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This is a huge and wide-ranging topic that barely fits a single thread. I'll just add a few notes off the top of my head... People in permaculture are moving away from the term "sustainable" and using "regenerative" instead. I think Toby Hemenway (author of Gaia's Garden) covers this in one of his youtube talks. The idea is that sustainable just maintains the current situation indefinitely, and the current situation sucks. We need to make things better by regenerating our environment. I don't see anything in the OP about rocket stoves and rocket mass heaters. They are wood burning stoves designed to burn hotter than a normal wood stove thereby using less fuel and producing practically no pollution. Rocket mass heaters duct the hot exhaust through a large thermal mass to store heat and slow release it for heating your home. The main book describing rocket mass heaters just released the 3rd edition, available for download now or pre-order of a hard copy: http://www.rocketstoves.com/ I bought the second edition and it was pretty good but I'm looking forward to an update since there's been a lot of improvements on the idea. Paul Wheaton has a small empire of permaculture stuff going on including richsoil.com and the permies.com forum. It's pretty much the main forum for discussing this stuff on the net. Just be aware that Paul is very savvy about profiting from this stuff and he has an ego the size of a small city. I'm very into the polyculture/food forest idea. I backed a Kickstarter last year for a documentary of a polyculture orchard in Montreal: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oasselin/the-permaculture-orchard-beyond-organic It should be available later this year and I'm really looking forward to it. I really like Michael Phillips approach to orcharding too and you can find several full-length lectures of his on youtube. Paradise Lot is a great story of two guys making a temperate food forest on a lovely city lot. I'm in the starting phases of doing the same thing with my lot although I'm also saving up to buy more property in the next few years to do it on a larger scale.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:53
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I agree, and I realize that sustainable is what people know and it will draw them in. Sheet mulching, sometimes called lasagna gardening, is a good way to turn grass lawn into garden. Put down a layer of cardboard and as many layers of organic matter as you can find (compost, manure, straw, leaves, woodchips) and let them compost in place. It smothers the grass and weeds and the worms love to come eat the decomposing cardboard, tilling the soil in the process. It's advertised as a really easy way to make gardens but don't underestimate the amount of time and materials it will take to do it. On the other hand you won't have to do a lot of manual labor digging with tools or running gas-powered tillers. Back to Eden is free documentary on a local guy, Paul Gautschi, who does deep sheet mulching, just ignore the evangelical stuff. I've been to his farm for a tour so I can try to answer any questions on what he does. Some other people have posted a lot of youtube videos from him on various topics like his approach to fruit tree pruning which produces to very unique looking trees. Here's one of several awesome slime molds that appeared on my latest sheet mulches: 
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Feb 1, 2014 00:05
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Tsinava posted:Oh yeah potato towers! Those are a neat trick, especially if you don't have much space. I totally forgot about those. I did a neat version of potato towers last year. Welded wire fence formed into tubes and tied shut. Then lined with landscape fabric on the inside. Large binder clips or closepins can hold the fabric in place folder up over the top while you tie a string all the way around the outside rim. Start it out with 12" of soil for the seed potatoes and hill up during the season. When it's time to harvest untie the welded wire and they spill out for easy picking.
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Feb 7, 2014 20:04
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