and taking a photograph of the structure, as Mr. Emoto has done, you get incredible information about the water.

Japan Shimanto River, referred to as the last clean stream in Japan

Mr. Emoto has discovered many fascinating differences in the crystalline structures of water from many different sources and different conditions around the planet. Water from pristine mountain streams and springs show the beautifully formed geometric designs in their crystalline patterns. Polluted and toxic water from industrial and populated areas and stagnated water from water pipes and storage dams show definitively distorted and randomly formed crystalline structures.

If you would like to read further on Dr Emoto check out this page from Life Enthusiast
or his own site Masaru Emoto
Further reading:
More crystal Photos
An introduction to Sacred Geometry
RA Music
Music, symbols and colour

The Healing Forces of frequency

2010-01-21T21:18:00.000Z

Science has recognized that everything that moves and vibrates from the sub-atom, atom to the smallest molecule present in the universe produce some kind of sound.
The Universe is a vast musical instrument that is in constant state of vibration.

Harmonic Sounds and vibrations are tools for a transformation that creates and arrange realities. The Masaru Emoto Institute were able to take pictures of some beautiful crystal patterns after subjecting distilled water to the sounds of "The Power of Harmonic Sound and Vibrations", ( an 8 track CD see link at bottom)

At the Masaru Emoto laboratory they have been freezing various kinds of water and observing their crystals.

First Chakra: MULADHARA

Musical Tone of C

1. Root Chakra.
Musical Tone "C" (DO) 396Mh = 9
Color: Red
Element: Earth.
Base of the Spine - Energizes the whole physical body and affects general physical vitality and needs.

Second Chakra : Svadhistana

Musical Tone of D

2. Reproductive or Sex Chakra.
Musical Tone "D" (Re) 417Mh = 3
Color: Orange,
Element: Water.
Sexual Organs; Bladder and legs. Lower or Physical Creative Centre, Sexuality and Emotions.

Third Chakra: MANIPURA

Musical Tone of E

3. Solar Plexus Chakra.
Musical Tone "E" (Mi) 528Mh = 6
Color: Yellow,
Element: Fire.
Diaphragm: pancreas, liver, stomach, large and small intestines and other internal organs.
Acts as an Energy Clearing House Centre, Power and Vitality.

Fourth Chakra: ANAHATA

Musical Tone of F

4. Heart Chakra.
Musical Tone "F" (Fa) 639Mh = 9
Color: Emerald Green,
Element: Air.
Center of the Chest, Heart, Thymus Gland, Circulatory System and Lungs. The Energy Centre of Love.

Fifth Chakra: Throat Chakra

Musical Tone of G.

5. Throat Chakra.
Musical Tone "G" (Sol) 741Mh = 3
Color: Blue,
Element:Sound & Air.
Center of the Throat, Thyroid and Parathyroid Glands, and the Lymphatic System.
The Center of Communication, Expression and Creativity.

Sixth Chakra: Ajna, or Third Eye

Musical Tone of A.

6. Third Eye and Ajna Chakra.
Musical Tone "A" (La) 852Mh = 6
Color: Indigo,
Element: Light.
Between the Eyebrows and Center of the Head, Pituitary Gland and Endocrine Glands.
Control the other major chakras.
Center of Intuition.

Seventh Chakra: Crown Chakra, SAHASRARA

Musical Tone of B.

7. Crown Chakra.
Musical Tone "B" (Si) =9
Color: Violet,
Element: Ether & Thoughts. Crown or Top of the Head, Control the Brain and Pineal Gland,
The Center of Understanding, Ethereal Evolution and Enlightment.

All sounds together

The sound “Aum” represents the light and sound of all matter. Intoning the sacred sound of “Aum” help the charkas to expand and harmonize consciousness into Divine Oneness. It is an universal and powerful healing mantra that creates, gives life and movement to all that exists…

Aum

Further reading:
Ambient Techno Trance in the Solfeggio Frequency
The ancient Solfeggio
RA Music
Solfeggio MegaThread
Masaru Emoto - Messages from water
Masaru Emoto appears in what the bleep movie
An introduction of sacred Geometry
thanks to:
The Healing forces
I.H.M Research Institute

Senda Verde

Animal Zen in puppy slippers

Land share for Permaculture driven offgrider.

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A journey starts with the first step

Fertility on the farm.

Farming Rabbits and Chicken tractors

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Senda Verde Planting Diary 2011

Greywater irrigation system

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Running on synchronicity, rice and beans.

Ducks, Rape and Cabbage.

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Property for sale in Ribamondego Quinta Pimpao, close to Gouveia.

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Crystal at 7 weeks, Itsy at 4 months

Carbon “Fixing” Plants

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Crystal, new life for Joe and Carmela and fat as butter

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The Biggie 2...just when you thought it was safe to go back on the farm

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Sepp Holzer: A Permaculture Worldchanger

Senda Verde survives massive forest fire, still an oasis of green

Regenerative Permaculture with Darren Doherty

Carmela and Joe create the first new life on Senda Verde

Senda Verde welcomed the first volunteers during July.

Lilly the goat joins the Senda Verde project

'Striato d'Napoli' the first courgette of the season

The Milk Thistle guild

The Peach and Raison Jam Jam

First wild fire of the summer

Seed Drying & Storage

Experimenting with mulch.

Getting to know my neighbours II, the Jha-DA’ Body Orb Vehicle

Getting to know my neighbours, the Horseshoe Whip Snake

Albert Bates describes the difference between "organic" and "biodynamic"

Flood irrigation in the main kitchen garden

Building a yurt deck by Awakened Life project

Eco Construction building with roundwood

KMO launches his new podcast ETC Voices

The Permaculture Kitchen Garden Pond and Relax Area

First photos from Senda Verde Permaculture Ecocentro

The first visit and a new camera

Lynn and Tom Hart are pleased to announce that Quinta Sao Domingos, holiday apartments in Guimaraes are now open.

The nasty secret in your kitchen cupboard.

Here comes the long emergency

The Three Sisters guild

2010 Spud Season Begins – New Technique!

Monsanto monopoly held up to some light

Bartering is back

David Holmgren the co-originator of Permaculture with Bill Mollison in a two part interview

Mesoamerican Permaculture with Juan Rojas

Geoff Lawton explains the power of permaculture

The environmental movement has been hijacked

Allan Savory gifts us holistic management with animals

Composting to rebuild soil and get closer to zero waste

The revolution will not be on TV

Super Market Secrets... wake up and start your veggie patch today

The Seed Monopolies, game set and match for Monsanto...

Homemade Hydraulic Ram Pump

Open source appropriate technology with Marcin Jakubowski

Pesticides responsable for high-profile die-offs among amphibians, bees, and bats.

Messages from water - Masaru Emoto

The Healing Forces of frequency