Humble Garden

ReSkilling for future food independence

Archive for the ‘permaculture’ Category

Survival food forest

Posted by Nika On November - 12 - 2012

New Year’s Manifesto

Posted by Nika On January - 4 - 2012

This is an extremely powerful video and Andrew Faust absolutely speaks for me

OCCUPY THE ECONOMY : Andrew Faust – Permaculture – OWS from TerraVisus on Vimeo.

Andrew Faust Permaculture Designer: HomeBiome.com
Costa Boutsikaris Filmmaker: TerraVisus.com

Inspiration!

Posted by Nika On May - 12 - 2011

Who is this Jean Pain guy?

Posted by Nika On February - 22 - 2010

jeanpain-450

[New permaculture page up - Compost Power – Jean Pain Method ]

I thought I would share a little about this guy Jean Pain who completely and most effectively hacked the DIY energy thing some time back! Obviously, the world has NOT been paying attention (as old timers know well).

jeanpain-450-2

In a nut shell, Pain was a forester in France who noticed the mighty thermal output of microbial action on composting materials. He proceeded to harness this heat by rigging large mounds of shredded brush (from his management of the forests) with an internal methane producing biomass bioreactor and heat capture coils built into the mound structure.

One Helltastic Week: Haiti and Permaculture First Responders

Posted by Nika On January - 15 - 2010

Haiti 2010 earthquake: collapse of port complex

[If you would like to volunteer for this effort, please drop me an email at nika dot boyce at gmail dot com and I will get you into our PermaCorp volunteer database and keep you up to date]

Like you, I have been simply swept away by the brutal earthquake that has subsumed Haiti into a hell that gets worse by the day.

I have been mostly learning about it via CNN and on twitter. I have been pouring over the satellite images of the destruction as seen in Google Earth.

Greenhouse with poultry

Posted by Nika On December - 27 - 2009

Permaculture: draft sketch for chicken-greenhouse

This fall and this winter I have been thinking about a greenhouse I would love to build. It integrates the heat of slowly decomposing hay bales, chickens, and two 2 foot deep, 16 foot long raised beds. I have to admit that for now, its a dream as I do not have the financial means to put this together for now.

Edible Forest Gardening Workshop

Posted by Nika On November - 4 - 2009

Edible Forest Gardens: sampling paw paws

(Eric and Jonathan teaching on first day of workshop)

Recently I had the great fortune of attending Eric Toensmeier‘s Edible Forest Gardening workshop in Holyoke, MA Oct 16 to Oct 18. Before I go any further let me just say that if you have a chance, please go to this workshop the next time they hold it. You will be very glad you did! I am not sure when the next one might be. I will certainly blog about it here when I find out. There are other workshops that look VERY interesting at Eric’s “Event” page.

Permaculture: American Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

Posted by Nika On September - 24 - 2009

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

As part of my self-learning on permaculture, I have been walking out my back door and selecting a plant that catches my eye and then finding out everything I can about that plant. I will write here about some of the more interesting ones.

To identify plants and trees, I use google, twitter (especially with hashtags #horticulture #permaculture #botany #garden and similar relevant terms), and especially a certain flickr group called “ID Please” where people post images of an organism they would like to identify. Once they do this, others then give pretty educated guesses on identification.

About Me

We are a family of 5, including Nika, Ed, Q (14), KD (7), and Baby Oh (4). We garden 1024 square feet of raised beds plus assorted permacultural plantings. We also have 13 LaMancha dairy goats, 40 chickens, and one guard llama.

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    Humble Garden: Morning on homesteadHumble Garden: Morning on homesteadOrchard Spider (Leucauge venusta)Orchard Spider (Leucauge venusta)Orchard Spider (Leucauge venusta)Humble Garden: yardlong beans!Humble Garden: yardlong beans!Humble Garden: Unaffected eyeHumble Garden: pink eye??!!Humble Garden: growing chicksHumble Garden: growing chicksHumble Garden: growing chicks