kliddle
thanks for the info on the video. i would be very interested to view this.

originalscooby
if you have an extra copy...... :)

Wow, what a review! Is there any way to find copies of these videos? Who made them?

Kliddle
Yeah I had a similar reaction. I actually had several reactions. First I was amazed. Then I actually got a little ticked off. This really is the way most farms should be run. Monoculture has it's place. But this is brilliant. The first vids I saw were the Bill Mollison videos. After that I came across the rest of the vids all in one pack. I get a feeling watching them that is difficult to describe. Like watching genius at work. I have a lot of respect for what they have done. My plot isn't much to look at so far. I stumbled onto this in January. That is why I have been overanxious to get started this year. I have plans to do youtube videos about some of my projects. I have recorded one on biochar. I just need to compile it and upload it. That could take months! I made a copy of that to keep in my work van so it's always ready to copy out.

I will make a copy for anyone that wants one. I didn't assemble the collection. I found it all in a bundle. The individual videos were made by different groups.

ps. Feel free to shorten it to Skooby.

remember that blind melon music video with from about 1993 with the little girl dressed like a bumble bee?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVn6b7DdpA

she goes from person to person and danced and they all ignored or laughed at her. in the end she is all sad and forelorn then happens into a bunch of people all dressed like bumblebees dancing. she gets all happy and and the all dance together. pretty funny little video, but that about how i felt.

people think my crazy ideas about planting vegetables as ornamentals and planting edible landscapes in public places are impracticle. or that i am a little off when i rant about farming and land misuses. i felt like the little bumble bee girl.

not everybody can have or wants a forest garden in their back yard, but every little help. decommercializing food production even on a small and limited scale is better for the environment, uses less fuel, gives us better quality food, teaches us about self reliance, etc. what is there not to love on the individual level. on a commercial level the impact is even greater.

a guy im my neighborhood teaches a similar thing. i have talked with him from time to time about it. i asked him on sunday if it was permaculture. his response was "same basic principles, but on a much larger scale". i need to sit down with him and find out more. maybe we could set up a little fireside chat/lecture sone day with him as a speaker. he is a great guy. his parting comment was that scarcity is a state of mind and it only exists if we believe it exists. every individual as well as society has the capability to eliminate hunger and poverty (in their own lives as well as others) but we choose not to beacuse we believe there is not enough for everyone.

i do personal finance consulting and that is one of the basic principles i teach as well in finances. wealth is not finite. it grows and shrinks indefinitely. wealth is created and is not finite in nature. there is enough for everyone. because more can be created to expand to the needs. not talking about dollar bills which just are a means of transporting wealth. the only reason we have poverty is because people believe we live in scarcity rather than abundance. the believe more cannot be created and they hoard, cheat, steal, or give up. rather than share, build, help, and strive to make the human condition better because they are afraid ant the end of the day they will not have enough. pretty sad really. i have seen many people chance their lives and economic situation just by changing their attitude and understanding of how money works. knowledge truly is power when it comes to finances. when you understand the basic principles and pieces available, away goes the fear of uncertainty and marvelous things happen. permaculture is the same. teach people basic principles and the tools available and everything changes. two completely different applications of the same concept of understanding and using systems, eliminating waste, and instead of trying to force the financial product or plant to work harder, you manipulate the environment around the financial product or plant so the it performs better naturally without having requiring more and more resources. i teach people how to use companion financial products together just like permaculture uses companion plants.

i love it when you see true principles applied in novel (at least to me) ways or areas. seeing something you enjoy better the human condition is about the greatest thing there is. teaching a person how to do it for themselves is about the most fulfilling thing you can do in life. that is why i teach the financial course it teach. i teach personal finances for free by the way if anybody is interested just let me know and i will put you in the queue. seeing how to put another personal passion to use helping others is exciting. when i can take the time i am definately going to get a permaculture degree.

again thanks. i know exactly what you are talking about when you say you get a "feeling" when you watch the videos. thats how you know when a principle is right or true. follow your gut and you rarely will go wrong.

plant on brother.

I am definitely interested in the permaculture videos. I have watched a lot of the ones on YouTube. Some have some useful info and some are just hokey home videos.

By the way, you guys might be interested in a little study Utah State did. They tested a way to make a very inexpensive "greenhouse" and successfully planted spinach last January when it was 4 degrees in Cache Valley. They also compared using the high tunnel alone and using low plant covers inside the high tunnel for even greater growth. Their plan is adaptable to lots of different sizes and at least gives some ideas for winter gardening. Here is a link where you can find the pdf: http://extension.usu.edu/htm/publications/publication=8481

Cheers!

I was thinking of Skooby the other day when driving on I-15 behind a minivan that had a bumper sticker saying "What Would Scooby Do?" I was cracking up. Now, I can't think of you without that saying going through my mind. :-)

I googled and found a place that sells t-shirts and bumper stickers, if you want one. Link below:

Funny. I may need to buy one and put it on my work van. Actually there is something Skooby would do. I was just at your website and saw that really sweet greenhouse. I also noticed the temp. swing and your plan to address that. I have an idea that was thought up in Cornwall by Dick Strawbridge. It is a simple heat sink. You dig a square or rectangle hole in the ground. Then line it with Styrofoam insulation about an inch thick. Then fill it in with course material that can hold onto heat. I skipped a step. Before you fill it in you want to make a pvc pipe square or rectangle with air holes drilled into it. This will run to the ceiling and have a small draw fan attached. A twelve volt fan can be had for free from computer repair shops. You could power it from the grid. Or you could hook up a battery and small solar panel. The panel would not need to be very big. Probably just a five watt. Maybe less. The fan runs continuously. In the day it draws the heat into the sink and at night it pushes it out. Brilliant!

or water. have room for a small pond in there?

Skooby, is there something online I can look at to show an example of the greenhouse idea you have? How does the fan both draw and push -- does it reverse at night? Or is it a continuous loop of PVC that allows it to do both? What kind of material in the ground would hold heat well? Big rocks? Or maybe jugs of water, with a floor built over it?

The air flow is only one way. The air flow should only go to the heat sink. That way you have floor heating at night. You could use pebble sized stones for the heat sink. Here is a link to the design of Dick Strawbridge. If you would like to see the 'It's not easy being green' series I can make a copy if you are willing to pick it up. I will also provide a link to the forum for the show that also discusses this. I should mention he uses a 10 watt panel. Not five as I stated before. There are other environmentally friendly ways to power this if you don't want to drop a hundred bucks on a panel. For example: 8-10 Eneloop batteries could power the fan and be recharged cheaply. Two kits from Costco would run about fifty dollars plus a couple of dollars at Radioshack for battery holders. That would save roughly a hundred dollars but adds maintenance time changing and charging the battery sets.

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Solar-Greenhouse-Heat-Sink.htm
http://www.itsnoteasybeinggreen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=365&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Ok I think I want to take back my Eneloop recommendation. I did some quick (and probably wrong) calculations and I think you would need to change sets every 5-6 days. Over a ten to fifteen year lifespan that's a lot of time spent switching sets. A solar panel only needs to be changed every 40 to 50 years and the battery every 8 to 10. I think the time and hassle saved will be well worth the extra cost.

I've really enjoyed this thread. I would like to learn more about permaculture. If there is ever a lecture on the the subject I would like to attend. I was planning on planting some ornamental and shade trees this spring, but with fuel prices unpredictable I am going with fruit trees for my lnadscaping. I'm going to plant cherry and pear in the front yard and apple, apricot, and peach trees in the back yard. For a couple of years I planted tomatoes and peppers in the flower bed on the front of my house. They did great there and could withstand the frost better there than in the back yard. The cement and brick provided warmth and combined with the protection from the wind being up against the house, I had a nice little micro-climate. I gave in to the norm though and planted a few bushes and laid down landscape fabric and bark. Now I'm re-thinking everything. The little bit of conversation I heard about kliddle's grandfather and his farm really left me wanting to learn more.

Tyffanie

there really is not a lot of easily found information about permaculture or the things we have been alluding to in this thread. Skooby's videos were great because it was a bunch of information all in one easy place. since i finished the videos, i have looked for more of the same, but there really is no good source i have yet found. i have ordered a few books through the library, but don't have them yet. much of what i found on the web is not much more informative than this thread. it is like you have to know what they are talking about to understand. i think this is because permaculture is not so much a technique so much as it is a philosophy. there are several techniques that are permaculture, but permaculture cannot be defined by them. an example would be forest gardens are permaculture but permaculture is not forest gardening per se.

from what i gather permaculture is about sustainable agriculture (and living) and self sufficiency as individuals and communities. it uses systems to create easier, healthier and more efficient and sustainable food production. some people take this as going off-the-grid and becoming hunter gatherers, while for others it is just gardening a little differently and using natural systems rather than artificial means to keep aid in production. as much as i would like to go off-the-grid and live in a forest, it is not practical for me. but i do grow a large portion of my own food in a very small area. i plant plants that have edible parts before those that do not and rather than practice monoculture by planting in rows of one species i mix them up as little forest systems where companion plants help each other perform better. i want to add a few chickens, bees, solar power and a cistern to have a little more self sustainability, but i started with a forest garden.

the thing that i liked the most about the videos were a few gardening techniques that filled in the gaps in application for what i already practice and believed.

they are:
plants work better in systems of many species.
gardens can have multiple layers like a forest to maximize production per square foot.
animals, insects and flowers are as important as the fruiting plants for a healthy and productive system.
nothing needs to imported into a system including fertilizer.
nothing should be exported from it.
raised beds.
mulch.
less water.
micro climate creation with ponds, hardscape and shade.
biodiversity in species as well as varieties.

last saturday i prepared a few beds for production with a technique i saw in the videos. you prepare the soil for the last time. i mixed in a bunch of compost from the dump. then you mound the beds. my bed was already part of a terrace. it takes the run-off from part of my house, garage and driveway. so i created a swell (channel) to pull that water through the bed to spread and store the moisture. i then covered the mounded areas to be planted with cardboard (this was the new technique i learned) and then mulched heavily on top with more compost (chipped wood and yard waste) from the dump. i will be planting heavily with everything from artichokes to zucchini and will research which plants work best in systems and put them together. i will mix in flowers. the result should look like a riot of texture and color like an english flower garden, but much of it will be food. i will probably produce several hundred dollars and months worth of food in just a few hundred square feet and without tilling, poisoning, fertilizing or exporting any waste and using much less water to boot. not going to change the world, but it helpsi think that is the essence of permaculture. it is a true think global act local sort of movement.

i have not found any how to books or websites. most of my searches ended with come sort of commercial design service or class. i hope the books i reserved are more of the how to and hands on sort of info. if anybody has any recommendations i would welcome some advice. would also like to here more about what others have done alone these lines. wikipedia has a good article tha links to a "companion plant" spread sheet i found useful.

Tyffanie
If you want to learn more you can find quite a bit on youtube. There are a lot of useless vids that don't really do anything but talk about the problems we face. As if we don't know already. I have a channel and I have my first vid ready to upload. I am also considering highlighting other peoples eco projects as well. I like what Kliddle has going on. So here is a link to a permaculture vid to start you off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUr4uPe9WBk
And here is my channel
http://www.youtube.com/theoriginalSkooby
Here is a link to Peakmoment. They have a ton of really great shows covering a wide range of sustainable practices.
http://www.youtube.com/user/peakmoment
And here is a link to a great channel from down under. This guy has some cool do it yourself stuff. He also has a tree planting challenge. If you plant a tree and send him a vid he will plant a tree(up to ten). Plus since he is on the other side of the globe you can get your garden fix in winter.
http://www.youtube.com/user/theproducegarden

Thanks Skooby for the links. I will definitely check them out.

Tyff

Skooby, I did some initial looking at the forum you linked to, and it seems that the recent posts are doubtful about how effective the heat sink really is. I'm also concerned that it wouldn't be enough to lower my high temps during the day. When the greenhouse was completely closed up, it got to 119 degrees on a 50 degree sunny day. But now, I've opened up two windows, and so far it's stayed below 90. But even that is a bit warm, especially if I'm trying to germinate seeds in there. I really do need to get the big exhaust fan running (it's not that big -- maybe 12") to clear out that heat during the day. The fan that's in it is rated for 115V AC power. I wonder if I had a small solar panel and a power inverter if I could run it during the day that way. I do have a power inverter that I'm not using anymore -- it takes 12V DC from a car and converts it to 110V AC. Anyway, even if it only worked well when the sun shines, that's when the greenhouse is overheating and needs cooling.

I'm not sure what to do about nighttime heating if that heat sink idea isn't working well for some people on that forum you linked to. But there is a greenhouse forum here on GW, and I'm going to spend some time there and learn some more.

i saw a greenhouse in England that had no fans. it had automatic windows on the roof that opened at a preset temperature. the escaping hot air would suck in new air from ground-level on the shade side (you could even pull it through underground ductwork if you really wanted cool air.

in the center of the greenhouse they had a water feature which would absorb heat all day and give it off at night. in utah it would give much needed moisture ans well as evaporative cooling. it was a 3 season greenhouse, but the water would not ever freeze and it was frost free and warm enough for most tropicals. we are a little more extreme here than england though.

granted a pond is only practical for a larger greenhouse, but using water in your heat sink in combination with auto opening roof vents should work at least in part. i think the water would work more efficiently than rock. i am amazed at how well those walls of water work.

Hey, Skooby, I would like a copy of the 'It's not easy being green' series, and I'd be happy to pick it up from you. I checked to see if I could send you a private message, but evidently not. You can click my name and send me a private message to let me know where you are and when you'd be able to let me pick it up. Thanks a lot!

Sure. I will message you with an e-mail address. I should have mentioned that that heat sink was built in Cornwall which has more moderate temps.

It's great to know that folks in Utah are talking about permaculture. I've been reading the books and playing in my rentals yard. Been playing with a swale in my front yard to get all the runoff. It was like a river yesterday and soaked in. Love it love it love it.
Good growing to all y'all.