India: The Talupula Site, Part II

India: The Talupula Site, Part II

By Douglas Barnes

Click here for Part I

First impressions

This May, I visited the town of Talupula in the drought-stricken Anantapur District in Andhra Pradesh, India at the invitation of the Green Tree Foundation. Although I had seen photographs and general climate data for the region, I was struck but how dry Andhra Pradesh is. The province generally receives 350 to 700 mm of rainfall a year, and though I would like to report more specific rainfall for the District where the project was carried out, repeated requests to the government meteorological office by the Green Tree Foundation over the years have gone ignored.

When I first arrived, I met an engineer from Talupula who is living and working in Hyderabad. I went over what I was planning to do in terms of earthworks, which included swales and possibly a dam. When I mentioned that swales can be built with the aid of a bulldozer with a tilting blade or a grater with a tilting blade, he said that the soils were very hard and would require an excavator.

Upon arriving in Talupula, I found the lateritic soils to be slightly more yielding than asphalt. The soils are ferralsols, which are an iron-rich lateritic soil that becomes hard after the land is stripped then subjected to repeated wetting and drying – just the conditions that occur in the dry tropics. When wet, they are very workable and may even bog down machinery working on it. When dry, they are are hard as pavement. In these soils, calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium are weathered out, and there is next to no humus content in the soil. As a result, the cation exchange capacity is low, meaning that plant health suffers. While these soils do tend to lose potassium easily (another argument against the common practice there of burning pasture land as a management strategy), they do hold onto phosphorus well. They also respond well to amendments of lime and gypsum, though this was beyond the scope of our project.

The Indian government is in the process of building a large irrigation channel to divert the flow of the nearest major river to the drier regions of the south. While I am personally skeptical of the ecological viability of this project, visiting the excavation site for the channel did give me the opportunity to examine the typical soil strata of the area. Lateritic soils are deep – sometimes running down to 20 metres in depth. I could see from the channel excavation that the gravelly soil continued down at least 8 metres to the bottom of the channel. All that gravel meant that I would not be designing and constructing an earthen dam as the gravelly conditions require considerable engineering for dam construction. The focus then became on swales and possibly gabions.

Obula Swami

Before I left Canada, a site in Talupula on public land on a small mountain outside of town was suggested. It is said that the deity Obula Swami lives at the summit of that hill. Our potential site there was the highest practical site to work on. On firsthand inspection, however, I found that the access to the site was difficult and there was very limited space to work in. There also were a number of rock walls already build on the site to combat erosion. And as it was public land, would it be subject to neglect, or destruction? A further problem was that shepherds regularly burn the land there, so establishing trees would be difficult at best.

We looked at a second site at the foot of the same mountain on private land. There was a good catchment and plenty of room to work on. After contacting the farmer, though, the restrictions he set made working there not worthwhile.

Gangahadr

For a few days, we were stuck without a site to work on. Then we got the approval of an organic farmer outside of town to do whatever we liked on a 7-acre hillside patch of his land. The farmer, Gangahadr, had already greatly benefited from the agroforestry advice of the Green Tree Foundation and was eager to see what we could do. The land was not too steep, and the nick point on the land (the point at which the hillside goes from convex to concave) was high enough that we could get up near the top of the hill and put in a series of swales. Being private, the land would be well cared for and access to it controlled. Gangahadr had a growing reputation in the area for excellent results, and the site was visible from the national highway, giving the project more exposure. As an added bonus, the site was adjacent to and would thus compliment a rock check dam built in 2005 by the Rural Development Trust. The effect of that dam has been to change the land downstream from desert-like conditions to a rich oasis. This was the site. I met with the Ganghadr and got his permission to build swales on his land.

In Part III, we will look at site planning, implementation, and the results so far.

Species of the Month: Neem

Species of the Month: Neem
By Douglas Barnes

Azadirachta indica, neem, the village dispensary. This amazing tree has so many uses that it’s hard to imagine a tropical garden being complete without it.

First, the tree has a deep tap root, making it drought hardly. It is not, however, tolerant of seasonal flooding or of frost. It helps rejuvenate damaged soils. In the hot climates it grows in, its shade is very welcome. It also makes a good windbreak. Timber from neem trees is termite resistant – a good feature in the tropics - and its calorie-rich wood makes good fuel. The flowers of neem also make good bee fodder.

Neem leaves are sometimes used in curries and chutneys in India. Extended consumption over long periods has the potential to damage the liver, so consumption should be occasional. Also, neem should NOT be consumed by pregnant women, women trying to conceive, or by small children.

The dried leaves are used as a moth repellent to protect clothes, in grain and dried fruit stores to protect from insects, and as a general insect repellent. Fresh leaves are sometimes eaten to rid the body of parasites. Twigs from the tree are chewed on one end, then used as a tooth brush.

Azadirachtin, the active ingredient in neem, is a very effective pesticide. It repels insects and disrupts their growth and reproduction. A neem solution can be sprayed directly on plants to deal with existing insects and to help repel further insect attack. To make a solution, simply bring a bucket of water to boil, add 2 handfuls of crushed seeds or 6 handfuls of minced leaves, and steep for 1 hour. Add a small amount of soap as a surfactant, strain and spray directly on plants. If only neem oil is available, mix 10 ml of neem oil with 1% azadirachtin content (get certified aflatoxin-free neem oil) with 500 ml of water and a touch of soap and spray the mixture on plants. Neem can also be used on animals to kill fleas, ticks, intestinal parasites, and repel blowflies. For a topical solution for animals, mix 1 ml of neem oil to 30 ml of water and spray it on the animal’s coat.

Looking at the medicinal uses of neem, it is easy to see why it is called the village dispensary. It is an emollient (soothes the skin), a purgative (a laxative), a vermifuge (rids internal and external parasites), a digestive agent, an anti-inflammatory, a sedative, a carminative (prevents gas), an anti-fungal agent, an antiviral, an antiseptic, and a diuretic. The list of ailments it is used to treat includes but is not limited to:

Gastritis
Fever
Poor circulation
Bronchitis
Candida (yeast infection)
Gingivitis
Kidney problems
Duodenal and peptic ulcers
Liver problems
Diabetes
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Hemorrhoids
Conjunctivitis (pink eye)
Tuberculosis
AIDS
Asthma
Rheumatism
Venereal disease
Skin ulcers
Urinary tract infections
Athlete’s foot
Ringworm
Head lice
Scabies

Neem also has commercial value with popular products made from neem including soap, toothpaste, shampoo, candles, mouthwash, tea, and on and on.

If you are in the dry tropics and are looking for useful trees for your site, be sure to include this amazing tree to you list. With so many uses from neem, you'll be glad you have it nearby, and your pests will hate you for it.

India: The Talupula Site, Part I

India: The Talupula Site, Part I

By Douglas Barnes

During the month of May, I was in the semi-arid region of Andhra Pradesh, India at the invitation of the Green Tree Foundation. The spread of desertification is something that I have written about here in the past, but to see the environmental degradation of a region that had formerly been a dry-tropical region of forest and savannah is always a real jolt. If nothing is done to halt the biotic pressures of deforestation and uncontrolled grazing and to repair the damage that has been done, this region will become a desert in the not too distant future.

Some forest is lost by people cutting trees for fuel wood but, as many species in the tropics coppice vigorously and firewood cutting tends to coppice the trees cut, this is not the major cause of deforestation there. The major causes of deforestation are land clearing for agriculture and land destroyed by grazing animals or by shepherds setting fire to the land as a management strategy. Also, grazing is communal by default. If land can be accessed by shepherds, both private and public land will be grazed.

The quickest means of repairing the land might arguably be by the controlled grazing techniques of Holistic Management®. This method would involve using one of the current degraders of the environment – grazing animals – to regenerate the land. I gave the practicalities of this approach some thought. To do just one District of the province would involve a large scale educational program to teach Holistic Management® to thousands and thousands of shepherds. It would also require each shepherd to have portable electric fencing to contain their herds in a controlled area for a controlled amount of time. Additionally, a sophisticated database, easily accessible by cell phone (the only communication tool at a shepherd’s disposal) would be needed to track grazed land and grazing schedules of different plots of land. The alternative, if Holistic Management® were to be employed, would be to have land owners fence their land into small plots and control animal access themselves. One problem here would be to convince the land owner that there would be benefit to him were he to shoulder the expense of fencing and managing the grazing on the land. The alternative is to only allow grazing on one’s own land. The problem here being that this approach would ruin the livelihoods of thousands of families, throwing them into poverty.

Were a land owner looking to raise animals on his or her own land, Holistic Management® would be the ideal approach to take. But as a large-scale solution to the problems of the region, it strikes me as being not very practical given the current system of de facto communal grazing. It would require massive coordinated effort, billions of rupees in training and billions in material costs to make it a reality. And then, it relies on everyone following the rules. While not impossible, it would be extremely difficult to carry out this approach successfully, I think.

The approach that my associates at the Green Tree Foundation are taking is a tree-based approach. The problems are well defined: poverty from a degraded environment; the environment degraded by biotic pressures – mostly from grazing animals. The solution they are using is to try to replace the forests that once stood and to shift agriculture in the region to an agroforestry-based system.

They are surveying local villages, finding the material needs of the villagers, selecting appropriate tree species based on local conditions and local needs, and supplying trees at low or no cost to the farmers and citizens of the village. To address the problem of grazing animals specifically, they often seek out productive tree species that are non-browsable or use non-browsable species as a living fence to exclude grazing animals from a site. They are planting agave as a firebreak to protect their planted areas from the fires set by shepherds. They are also encouraging the use of fodder trees for animal feed. Penned animals cause no damage to surrounding lands and feed can be cut and carried from fodder trees to the animals.

The main goal of my visit was to establish water harvesting earthworks and to demonstrate to the Green Tree Foundation staff the proper design and implementation of those earthworks. In Part II, we’ll look at site selection for our water-harvesting project there.

We are flooded!

My apologies the the readers of this site for missing the Species of the Month for April. It has been a hectic month. I've been finalizing a house design and prepping for a project in India. Scott Meister has had his hands full, too.

Scott will be publishing a piece here in about a week's time and I will give some updates from India. Please bear with us.

2009 Sustainable Living Symposium

I will be giving a presentation on Designed Landscapes for Food, Fibre & Energy at the Sustainable Living Symposium at 10:30 am at Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario. Click the banner below for more information.

The event is selling out fast, so click now to ensure entry!

Sustainable Living Symposium

Species of the Month: Trametes versicolor

Species of the Month: Trametes versicolor
By Douglas Barnes

Being a mushroom nut, it has taken all the discipline I can muster not to have a fungal species as Species of the Month yet. I can wait no longer. This month’s species is Trametes versicolor, the turkey tail or yun zhi mushroom. This saprophytic, polypore mushroom is a white rot mushroom, meaning that it breaks down lignin (the organic polymer that gives trees their strength). This mushroom is found in boreal, temperate, sub-tropical and tropical regions.

It has multiple uses. In the field of health, it has been shown to combat cancer. The cancer drug Krestin, also known as polysaccharide K or PSK, is derived from T. versicolor. It has anti-tumour properties, inhibiting cancer cell growth. It inhibits leukemia cell growth. Alcoholic extracts of T. versicolor are used to help fight prostate cancer. It stimulates the immune response. It helps the spleen recover from gamma radiation. PSK has antibiotic properties against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans, Cryptococcus neoformans, Listeria monocytogenes, and Streptococcus pneumoniae. In-vitro studies show it inhibiting HIV replication.

It has many uses for bioremediation. It can be grown on woodchips in burlap bags. The bags can then be stacked in runoff channels below animal paddocks to filter E. coli, Listeria, Candida and Aspergillus, protecting watersheds from contamination.

The research of mycologist and permaculturist Paul Stamets suggests T. versicolor might be effective in out-competing pathogenic fungi like Armillaria spp., Sparassis crispa and Hypholoma capnoides.

Heat-killed mycelium of T. versicolor has been used to absorb up to 97% of mercury ions from water, suggesting its value to clean water systems.

It is also very valuable in either breaking down or bioaccumulating some of the worst manmade pollutants in our environment, among them antracenes (used in dyes, wood preservative, naphthalene and other products), chromated copper arsenate (used in pressure-treated lumber), dimethyl methylphosphonates (used in VX, sarin and soman chemical war agents), dioxins, persistent organophosphates (used in pesticides), pentachlorophenols (used in pesticides and preservatives), and TNT.

This fungi grows well on hardwood, including apple and cherry (unlike other fungi), as well as on fir, pine, spruce, larch, cypress and juniper. It can be harvested in the wild (in which case, only pick 25% of a patch of turkey tails), or cultivated on logs raised off the ground or in pots filled with sand. Tree stumps can also be used to cultivate turkey tails. It produces mushrooms annually from spring to late fall, though mushrooms usually appear most in the late summer.

The mushroom itself is very tough and leathery, and you will need a knife to harvest it. It can be boiled and used in soups or drunk as tea. The flavour is a little bitter, but compared with many other polypore mushrooms, the bitterness is mild. In a soup with other flavours, the bitterness will go unnoticed.

Creating The Permaculture Balcony Garden

The Permaculture Balcony Garden
By Douglas Barnes

Gardening offers many benefits. Compared with buying fresh produce at a market, properly managed gardens can provide fresh, healthy produce in a fraction of the time and at much lower cost than purchasing food. A single trip to the market can easily take 20 minutes to several hours out of your day and cost over $100 per visit. Gardening by contrast requires an initial investment to set it up and a few minutes a week to maintain and use. And with seed saving, you can continue to save money and enjoy organic produce year after year.

For apartment and condominium dwellers, however, the lack of space stops most from pursuing their own garden. But with careful design and planning, even a small terrace can yield a surprising amount of food.

While conventional gardening can be a lot of work, the permaculture approach will be to mimic a natural ecosystem to make your garden as self-sustaining and robust as possible. The first step to developing such a system is observation.

Site Assessment

To design a good garden space, you will first need to assess the space you have available. The single biggest limiting factor is climate. If you are in a temperate area, you will need to know your local growing season. How long is your frost-free season? This will determine how much time you will have for outdoor growing. If you are in a sub-tropical area, you would probably benefit from growing tropical foods during the hot season and temperate plants during the cool season.

Not every apartment or condo unit faces the sun, so you will need to determine if you have full sun, partial sun or shade at your particular site. If you have partial sun, would you be able to increase the exposure to sunlight with the aid of reflectors strategically placed on the balcony? If you have full shade, you will have to avoid growing plants that require full sun as they will grow poorly in such conditions.

For high rise buildings, wind is a limiting factor. Strong wind stresses plants, stunting growth, and it reduces soil moisture. The difference on a windy terrace growing avocado, for example, versus a sheltered site can be a 100% greater yield for the sheltered site. If there is too much wind, you will need to block it with some sort of barrier such as a trellis. In any event, make a note of the direction and strength of the prevailing winds.

You may be lucky enough to have a fair amount of rainfall on the terrace or, if permitted, be able to tap into a downspout from the roof. If not, you will need to take on more of the watering yourself.

How much floor space do you have on the terrace or by windows? We will see shortly how to maximise the space you do have, but for now, you will need to know the area you have to work with.

Finally, you will have to know what sort of artificial restrictions there are such as local ordinances and/or restrictions from the landlord or the condominium’s management.

Planning and Layout

First, create a map of the site. It needn’t be anything too fancy, just something you can use for planning purposes. Freehand maps will do fine.

Plan your access routes. Without easy access to everything in your garden, you are more likely to neglect hard to reach areas. You may stuff your site with growing space, but be sure to give yourself 40-cm-wide (16-inch) paths to walk on.

After laying out the paths, you will know what floor space is available to you. Now you need to consider sun exposure and wind direction. You’ll generally be placing taller plants so that they do not obstruct the sunlight of other plants. You may need to break this guideline if you need either the taller plants such as bamboo or a trellis to act as a windbreak to prevent wind damage to other plants. In arid conditions, the additional shade from taller plants or trellises can be beneficial by helping to retain soil moisture.

Hanging plants are a great way to make use of window space for growing, so you need not be limited be floor space.

To make maximum usage of the outdoor growing space available to you, you are going to have to design in 3 dimensions. It will be much easier to access the space if you set up the planters in a terraced fashion with the highest ones in the back and the lowest ones in the front.

The installation of trellises will also help us to grow plants up walls and across ceilings. A trellis with a mesh pattern is good for plants that climb using tendrils such as grapes and bitter melon (Momordica charantia). Poles or lengths of string can be used for plants like beans or hops (Humulus lupulus) that twist around objects as they grow. In addition to natural climbers, plants such as squash and kiwis (which have a variety of species suited to climates from sub-tropical to cold temperate) can be tied to trellises to grow where you want them to. An added benefit of climbing plants is that they shade buildings in the summer, helping them to stay cooler.

There are many techniques people have devised to grow in vertical spaces. For example, PVC tubing can be used to create planters that maximise growing space with the minimal usage of floor space. These tubes can even be hung if necessary, though they may need to be anchored at the bottom if winds are strong on your site.

Planters can be ready-made units, or constructed out of bricks, wood, or other available materials. They can be fancy or simple depending on your taste. Just make sure that your planter gives you at least a 30 cm (one foot) of depth for the soil. If you plan on having root crops, you will need a planter that is deep enough for at least 60 cm (2 feet) of soil for plants like daikon, carrots, potatoes, etc.

Preparing the Soil

Proper soil preparation is what distinguishes easy, low-maintenance gardens from gardens requiring lots of effort spend on weeding, watering and tending. If you look at a natural system, you will see that it is able to survive without the constant input that most gardens need to survive. If you mimic this natural system, you will save yourself a lot of work.

In your planter, you can use potting soil if you wish, but starting with sand is cheaper and does the trick. But you are also going to need compost and mulch, preferably woodchips as they are less likely to blow around in the wind. It will also be helpful if you can go to a natural place such as a healthy woodlot with minimal foot traffic and grab a few handfuls of soil to put in your planters. This will serve to “seed” the soil in your planters with beneficial microorganisms.

First, put in a base layer of soil – either sand or potting soil – about 15 cm (6 inches) thick or more, depending on how deep the planter is. Place some of the natural soil you collected outside in the planter. Water the soil. The deeper the planter, the more you can put in. Next, add a dusting of compost on top of the soil followed by 10 cm (4 inches) of mulch and water it. Next add about 5 cm (2 inches) of compost and water it. Finally, add on about 5 cm of mulch and water it.

The mulch serves several purposes: it suppresses the growth of weeds, it helps retain moisture in the soil, it breaks down over time to feed the soil, and it creates a niche for spiders, which will help control any unwanted pests that show up. This mulch is a key element, and without it your garden will be less likely to be successful and will surely take more effort from you to maintain.

It will be helpful if you sow white clover seeds (Trifolium repens) in the mulch. Just sprinkling it on top will do. As the clover grows, it will create a weed-suppressing groundcover and it will fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil, helping to fertilise your garden naturally. Groundcover also reduces soil moisture loss due to evaporation.

Planting and Harvesting

Now you are ready to plant seedlings into the planter. To do this, dig aside the mulch in a small area of mulch until you reach the soil layer. Throw in a handful of compost them place the seedling into the hole. The mulch will settle over time, so place the plant so that the seedling sits down in the mulch about 5 cm (2 inches). Make sure that the mulch is not touching the stem of the plant. Water the seedling.

If you sowed white clover into the surface layer of mulch, you will be on your way to maintaining the soil fertility that your plants need. You can also plant nitrogen-fixing vegetables to help your garden. You can plant beans with other plants and the nitrogen they provide will help the other plants grow. You will, however, need to purchase inoculants for the beans at a garden supply store. This inoculant is simply a type of bacteria that joins with the roots of the beans to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil. The exception to plants that are benefited by beans and peas are members of the onion family. Beans and peas do not grow well together with onions, garlic or chives. If you grow these together in the same planter, make sure that you have at least one other kind of plant between the beans and the onions.

When using your garden, you may just need to harvest parts of the plant but any time you harvest the entire top of a plant, leave the roots in the soil where they can decompose and feed the soil. If, on the other hand, you harvest a root crop, bury the top of the plant just under the mulch where it can breakdown. Additionally, vegetable and fruit waste from your kitchen can help to feed the soil when buried under the mulch. This is a more energy efficient means to go about composting, particularly in the limited space available to apartment dwellers.

Avoiding Artificial Inputs

You may be tempted to add synthetic fertiliser, just in the beginning to get things started. Although this may seem like a good idea at first thought, it will lead to less soil life and less fertile soil over time. In a natural, healthy soil, most of the biomass is in the ground. In fact, there is twice the biomass below the ground compared to above the ground. Plant roots account for only a fraction of this biomass. The majority is in the form of soil micro and macro-organisms. These are so important to plant health that plants release up to 40% of the photosynthates they produce through their roots to feed them.

Adding synthetic fertiliser will reduce the amount of soil carbon, which reduces the productivity of your plants. Synthetic fertiliser is sometimes bound in a cadmium salt, which kills off soil fungi. And the addition of artificial fertiliser increases the plants’ uptake of water, bloating them. This causes the root hairs to shut down, starving the soil life. The bloated plants are now more attractive to insect pests and more likely to suffer a parasitic fungal attack. In this way, the end result of adding artificial fertiliser is going to be to kill of most of the beneficial soil life, which would otherwise have done most of the work of fertilising the soil for you. In other words, adding synthetic fertiliser means you are setting yourself up to do more work and spend more money than you would have to do otherwise.

Life in the soil is the key to healthy plants, which are, in turn the key to human health. The bacteria in your soil will be regulating soil gases that plants need for growth and reproduction. They are also mobile storages of nitrogen and other nutrients essential for plants; and at up to 80 kg (176 pounds) per square metre of soil (compared with 500 to 600 grams per m2 in ploughed soils), they are significant stores of these nutrients.

The mycorrhizal fungi in soil physically enters the roots of most plants and provides them with nutrients from the surrounding soil and even allows plants to swap nutrients and send chemical signals among themselves. Saprophytic fungi break down dead plant material making the nutrients from the detritus available for plants to absorb. The samples of wild soil that you ‘”seeded” your planters with will hopefully contain both types of fungi, but you can purchase these fungi, if you wish. (See resources below.)

Compost worms (Eisenia fetida or Lumbricus rubellus) will produce 1 kg of worm castings (the best fertiliser available) per m2 per year. If you can get some of these in your planters, they will self-regulate their numbers and provide you with much healthier soil.

Dealing with Pests and Disease

If you plant a variety of plants and mix them in together, you are unlikely to suffer from a huge loss of plants as you might with just or two species of plants planted together. However, when establishing a new ecosystem (i.e. your garden) the first year is likely to be the most turbulent as the system establishes a relative equilibrium. Pests may show up and, with the lack of predators, their numbers are free to expand. If you are having too much problem with pests, the simplest, safest and cheapest means of control for you is to spray milk on the bugs. It does not matter what sort of insect pest this is, spraying them with milk will get rid of them. Another common problem is powdery mildew (it looks like a white dusting on the leaves of roses, cucurbits and other plants). This can be dealt with naturally using a 0.5% solution of baking soda. Mix one teaspoon of baking soda with one litre of warm water. Add one teaspoon of liquid dish soap and spray this on the leaves of the affected plants, making sure to spray the underside of the leaves as well.

Planting different flowers that flower at different times of the year will create a habitat for predatory insects that will help control the numbers of pests. If you have the space, this can be very beneficial. If you plant flowers that you yourself can use (like chamomile and marigolds, for example), you will not be sacrificing space for predator habitat.

Some plants are good at repelling certain pests. Aphids are a common menace, but you can help chase them away with nasturtiums, garlic, onions, spearmint, basil and oranges.

When you “seeded” your planters with wild, healthy soil, you probably imported some saprophytic fungi with you. These fungi now have a head start and can out-compete potentially harmful parasitic fungi that might show up.

Plant Propagation

Many of the foods that you pick up at your local supermarket can be propagated and grown in your garden:

• Onions or garlic cloves placed in a 10-cm-deep bowl of potting soil with the top third of the bulb emerging should grow if left in a bright window.

• Chickpeas (Cicer arietinum) and other dry beans can be started in a 10-cm-deep pot. Cover the seeds with 5 mm of soil, water and put in a sunny place.

• Potatoes with eyes growing out of them can be placed on soil a 15-cm-deep pot and covered with 3 cm of soil and left in a sunny place.

• Avocado pits can be placed in a one-litre plastic bag with sphagnum moss that is just a little bit moist. Seal the top of the bag and place it is a warm, dark place for a few weeks. After two weeks, punch some holes in the bag to allow air circulation. When the avacodo has roots that are 8 or 10 cm long, you can transplant it to a pot, leaving the top half of the pit above the soil.

• Lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) that has some grass blades left on it can be placed in a glass with enough water to cover the wide portion of the base of the stalk. Add about a tablespoon of activated charcoal to the water. When the roots are about 6 or 7 cm long, cut the top half of the stalk off and carefully transplant it (the roots will be delicate) to a pot and keep the soil moist.

• Fresh ginger root can be placed on top of moist soil and kept in a warm place that is bright but not in direct sunlight. It should sprout and grow very rapidly.

• Jujube pits (Ziziphus jujuba)can be placed in a pot with moist peat moss, covered with plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 months to stratify the seeds. Once removed from the refrigerator, the pits should germinate within 3 weeks. When the roots are about 10 cm long, the seedlings can be transplanted.

• Chinese Yams (Dioscorea batatas) can be placed in a plastic bag with slightly moist sphagnum moss. The closed bag is then placed in a warm, dark place until it has roots that are 5 to 10 cm. Watch out for soft spots on the yam and cut out any that appear. Place the yam in a pot and just cover it with soil.

Keep the soil for these plants moist and make sure they are in a sunny place or they will grow weak and spindly. Once these plants start growing, they can be transplanted into your garden as described above.

For seeds, they generally germinate best in soil that is twice as deep as the seed is high as it rests on the ground; so, a 5 mm high seed would be covered with 1 cm of soil. They can be set in seed trays or any small containers that you may have. Once sown and watered with a mister, cover the tray with plastic wrap. Once the seeds germinate, make sure they get enough light to avoid weak and spindly plants.



Resources

Beneficial Fungi:
Fungi Perfecti LLC
Box 7634
Olympia, WA 98507
www.fungi.com

The Arunyik Mushroom Center
Box 1
Bankok, Thailand 10162

Mycelia
Jean Bethunestraat 9
9040 Gent, Belgium
www.mycelia.be

Appendix

Worm Farms

Another simple and useful way to deal with kitchen waste is with a worm farm. A worm farm is just a watertight container with compost worms (Eisenia fetida or Lumbricus rubellus) in it. Every square foot (30 cm X 30 cm) of worm farm surface area is able process about 200 grams of kitchen vegetable scraps per week. Once established, you can use the worm farm to dispose of not only vegetable waste, but also tea bags, coffee grindings and used filters, the occasional crushed eggshell and shredded newspaper (but not glossy colour paper). A properly run worm farm produces no smell and can be kept indoors without any problems.

The tailings from worm farms are the best plant fertiliser available. When the worms are ready, you can take the compost from the worm farm and sprinkle it onto the soil in your planters to feed the soil. Capturing some worms to put directly into the planters will help with the plant life as well – a dozen per planter would be fine. They regulate their own numbers and will be fine left to help out in the garden. If you have very cold winters, however, the worms might not survive over the winter. If this is the case, their eggs are very likely to survive over the winter and repopulate the planters in springtime.

To construct a worm farm, take any watertight container that is 30 cm X 30 cm or bigger and add 10 cm of compost and shredded paper. Water it just enough that the mixture is moist. If it is too wet, you will drown your worms. Add vegetable scraps just under the surface where the worms can get at them. Finely chopping the scraps will help the worms to break them down faster. If you wish, you can put a lid on the container; just make sure to cut air holes in the lid. Covering the holes with screen of cloth will prevent any fruit flies from entering the container.

Actively Aerated Compost Tea

A great natural fertiliser and pest-repellent for plants is compost tea. To make it, put a handful of compost into a ten litre bucket of rain water (or any water that is free of chlorine). Add a tablespoon of sugar, put in an aerator, and leave the mixture to bubble for 24 hours. When finished, the tea can be put in a watering can and used to water the garden. The mixture will be rich in beneficial bacteria, which, when poured over the leaves of the plant, helps to prevent parasitic attack.

Keith Johnson Interview

In September, 2007, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Keith Johnson and a team of other designers on a 25-acre property near Hamilton, Ontario. Keith and I, together with one other designer, walked a section of property designated to us to design. It was a tremendous learning experience for me. Working with Keith is extremely easy to do – he finds the humor in any situation, making everything more enjoyable. After our preliminary designing was finished, Keith graciously agreed to the following interview.

Douglas: Who are you and what do you do?

Keith: I’m Keith Johnson. I teach permaculture design with Peter Bane. I help him on the Activist mostly as the web guy but occasionally, if I ever get enough energy, I do a little bit of writing maybe a little bit of reviewing. But it’s been a while since I’ve done that now. (Laughs) But I love doing the web-work. And we also design and consult together with our company Patterns for Abundance. And I am the gardener at home. I’ve now got about a half acre garden almost and we’re putting in a forest garden. So we are slowly developing our base in Bloomington where we’ve been for about a year and a half now.

Douglas: You also mentioned some other places earlier as well. California was one.

Keith: Well yeah. Prior to Bloomington, I was 10 years in North Carolina outside of Ashville at Earthhaven Ecovillage where Peter and I lived for six years in a clay straw home we built for ourselves. And prior to that, I was in California teaching permaculture and I had started Sonoma County Permaculture. And I was landscaping for about 10 years all together all through the Bay Area. I had to get away from that. It was too crazy. Although, when I left I cried because I have so many dear friends there. And it was my friends I missed rather than the place itself, although, it’s pretty lovely despite eight months a year of no rain.

Douglas: How did you get your start in permaculture?

Keith: I discovered Permaculture One in about 1978 or 79 when I read about it in the Whole Earth Review which was also known as Co-evolution Quarterly. And also I am pretty hip to gardening and natural things because when I was about five years old I learned via my grandmother, who was doing lots of genealogical research, that I’m related to Johnny Appleseed.

Douglas: Oh wow! (Laughing)

Keith: So, I thought that was cool. And he was always an early inspiration to me.

Douglas: You aren’t dropping seeds out of your pocket as you go around are you?

Keith: I do! Sometimes I drop them into people’s hands but it’s very common for me to have seeds in my pocket. Very, very common. I don’t specialize in Apple’s, by any means. I’ve been a big seed saver for the 34 years I’ve been gardening. I guess I got started gardening really when I was about 25. My first gardening books were Organic Gardening Magazine and Ruth Stout’s book How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back and Gardening Without Work - all about mulch gardening. I am also a big fan of medicinal and edible plants. My dad is one of the last of the hunter gatherers. He grew up in Northern Michigan, where I also grew up for my first nine years. Wild foods were always high on the list of things that got us excited - collecting mushrooms and wild fruit and so on. Any time I go and see my folks my dad always a few places he wants to take me for wild food – get grapes or raspberries or juneberries, or take me fishing on the beaver ponds.

Douglas: It sounds like you didn’t find Permaculture, it found you. It was the thing to come waiting to happen.

Keith: Yeah.

Douglas: Maybe about four years ago on the Australian scene, permaculture "tipped" as Malcolm Gladwell would say. It’s basically a mainstream now. How would you say it’s doing in North America?

Keith: It’s coming on a little slower. But in just the last half a decade, there’s been a big shift. More people are tuning into it. More people are writing about it. I have read at least five different science fiction novels in which the word "permaculture" showed up.

Douglas: Really?

Keith: In one case, it was permaculture in an artificial environment in orbit around the earth. Kim Stanley Robinson recently wrote a trilogy of books about climate change. In one of the books, he used the word permaculture at least a dozen times. So, word is getting out.

Douglas: I hadn’t heard anything about that!

Keith: Read Kim Stanley Robinson, anything he’s written is very, very good.

Douglas: I’d love to but there’s so many things I need to know, and I guess I’ve always been like this, but I always read nonfiction almost exclusively. People always ask me why, and I always say “It’s not real.”

Keith: Well, you watch television don’t you?

Douglas: (Awkward, guilty silence.)

Keith: No?

Douglas: (laughing) No. (laughing)

Keith: I’ve never owned a television. My parents have television, people I visit have television. When I meet them in front of one, it’s sort of like an anthropological study, really. (Laughs) Cause I’m just kind of curious because seeing what people are watching is interesting feedback about the culture. And so, that’s always intriguing to me.

Douglas: I’m having flashbacks of Japan now and the culture of there. Anyway, that’s another story.

So, what we’ve been working on this site, Ian Graham’s property – designing it up with a whole bunch of people together – I’ve found it to be extremely productive to bring people together. It’s a great learning experience. There’s so many things I’ve learned, and I hope other people maybe picked up something from me as well. What advice do you have for people who are getting their feet wet with permaculture?

Keith: Read a lot. Start collecting the seed and plant catalogues. Study them. They are an enormous source of data. Get yourself a good library. Shop at the Permaculture Activist catalogue online.

Douglas: Of course. (laughs)

Keith: (Laughs) Permaculture Activist dot net. You’ve gotta put in a plug there.

Douglas: (Laughing) Of course!

Keith: And don’t waste any time is the next thing I’d say. And get help. Don’t try to do this by yourself. Start small, gain some mastery. Take care of zone 1 - that area 50 feet from your kitchen door all around the house. Get some greens and herbs going and start seeing what it takes to take care of oneself and family. Learn to live on things that don’t travel a great distance. Find your entertainment nearby so you don’t have to travel all around. And then when you do travel, it’s all the more valuable. You’ll make much more out of it. And when you do travel, go to people who are doing something intelligent – people who have gained some kind of mastery –and learn from those people. And they are all over the place, you just have to start looking for them. Start connecting yourself up to them and help them connect with others. Basically, we just have to let each other know we are there. This is one of the reasons why for the last 10 years, I have emphasized the Planetary Permaculture Directory where I try to keep track of all the permaculture contacts that I can, so that others can be found.

Douglas: Excellent advice. Thank you very much!

Keith: You are very welcome!

Rhizobium Symbiosis with Woody Plants: Leguminous Nitrogen-Fixing Trees

Rhizobium Symbiosis with Woody Plants: Leguminous Nitrogen-Fixing Trees
By Douglas Barnes

As mentioned in the previous article in this series, beneficial partnerships are the way of nature. In particular, some microbes (Frankia and Rhizobium) form associations with certain plants allowing them to fix atmospheric nitrogen into a form that plants can use. These symbiotic partners can help us to rehabilitate damaged landscapes, preparing the soil for a succession of more long-term plants.


This piece focuses on woody plants that associate with the bacteria of the genus Rhizobium. We can see from the diagram below that there are 3 subfamilies of the family Fabaceae (AKA Leguminosae). These families are Faboideae (AKA Papilionoideae), Mimosoideae, and Caesalpinoideae. Note that not all the trees in these subfamilies are nitrogen-fixers. Among the Caesalpinioideae, 23% are nitrogen fixers. For Mimosoideae, the figure is 90%, and for Faboideae, 97% are nitrogen-fixers.


As the diagram shows, Mimosoideae contains the nitrogen-fixers Acacia, Albizia, Calliandra, Enterolobium, Leucaena, Mimosa, Paraserianthes, and Pithecellobium. Caesalpinoideae's nitrogen-fixers are Chamaecrista, Cordeauxia; and Faboideae has Cajanus, Dalbergia, Erythrina, Flemingia, Gliricidia, Pterocarpus, Robinia, Sesbania, and Tephrosia.

To rapidly revegetate a damaged landscape, be sure to include plenty of these species to help quickly build up the soils. In areas of very problematic soil, such as arid, tropical and subtropical regions, make 90% of your initial planting of trees nitrogen fixing, pioneer species (associating with either Frankia or Rhizobium), and 10% of species your long-term canopy overstory species. When the system reaches maturity, the proportions will be reversed with 10% nitrogen-fixing, support species and 90% canopy species. The same formula could be followed for humid temperate regions, but the soils in these area are not so fragile and can stand a lower percentage of nitrogen fixers. A 70/30 or even lower may suffice in these areas, as the seasonal cycles of death and regrowth feed these soils well.

As the diagram below shows, the nitrogen-fixing support trees can be pruned (coppiced, pollarded, shredded or sacrificed) to provide mulch, fodder, fuel or fibre. As this is done, the roots of the tree self-prune, releasing nitrogen into the soil.


The highest concentrations of nitrogen are to be found in descending order in the seeds, the seed pods, the flowers, the leaves and then the woody parts of the tree. Inter-planting with fruit or nut trees naturally provides more soil nitrogen. But interplanting also makes the job of chop-and-drop mulching that much easier.

Species of the Month: Comfrey

Species of the Month: Comfrey
by Douglas Barnes

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale). What better plant to feature as Species of the Month than this herbaceous member of the Boraginaceae family?Description

It grows up to 150 cm tall and 60 cm in diameter in warm climates. The optimum growth is in climates where day and night are equal (i.e. the tropics). There, production of 100 to 200 tons per acre (roughly 250 to 500 metric tons per hectare) is possible! However, it will grow in temperate regions. It prefers full sun and soils rich in nitrogen and humus, so interplanting with nitrogen fixers and mulching is a good idea. You can expect to get at least 10 years out of one plant, and a well-attended plant might outlive you!

Animal Fodder

It is protein rich with reportedly 20 times the protein content of soy beans. It is used as a pig fodder successfully in amounts up to 80 to 90% of the diet! For poultry, it can reduce the need for other feed (be that your concoction or processed feed) by 50%. Egg quality will improve with yolks being brighter. Cows don’t bloat when eating comfrey like they do with clover. And too much clover can taint the milk – not a problem with comfrey. Also, mastitis is reduced in cows fed comfrey. Wilted comfrey mixed with straw fed to sheep at a ratio of one part comfrey to one and a half parts straw increases the digestion of the straw. The flowers make it useful as bee fodder. It is used in zoos as fodder for many (expensive) animals. Its tremendous production rates make it a great elephant feed.

Soil Improvement

Comfrey has deep roots that help it to draw up nutrients from subsoils. This characteristic makes it a valuable nutrient cycler. It accumulates nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, zinc, manganese, magnesium, copper, sodium, sulfur, chromium, molybdenum and lead (the latter might make it useful in cleaning roadside soils contaminated by the use of leaded gasoline). It can be used as a green manure, and its ability to be cut right down to the ground a few times a year helps in this respect. It can be used as a compost activator.

It can be made into a liquid plant feed:

Place harvested comfrey in a sealable bucket
Weigh down the comfrey with a stone
Wait 1 or 2 weeks
Drain out the juice and dilute it 10 to 1 with water and water your plants with it

You can also use it to fill niches to suppress weeds.

As Food

Traditionally the whole plant has been used. Young leaves can be added to salads in small quantities to boost nutrient uptake. The stems can be blanched and eaten like asparagus. It is the only known plant source of vitamin B12.

As Medicine

Contains allantoin, which assists in the repair of damaged tissues. It is used as a poultice for cuts, scrapes, burns, skin conditions, ulcers, broken bones, strains and aches. It can help with digestive problems. The juice from leaves can be rubbed into the coats of dogs with mange.

The full catalogue of uses is:

Vulnerary (wound healer)
Astringent (contracts tissue making it useful to treat bleeding, peptic ulcers, diarrhoea, shrink mucus membranes, etc.)
Expectorant (dissolves mucus making it useful in treating phlegm)
Emollient (smoothes and softens skin)
Demulcent (treats inflamed, irritated tissue by coating it – e.g. treating a dry cough)
Antiseptic (helps treat or prevent infection in wounds)
Nutritive (along with its protein and minerals, it contains vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, E and 28,000 IU of vitamin A per 100g)
Tonic
Styptic (helps stop bleeding)
Antioxidant (from the rosmarinic acid it contains)

Pest Control

Slugs go for comfrey, so you could use it to attract slugs away from plants. If you really want to go all out against slugs, grow a ring of comfrey around your garden, separating the garden with an electric fence. The comfrey will attract the slugs from the garden. Then run pigs in the comfrey. The pigs will love both the comfrey and the slugs. And the pig urine and manure will attract in even more slugs, hopefully depleting your local population for a while. In place of the pigs, poultry could be run as well.

Caution Needed?

Comfrey does contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids which have the potential for liver damage. There have been warnings put out against the use of the herb, but evidence of incontrovertible documented toxicity is lacking. In the book “The Safety of Comfrey,” J.A. Pembery found no reported cases of pyrrolizidine poisoning from comfrey. He did find one case of pigs in Germany being poisoned by nitrates in comfrey, but not by pyrrolizidine. Lab tests on rats suggest that to cause harm to humans, one would have to eat about 20,000 leaves. Certainly from anecdotal evidence, many people have eaten comfrey without reservations for decades and been very healthy. Still, to err on the side of caution, limit consumption. Also, drying the comfrey reduces the amounts of alkaloids.