Permaculture Tips
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Useful Plant Strategies
From XXX XXXXXXX:
http://www.cooksgarden.com/prodinfo.asp?number=475&variation=&aitem=1&mitem=2
Yes salix babylonica is weeping willow, rooting hormone.
http://www.amazon.com/Rodales-Encyclopedia-of-Organic-Gardening/dp/B001IDNRNU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1232473384&sr=8-5 Complete reference on cloning and just about everything
http://groworganic.com/default.html?welcome=T&theses=3988821 get their catalog. Anywhere you till, but don't plant with something else, plant http://groworganic.com/item_SCL366_Yellow_Sweet_Clover__Raw_Lb.html for your soil type (clay). They have the cheapest prices on many 'field crops' and cover crops. Also supplies 'biozome' highly recommended bio product, bring your soil back to life.
Also try http://groworganic.com/item_SCM200_Dryland_Clover_Mx__Rhizocoated_L.html which will supply nitro bacteria. You might mix some into your yellow sweet.
In fall (or just before harvesting vegis) use http://groworganic.com/item_SCL309_Crimson_Clover__Rhizocoated_Pack.html . It is a good space holder and dries up after frost. Does it's job, then it's done, overwinter. My favorite flower, also bees.
http://groworganic.com/item_SCN111_Japanese_Millet_Lb.html millet. http://groworganic.com/item_SCN600_Buckwheat_Lb.html?pMode=HiRes nice pic of good use. Excellent for weed suppresion.
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/oilpress.html article http://www.flowerdepotstore.com/subloilse5lb.html if it sprouts, you're in business. Do a germination test. Sunflower also is good for weed suppression, containing growth inhibiting compounds or alleotropy. They suck nitrogen something fierce, so will need manuring or after a rotation of legume (your sweet clover above).
That should be enough to get you started.
Also for the fall best prices from http://musserforests.com/ . Best prices on big lots of seedlings. With as much space as you have, you would do well to put in stands of timber right away.
Permacultural Plantout Review
From XXX XXXXXXX:
on your food and crop plan:
Pawpaw (asimina) is an understory tree. Open sun will burn seedlings. Plant under existing timber stand, and not pine. Likes being near streams. Resents transplant, low survival rate. One of the most delectable fruits for its' climate. Aptly called 'custard fruit'. Best is to direct seed. When matured, harvest timber leaving pawpaws in full sun. Requires at least 2 distinctly different genetic individuals to pollenate, pollenated by flies, flower smells 'wet dog' to 'rotting flesh', faintly. Once you've had pawpaw, you will never be interested in bananas again.
American persimmon naturalises and bears fast unlike asian. There is much just across the river in southern illinois, growing wild in the national forest. There is usually a regional rainbow around john lennons birthday, and the fruit is obvious at this time. Direct seed from fruit. Holds on tree into winter.
Horseradish runs rampant. Watch where you plant it. Like mint, try between a wall and a road.
Nettles like swampy areas just above the water line. Naturalises in places like ditches, can serve as an outlieing naturalised (emergency) food, also, is a hyperaccumulator of iron, and used in fertiliser tea.
Rhubarb likes swampy, and will tolerate shade (most vegis do not).
Pick russian red kale. High in vit. B12, lasts well into winter. Interplant with tomatoes (recipe after).
Goji berries are tough as nails, and will stand up to anything but wet feet. Successful in high mojave. Roots easily, easy to clone.
You will have to keep varieties of tomato, squash, and pepper far apart to prevent them from hybidising, at least 500 feet. All squash hybidises too easy, and you can ruin your eating stock with gourd pollen.
TOMATO KALE RECIPE: Early spring- Dig a good deep trench ~2' deep, 1 1/2' wide. Fill with horse manure, lime very heavily. Let 'cook down' for about a week. Plant lettuce early, and add tomato seedlings after danger of frost. Early summer clear out lettuce, saving the best to go to seed, and plant carrots in sunny spots around tomatoes. Fast carrots are best, try thumbelina.
Use 'french method' on tomatoes. Let sprawl unitl they flower, then take leader and stake up at least waist high. Cut all suckers out, leaving leader, cut all side branches off. This will leave open space on the ground, where carrots get some space.
Midsummer, get all but the best carrots, leaving best to go to seed. Underplant with red kale. At first frost (tomatoes will show it) cut tomatoes off at base, foliage to compost. Kale will grow into winter. Reserve best kale for seed.
Remember to keep everythings roots covered, use out throw soil if not full of weed seed.
The following spring, plant a phosphorus solubiliser- lupini bean (not a bean, really), or buckwheat. At the end of this recipe, you will have neutral garden soil, high in available phosphorus, without excess nitrogen. When it starts to get played out, plant peppers using sul-po-mag fertiser (peppers like acid soil low in nitrogen, sometimes a tough trick, as the best way to get acid soil is manure).
That's the recipe. Heavy lime makes tomatoes not end rot, and makes healthy kale. Tomatoes repel cabbage moth, kale repels tomato worms. Flowers of lettuce and carrot provide nectar for predator insects. Plant dutch clover in paths, along edges of beds, ala Fukuoka.
This is open source, so go ahead and steal it.
My biggest concern is that you don't have grains listed, very important. Winter wheat is a good place holder, erosion control. Sorghum can be grown on straight manure to denitrify soil. Millet is a reliable food source, not great nutrition, but better than starving, and is know to produce on as little as 3 rains over 90 days. FAST food.
Got a fax machine? I will fax food-by-nutrient pages which I use to check for complete diet. Need a new ph# for you too.
Discussion Notes
with XXX XXXXXXX:
Skyfire - we supply them with seed. They are in Kansas. http://www.skyfiregardenseeds.com/#TOC
Black oilseed sunflower - for chickens. They liek small seeds. Press oil, meal for chickens.
Karizanae snow peas. Not on hands and knees - waist high. Don't bother with Oregon sugar pod.
She has white popping sorghum. Seedheads easy by hand.
Rubs right out. Easy to process by hand. Denitryfier. Grows in high N that would kill all else. Could denitrigy N leaching problem areas.
Goji berry - keep in sheltered spot. NS sorghum - good shade - reduces watering and wind shock.
Midsummer get kale in. Tomato kale recipe.
Buckwheat is a great one, in hot moist weather. Good for honey.
Tractor the chickens. Need grit. Like Oyster shell.
Japanese millet. West african pit method for Millet. Also can go straight pig manure. Also humanure. Good to have around. Can grow in human shit.
Beat it on a tarp. Thresh. Claen dustpan. Get rid of the spines.
Quinoa will also to grow here.
Dutch white clover - early.
Sorghum, corn, beans, squash, millet, snow peas. Pod - green pea - dried.
Siberian pea shrub super chicken feed.
Clay - do trenches. Sorghum or millet on cow shit. Works clay into There over time.
Fast choi in 45 days - early spring - open pollinated - trial it.
Hopi Orange squash - stores well, extremely hot dry weather. High survival in dry. Gigantic fruit.
Cook's Garden seeds - snow peas - on last year's sorghum stalks. As early as shovel into ground.
Black-eyed peas do well in hot weather - quick cook in 1 hr, 1/2 hr for presoak. Cowpeas, too.
Try to trial different Quinoa - Seeds of Change is expensive. Be their supplier.
Willow twigs for rooting hormone. Grind them.
