Garden Improvements 2016

Rough plan view of garden and improvements, more or less to scale

We installed the garden in year two on the site, that would have been 2014.  Basically that involved designating a space, installing the five 4 foot by 8 foot raised beds, on contour, and filling those beds with topsoil.  The soil profile on the home-site is 2 inches of topsoil, atop five feet of clay, almost clean enough to throw pots with straight out of the ground, resting on sand, almost as fine as powdered sugar.  In short, it is not great soil as-is for a vegetable garden.  This year so far, we have added about 4 cu. ft. of compost to each of the raised beds; call that a wheel barrow full in each.  Now though, we are getting a bit more ambitious.

There are a few reasons why we are getting more ambitious, and why we are perhaps a little impatient in making our garden more productive.  First of all, our diet has changed pretty radically over the course of the past two years, for reasons I may go into in detail in a later post, but for now suffice it to say that it is for health-related reasons.  This past year we have got a better handle on what we put in our mouths, and we want to grow more of that food ourselves, organically.  Secondly, in partnership with a friend, we are going to raise a few meat chickens this summer and into fall; if allowed, chickens can be hell on a garden.

So, the two biggest improvements to the garden for 2016, are:

• bigger garden beds (cross-hatched areas in the sketch), not raised in the conventional sense, for the growing of root vegetables, squashes, and other produce I'm sure (Geri does the detail work regarding the plantings), and,
• fencing to exclude the chickens from the garden during growing season.

Other improvements are:

• two "herb spirals" (see circular crossed-hatched areas in the sketch), actually these are more like herb concentric circles; think of a round layered wedding cake with three layers, and,
• the addition of 8 cu. yd. of screened top soil.  Because of the heavy clay soils in situ, and our desire for a productive garden in the near term, I will till the cross-hatched areas, top-dress with the top soil, and re-till.  We will plant into that prepared soil this year, and then continue to build the soil organically.

Before picture, facing east; north is to your left

Yesterday was planning day, to include development of the layout pictured above, and preparing the garden for today's work.  Today is tilling, top-dressing, and re-tilling day.  Hopefully we will be planting late afternoon into early evening.  The next big undertaking will be the design and installation of the fence.  I will keep you posted.

Thanks for reading, and kind regards,
John

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p.p.s. soon, this blog will be ported over to our new website, and the name of the Facebook page will change to Primal Woods; more on that as the date approaches

The (Early) Education of a Homesteader

I have heard several questions along the lines of, "how did you learn how to do that," "where did you learn to do that," "when did you learn to do that," or "did you grow up on a farm," and so on.  The short answers to the "where and how" questions are, between the covers of books, on YouTube, or by trawling the internet, and by asking folks who know more than I do, either in person or in on-line forums.  The answer to the "when" question is, recently, in most instances.  And to the final question, the answer is "no."

In fact, in my inaugural post I stated:  "I also realized that what I do for money, provides directly for precisely none of my or my family's needs, in fact I am quite practiced in doing nothing that can be bartered for anything, except for money.  This last piece of the puzzle is tantamount to having one's "man card" revoked, or at least it was in my opinion.  Until 1995 I had never had a vehicle in a repair shop, I had never had a maintenance man of any sort in a home I owned, I had never paid anyone to mow my lawn, I was a fairly proficient welder with oxygen and acetylene, and could recharge my air conditioner properly with Freon, I had fairly recent memories of successfully hunting and fishing, and if I dug deeply enough, trapping.  Until only recently though, I had done none of that for the better part of 20 years.  And for food that is grown from the earth, I was almost completely blind to its sources; I didn't know that broccoli was a seed head, or that Brussels sprouts were a bud and the plant a cultivar of the cabbage group, and worse."

So in short, my ignorance, and lack of skills, or at least a lack of recently practiced skills, were key to my decision to homestead.

Now, when I reflect a bit more on the subject, I will tell you that I learned quite a bit in my idyllic childhood; on the subjects of cooking, camping, boating, hunting, fishing, canoeing, and trapping to name just a few, with family and friends.  It seems like every few months I dredge up a great old memory of my childhood and share it with my Mom and Dad.  I learned a great deal from my parents, and from my aunts and uncles, who were more than generous with their time, experience and wisdom.  Oh the stories of adventure, and misadventures, they would tell, and do tell.  My eyes moisten just thinking about it.  Later, I became enamored with machines.  Motorcycles at first, then cars of course, and engines in general, all things mechanical; I had a great thirst for knowing how things work, and still do.  Most things electrical are still a mystery to me, even though I remember building more than a few Heath Kits.  It still amazes me, that radio I once built from a kit, on a small circuit board, with no speaker, only an earphone, and it worked without a battery!  Amazing.

And so it is meaningful that I often tell people, that when on the homestead I feel like a kid again, and large parts of that feeling I suppose, have to do with spending all day most days outside, until the dinner bell rings, and to having the opportunity to learn so much so quickly.  Yes, we have a dinner bell!  I just walk around with a smile plastered all over my face the bulk of the time.  I am well and truly blessed.

Boy, have I digressed!  Before I started this post I imagined it to be of four or five lines, simply introducing the "References - Sources - Links" tab at the top of the page.  I will finally get on with it then.  On the "References - Sources - Links" page I have pulled to together some of the resources that Geri and I have referenced in making a start in southwest Michigan.  I hope you will find it informative.

Click on the tab near the top of the page

 We all know much less than we don't know, though I usually have a hard time admitting that.  I almost always reach for a book first when I want to learn something, and so you will find many books on the list.  I have also found that there is such a thing as "YouTube University," and while you might not find it by that name, the breadth and depth  of information available on YouTube is impossible to quantify.  And podcasts are a great source of information on many, many topics, and can turn your commute into class time.  I have linked to Amazon for the books that can be purchased there, for two reasons: 1) I am inherently lazy and it is an easy way to connect you to more information on each book, including alternate forms of the book (paperback, hardcover, Kindle, etc.), and 2) because I get a small cut of the action.  There, I said it!  Of course you do not have to buy through Amazon, that is your choice.

Pull down at the arrow
on mobile devices

My cut is 4 cents on the dollar if you do choose to click through the link I provide, and purchase one or more items.  The price to you is not increased.  If you want to know how to also become an Amazon Associate, let me know.  To access the "References - Sources - Links" page, click on the "tab" near the top of the page on your desktop or laptop computer, or pull down at the arrow on your mobile device, as shown in the graphics.  I will update the page from time-to-time, as additions to the "virtual bookshelf" are made.

Thank you for reading and commenting on the blog.  Your comments and criticisms, your inputs and acknowledgements, are welcomed, and will help me to improve my posts.

 Please "follow" the blog by clicking on "g+ Follow," or by e-mail at  "Follow by Email."   Also, "Like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/swmichiganhomestead.

-- John, 14 July 2014

Thoughts on the “permacultureVOICES Conference March 2014,” aka, PV1

Diego giving his inspirational message, "take on your
impossible," to open the conference

Right at the top, I must tip my hat to Diego Footer, the founder and organizer of the conference; he said that the preparation consumed a year of his life, and I can believe it. Diego has a full-time job, and together with his family, put permacultureVOICES together in his “spare” time; it must have required Herculean effort. I cannot recall a single significant glitch in the event organization, and with over 600 participants and a Who’s Who of permaculture in attendance, the success of the conference represents an amazing accomplishment. In his closing remarks, Geoff Lawton offered that in his 30 years in “this movement,” he has never attended a better conference. That is saying something. Diego has already indicated that there will be a PV2, so if you were not in attendance all is not lost!  http://www.permaculturevoices.com/

Flew into San Diego on Wednesday the 12th for the 13-16 March conference, then obtained a rental car and drove a little over an hour up I-15 to the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, where the conference was held. The conference agenda was four solid days, opening at 8 a.m. each morning, and closing no earlier than 8 p.m. each day. By Sunday night my brain was fully saturated. I am drafting this post after 2:00 a.m. on Monday, because there is too much going on in my mind to sleep.

Joel Salatin.  "The High Priest of the
Pasture." -- NY Times

The opening keynote address Thursday was made by Joel Salatin. The subject of his talk was his book, Fields of Farmers: Interning, Mentoring, Partnering, Germinating. He went on in a second presentation entitled “Stacking Fiefdoms,” on the same subject, later in the day Thursday. Though I had heard of Joel, I had not read any of his books, so I listened with an uncluttered mind. He was passionate in his presentation and had me and the entire audience laughing out loud on many occasions. Basically, he argued that in a thriving field, the average age of its practitioners is in the mid-30’s, while today in the United States the average age of a farmer is approaching 60. Ownership of some huge fraction of farms is expected to change hands within the next decade or so. Who will buy or operate these farms? Who are the farmers of the future? How do we get young people back on the farm? And Joel argues, we do need to get young people back on the farm; in his opinion to do so the farm must be able to generate at least two white collar salaries, otherwise it is not a business, and it is not sustainable. I fully subscribe to the proposition that two white collar salaries are necessary to sustaining the family business of farming. A key idea I picked up from Joel, and will likely leverage, is that of partnering with other entrepreneurs in a “community of complimentary enterprises” on the farm, as opposed to employing them, through the use of “memoranda of understanding.” Other key ideas: add value on the farm as opposed to competing in the business of commodities; and to keep investment low and use portable infrastructure, rather building the equity in information, management and customers. At the conference book store I bought his book, Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World, (Fields of Farmers had sold out quickly) and made my way through a third of it reading in the evenings, thoroughly enjoying myself all the while.

Jack Spirko, The Survival Podcast

Jack Spirko and his “Survival Podcast,”  www.thesurvivalpodcast.com, were my entry point into permaculture; I still await each new podcast in eager anticipation. It seemed that there were at least 20 TSP’ers in attendance, and Jack and his wife Dorothy also made themselves available to us in the late evenings, which had to have made for some very long days for them, and which was also greatly appreciated. Jack’s address, “Building a Profitable Permaculture Business,” built seamlessly and well on Joel’s earlier presentation. The subtitle of Jack’s podcast is, “helping you live a better life, if times get tough, or even if they don’t.” From my point of view he delivers on that promise, and I greatly enjoyed finally being able to meet and talk a bit with Jack.  His wife Dorothy was perfectly gracious, infinitely patient with the masses, and a joy to talk to.

Toby Hemenway opened up Friday’s festivities with his keynote titled, “Why Agriculture Can Never Be Sustainable.” You can see a YouTube video similar to the presentation at http://youtu.be/_y_MleU8iNQ. Hemenway wrote perhaps the most popular permaculture book of all time, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition. You can find more information at his website,

Toby Hemenway

www.patternliteracy.com. While I had watched the video before the conference, I have not read Hemenway’s book. Essentially he made an argument that no civilization has survived when having relied on large-scale production of row crops for its bulk calories, and that agriculture has devastated every ecosystem it has been in contact with in the past 10,000 years. He describes foraging (hunting-gathering), horticulture, and agriculture as alternatives, the latter being unsustainable, and arrives at horticulture and permaculture design science as a possible answer to the problem of sustaining the food supply. Along this line of thought, more than one presenter cited Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, which is an excellent read; I might also recommend Fate of Empires, by Sir John Glubb. I have not come to the conclusion that agriculture is the sole cause of the failures of societies, though Diamond is thorough in his analysis of a number of possible causes, and most involve severe environmental degradation in combination with another factor or factors. My simple synopsis of Glubb’s work is that many empires have lasted seven generations more or less, and that the significantly longer life of an empire is unlikely; I will let you do the math as it relates to the United States.

Geoff Lawton (L) and me, John Newell

Geoff Lawton made four presentations: Reading the Landscape, The Permaculture Designers Manual in One Hour, Permaculture Earthworks, and the closing keynote, Permaculture and The Tipping Point & Closing, late Sunday evening.  I am a huge fan of Geoff, and I received my Permaculture Design Certificate at his first on-line PDC course in 2013. His videos are simply superb, and as a teacher he is without par. Of the presentations, I found the “earthworks” and “reading the landscape” presentations to be the most fun and informative. Geoff has his second online PDC open for registration beginning 29 March 2014; check at www.geofflawton.com for the latest free videos and information. After one of Geoff’s presentations I was able to get about 10 minutes of his time to discuss the Southwest Michigan Homestead, and for me that was a real high-light of the conference.

Allan Savory; this man is beyond humble, his mistakes earlier in life apparently having the effect of bringing that about. His talks (the keynote: “The role of lifestock in a new agriculture that can save city-based civilization,” and the keynote: “Why management needs to be holistic to avert tragedy beyond imagination”) were on “desertification” and “holistic management.” You can find him speaking on the subject of desertification at http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change. Allan has a large web footprint (pun intended),

Allan Savory

so if you search on his name and either of the topics I just

listed, you will have more video-graphic, photographic, and written information than you would probably care to manage. As is always the case, he has his detractors; I leave you to your own research on the subjects. Allan’s recommended reading included the books The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, and Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.

Mark Shepard is a fellow Midwesterner, with his farm located in southwestern Wisconsin, roughly 30 minutes east and a little north of the Quad-Cities. He holds workshops on his farm, New Forest Farm, and wrote a beautiful book, Restoration Agriculture. Also, PJ Chmiel of Van-Kal Permaculture, http://www.vankalpermaculture.org/, has posted a very informative video of a presentation by Mark at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb_t-sVVzF0. And check out https://www.facebook.com/restorationagriculture‎, and Forest Agriculture Enterprises at http://www.forestag.com/. Mark has been on his farm, and practicing permaculture, for the better part of 30 years; he speaks passionately, and from a deep well of personal experience.

Soils…a deep subject, and Dr. Elaine Ingham has spent her professional life as a microbiologist studying soils, as opposed to “dirt.” Dr. Ingham gave the keynote address, “Soil: It’s All About Life.” You might say that among other things she is a “consultant to the permaculture stars,” stars like Greg Judy, who spoke of her during his presentation. You can find her online at http://elaineingham.com/, and find an “Introduction to Soil Microbiology” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtl09VZiSU. What she said rings true in me. Ever notice while you are on a round of antibiotics, prescribed to arrest whatever might be ailing you, that your guts have ceased to function properly? It stands to reason that proper digestive tract function, which relies heavily on beneficial microscopic critters, would break down when all bacteria in your body have been killed off; antibiotics do not distinguish between the good and bad in your body’s biology; the same goes for the soil as it turns out. It is as learned in an adult course of study I have more recently engaged in, “this is how the world looks when it’s working,” herbicides and pesticides result in dead soil, also known as “dirt;” why would we expect some other result? Dr. Ingham wrote the USDA's Soil Biology Primer, and also wrote books, including The Field Guide II for Compost Tea, and The Compost Tea Brewing Manual.

Other talks attended:
• Pat Foreman, and Oprah Hen-Free on chickens, and I bought two of her books, City Chicks: Keeping Micro-flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Makers, Bio-reyclers, and Local Food Producers, and Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil, Homestead (3rd) Edition; find Pat at http://www.gossamerfoundation.org/, and at http://www.chickensandyou.com/index.html.
• Greg Judy, on mob grazing, http://www.greenpasturesfarm.net/
• David Barmon, on urban lumber; see David’s Ted talk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju8mMQXA2d4
• and Paul Grieve, www.primalpastures.com, told the inspiring story of the start-up of Primal Pastures, and I learned from him on the subject of marketing; see Paul’s 13 tips at http://primalpastures.com/pages/guerilla-marketing
Finally, I met Sarah Beth Aubrey, another fellow Midwesterner, during the book-signing event, and had a great discussion on the subject of her book, Find Grant Funding Now!: The Five-Step Prosperity Process for Entrepreneurs and Business (Wiley Nonprofit Authority). I bought the book, which is one of at least three that she has published. She also has a business, Prosperity Consulting, at http://prosperityconsultingsba.com/.

It was a great conference, and that is a significant

Jack Spirko (L), a truly prolific and
tireless podcaster at TSP

understatement. There were presentations I was unfortunately not able to attend, and presenters I was unable to meet, even after 12 hour days for 4 straight very full days. In addition to all of the great presentations, I was able to network with and learn from other permaculturists, including one Michigander, Jesse Tack, of Whole Culture Repair, LLC, (http://wholeculturerepair.wordpress.com/) and “Abundant Michigan,” a Ypsilanti permaculture group, found at http://abundantmichigan.wordpress.com/. I hope to stay in contact and exchange ideas and plans with many that I met, it is truly a fun and vibrant group of people. I do not know that I will be able to attend PV2, but I strongly encourage each of you to consider the possibility.

As always, your comments and criticisms, your inputs and acknowledgements, are welcomed, and will help me to improve my posts. Please "follow" the blog.

-- John, 18 March 2014.