Permaculture Blog

One of my trees an Asian pear looked terrible this spring. There were bugs and aphids and little scale insects all over it. The new growth was shriveled and blackened.

I transferred a couple of ladybugs and ladybug larvae to it but they didn’t seem to be doing much good.

The Asian pear of a different variety right next to it looked great and not a juice sucker on it. There has to be a relationship to the plant’s resistance systems. In some cases the plant’s resistance must be induced by damage, or by insects sucking its juices. I would bet that some of these trees grew in a greenhouse. And were never exposed to sucking insects. I gritted my teeth and did nothing other than the addition of some more ladybug larvae.

Two months later the Pear is putting out fresh leaves and none of the new growth has any juice suckers on it. The tree looks 500% better. We should all learn to stop and observe. Permaculture should not be about instant gratification.

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

So I’m reading on a permaculture site ( you know, that permies site that is supposed to be so big) about people — I should say children– who want to kill everything they
A) don’t like.
B) Are afraid of
C) Think are creepy
D) Are ignorant of
E) All of the above

I work around water features which often have bees and wasps and Yellowjackets tanking up in the summertime. I walk in and out of clouds of maybe 10 to 100 insects at one time and they don’t even look sideways at me they’re busy doing their thing. And one time I reached down and picked up one of my tools and a bee stung me. I had squashed it as I picked up the tool.

Sure it freaking hurt. No I did not get mad at the bee. If I had a stinger and my life flashed before my eyes I’d probably use it too. Poor bee, been working hard all its life and some idiot squashed it. It really hurt for about 15 minutes but my auto insurance rates did not go up :-)

I am a microbiologist I have had several classes in immunology. The number of people who insist that they are allergic to bee stings is statistically incredible. If you get stung and a lump forms and it hurts — even if it _really_ hurts ^Yell at the computer mode on^ it does not mean you’re allergic. ^Yell at the computer mode off^ If you get stung and a lump forms and it hurts and the doctor tells you that you’re allergic to bee stings ^Yell at the computer mode on^ They might just be covering their butt. Because you insist that you’re allergic.^Yell at the computer mode off^

It’s like people are proud of being allergic. It is the Red Badge of Courage to be allergic to bee stings. Because that way people can rationalize about being afraid of something that is 1000 their size. Well when I was 8 I was afraid of wasps too. I’m not 8 anymore.

Everybody who wants to kill stinging insects because they’re afraid…. of being stung. Are you going to stop driving and walk everywhere now? Which is sort of a better response on a permaculture site anyway :-)

And to be on a permaculture site asking about the best way to kill them or just saying that killing them is the best way to deal with them is sort of like saying I’m a vegetarian but I’m not going to give up my bacon and eggs for breakfast and my hamburgers for lunch but I definitely want to tell everyone that I’m a vegetarian. Sigh.

So this is for everyone who wants to grow all their own food. I found a website www.eriksjodin.net that has some fun information on the water fern azolla. Anyone who has seen my constructed wetland will know that I have a fair amount of azolla water fern and have been giving it to my earthworms.

Because of the nitrogen fixing properties of it and its high nitrogen content it is almost equivalent to a “brown” for composting purposes.

I am now particularly interested about the links in the website above to Japanese work on the co-culture of rice and azolla. I tried growing rice in the constructed wetland before and could not get it to reseed. But now with the large quantities of azolla I have it may be fun to try it again. Anyone know of a good place to get wild rice seed? Any type of food store rice won’t grow because of the dehusking process.

by voice recognition on bob’s droid. Sorry for the Weird capitalization. Website http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/

Well after almost two years I finally had a leak in one of my boxes. The plants got heavy and spread the seams too much. One of the things I like about my design is that I can eliminate one section at a time from the water flow without stopping the whole system. This is also why it is handy to have an extra section in place so that when I take one section off line the conditions aren’t too harsh on my water test organisms in the last section.

So I bypassed the leaking section bailed it out — just into the next section over and patched it. Hardest part was finding a home for the plants that I didn’t want to compost :-)

One of the big things on the permaculture sites notably permies.com is the refusal to use soap for a variety of very good reasons. While I am not there yet — if ever. It is not freaking hard at all to decrease your soap or detergent use by half or more. Have you ever tried using half the recommended amount of detergent in your washing machine for a couple of times. I mean how many of us actually use a 4 inch swath of toothpaste appropriately and beautifully curled under at one end and over at the only other end to brush our teeth? I found out that a little dab of liquid dishwashing detergent in my dishwasher for one of the two cycles works wonderfully. It really only takes about an eighth of a teaspoon. Maybe less, and be really careful not to put too much in as you will end up with foam all over your kitchen floor :-) There is quite a lot of water agitation in a dishwasher :-)

It was, and still is, fairly large, and that bulge in the middle is not a frog, certainly not a tadpole, and ummm not a lizard. Unfortunately it is one of my $10 koi. Oh well it is just like the gophers eating the trees and making expensive Hawk food, in this case it’s just expensive Roadrunner (maybe kingsnake) food.

People come and visit, tour the constructed wetland, and see other stuff. Virtually all of them comment on the wildlife. The butterflies, the bees, the hummingbirds. They say “oh I’d love to see or have a roadrunner on my property.” Well I don’t kill the lizards or snakes or poison the insects which are lizard food. So the Roadrunners actually have something to eat. And I don’t kill something, or even get all bent out of shape, because it ate _my_ property.

It is all an ecology. How would I decide which part I want and which part I eliminate? Nature is by far the best system for deciding what comes and goes.

A perfect example of that is my “mustard field” For those of you outside of California I will explain: The religious Padres traveled up and down California to their Missions and scattered mustard seed along the way as a way of finding the path back. Mustard, a non-native invasive, is now ubiquitous throughout California.

When I planted my orchard I decided that I would try to discourage the mustard and encourage the native flora. In the section that was outside the orchard I didn’t worry about it. So while I was digging up gophers and letting them go outside the orchard zone I was also pulling up mustard when I saw it blooming, trying to prevent additional seed.

Well this year I have been fortunate that no gophers have crossed the “Gopher moat” back into the orchard. In addition I have noticed that immediately outside the orchard there is virtually no mustard and inside there is a bit more then I would have preferred, given all my work pulling it up.

It dawned on me that Gophers probably do a pretty good job of eating mustard. And that they have been much more effective at eliminating the mustard then the work I did pulling it up. In addition the native plants are probably pretty good at dealing with gophers :-)

Live with the world rather than against it my friends.

Enjoy

Or up a telephone pole as the case may be. This must be 60 feet up in the air. I think it’s a kitten. I can’t see it well enough to know if its the mother. At first I was wondering if I should call someone. Can you see that? The fire department getting a call to rescue a _bobcat kitten_? Then I start thinking well its an ecosystem everything’s gotta learn to live in its environment. The Bobcat kitten probably isn’t going to die of heat exhaustion on a day like today. It’s like 65-70 in the sunshine. The transformer is on another pole higher up the hill. That’s only 110 where it is sitting with both paws on the wire. (Editing note that’s 220 actually – An owie) so I’m thinking don’t do anything, worst case scenario it gets zapped but probably won’t fall off. Maybe its mother will come along and talk it down. Maybe the crows will annoy it so much that it gets down. Ever seen two Hawks and 10 crows mobbing the same thing? It’s starting to move around a bit now. Oppps there it goes be back.

Ok its down! Backed down with both front paws wrapped around the pole like a hug. Slick as you please, got about 15 feet from the ground and lept 10 ft over to a rock. Stood there for 30 seconds or so like it owned the world and then sauntered off. Once it was down I could see that it was the momma cat. She’s probably been up there before. Hope she is careful around the electricity.

Ahhhh the excitement for the day :-)

Well I just gave a tour of my constructed wetland water reclamation system. I am overjoyed to see the enthusiasm that the “next generation” has for water conservation and protecting our environment.

At one point in the tour I handed some watercress to the participants. And, now in thinking about it, I realized that I had handed the people nothing, _absolutely nothing_ but solar energy and my used water. I can’t even begin to describe my emotions following that realization.

I am all for technology. Most of our understanding of chemistry and biology have actually come because of War and other negative events. I have a little tractor. I am a huge fan of hydraulics. I believe that we need to use knowledge, and technology to be successful permaculturists. I understand that technology and home solar cells go hand in hand. At the same time I am overjoyed that I am using organic solar cells to generate food.

Bob

We bathe in a warm foamy bath of biological life. Our human cells are outnumbered 10 some say as much as 30 to 1 by the bacteria on us. We are walking colonies of bacteria yet our physical bodies are as comfortable with it as we are with a bright beautiful day at the beach.