Aleksandar
Visit http://www.jandjacres.net/ for more hobby farm activities.
Selecting your site or property must be the most permanent decision you end up making for a homestead. While much expense and effort may take place, greenhouses, gardens, animal pens and nearly everything else can be moved on a property – but deciding to pack it up and go to a new site is a whole other experience.
As such – taking into account your overall hopes and dreams from the beginning is very important. You will likely have to make some concession – but perhaps you can weigh the decisions carefully on which concessions you can make by taking into account all the zones of permaculture.
Zones will be the topic of the next 7 videos – 1 explanatory video, and then 1 video for each of the 6 zones.
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J&J Acres
I was looking for Kansas permaculture and this popped up. The surrounding green belt is great
May God bless you and your family with good health and wealth here and life after here.
On Saturday March 29th I will be signing up for the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course by Geoff Lawton via geofflawton.com.
If you have not heard of Geoff Lawton, or if you have not seen the few videos I have done before about Permaculture, strap in and hold on… because there will be a lot of it in the near future.
PS: You should go to Geoff's website. You have to register for the website, but it is free and they do not spam you – he has been putting out weekly videos for a while and they are packed full of good information!
Here are my first attempts at Permaculture videos, before I decided to step back and wait until I was certified before delving further into the videos:
Permaculture Series – Site Selection
I really like the direction Your Family is headed. I subscribed so I can follow your series. I have only a small backyard but use Solar on the roof, homemade greenhouse with small in ground pond. I love the concept Aquaponics and its full circle with the fish feeding the plants while the water is cleaned for the fish. It happens in Nature everywhere. I have 8 chickens and they give us great tasting Eggs, Better by far than store bought) and their Manure helps build the soil for our outside garden beds that are in dirt of course. I have 2 Apple trees, 2 Pear trees, 3 Plum trees, 3 different orange trees. The Joy and Happiness growing Food for Your own Table is Priceless. Also living in Harmony with Your Environment. I am glad I found You and Look forward to watching more of Your videos.
I'm looking to buy a few hundred acres of old paper land with at least a decent brook in my home state of Maine.
Good luck with the pond! That would be an excellent thing for your property!
We have twelve acres covered with 14 year old pines and a small mix of older hardwood. We have seen a temporary creek that runs into the ground when there has been a lot of rain, but it doesn't stay long at all. We would love to have water on our property and are considering building a pond. Our topography is mostly rolling hills, not gullies, thankfully, but just about right to dam one of the valleys between the hills up to make a pond, but we don't know how to do it. I need to research that.
Joel must also have the ability and skill to process them into boards. 😉 As for jealousy… I'll swap you some trees for your high tunnel 😀 Pickup only.
When you get ready to make some more buildings (especially pole barns) you'll love them even more. Joel Salatin talks about how they never pay for any building materials for their barns. Ok, going to stop praising your trees now…jealousy rising…
I am happy about the diversity of the trees that are here. I admit that at one time I was ready to plow them all down, but now I see their value. Still, we are keeping them away from the house – just get too many storms with high winds for my liking to have them very close.
I think your trees are your biggest asset. They have 1001 uses on a homestead…and I'm more than a little jealous!
Nice tour of your homestead !! Will be looking forward to your coming series of videos.
Keep the info and updates growing our way :-{}
I have – as well as others. I have concerns about a ram pump working for us. First I need to get a pool of water dammed up to draw from, then I am not sure if I have enough drop to be able to get the pump working. We'll see. It is a thought we have 🙂
Check out wranglerstar videos about the ram pump and water storage. Could be very benifical to you.
I feel that way too – but there are options, and I hope to cover one when I get to the Zone 0 video.
That could mean that Chinese sewers are very clean I guess, and the reports we here about companies dumping chemicals in them are bogus 😉 I watched them doing sewer work and pulling buckets of these guys out so I know they at least live down there.
Glad to hear of that experience. You should go tell Wikipedia and about a dozen other sites I checked who all said they are a great indicator of pollution in the water. Apparently not! Anyway – we would filter/boil/distill any water out of there for our use.
I lived in China for about six years. One of their seasonal delicacies are crawfish. The catch is they come out of the sewers. So I wouldn't use that as an indication. Have the water tested at your local extension service. The real problem with road runoff is that it could be polluted at any point. Especially in MS as there has been many cases of pollution from some company dumping crap into/on a ditch, road etc reported on national news. I am sure it happens in other places too.
Indeed – As we go through the videos I will be discussing the concepts, but we have very few things "in place" at this time. Those videos will have to come much much later.
Shockingly, we have crayfish, or crawdad's as they are known here, in that water only 50' from the road. It has been my understanding that crayfish will not tolerate polluted water – but I may be wrong! (It shocked me to find them there because I have the same concerns you do).
Get a dozer and go to the lowest part of the property and dig a pond. All the run off will keep it filled. Although I would be concerned about the runoff from the road you never know about the nasty crap they are spraying on the roads.
Look forward to seeing the coming video's. I've always had a slight interest in Permaculture but never really knew how to apply it.
We have some "natural ditches" that we intend on turning into catfish ponds. We're still debating on how deep to make them, how to line them, etc. But, like you, all we have right now to dig with is a shovel and we're not that desperate yet! LOL
One step at a time!
What plants are in the back yard are in an area that was not stripped of top soil when they bulldozed to put the house in. Been fighting that battle ever since (trying to heal the soil).
Im in the process of looking for a property myself, and my checklist is 1.Water 2. Access 3. Structure. I am looking to go to NC or eastern Tennessee if anyone knows of any good properties out there, let me know!
looks great, maybe you can try a garden behind the house using that slope to help your garden harvest rain water. Also the plants behind the property looked healthy
Thank you Sir – We hope to do our part to make it even better!
The rottweilers lost? Yikes. Water retention is a concern, of course, but right now the only thing I have to dig with is a shovel… and I am not that desperate yet 😉
Oh yes, water is a big concern. We dug out two ponds.. one we stocked with catfish. and the other positioned for the livestock.. Keeping the pond from draining can be a challenge depending on your soil.. Putting down a pond line can be expensive.. so that is something to think about when you get ready to dig.. Check naturalenviro .. for an interesting article.. One of our problems is.. unwanted hunters… coyotes, and bob cats.. We lost two Rotweillers to them.. sigh.. Cheers 😀
I would like to think we would be able to get our ducks to stay near the water and control the bugs – but you just never know 🙂 The pond will come, it is just very far off at this moment.
I did a lot of yapping in trying to film this piece – as such a lot of "tape" hit the editing room floor. One thing we want to do is dig out a small pond in a certain area that is after those ditches convene. Not sure what you mean exactly by "wet land" but the term makes me think of a swamp. Whatever we do, I want to be careful to maintain a balance. Around here there is already a big problem with bugs that breed in standing water, like mosquitoes, and I would want to be very careful about that
It was great to get a look at your little peice of paradise.
I am looking forward to seeing how you set up your zones.
With your water, maybe you can create wet land using the water courses that run through your property. This will also help to create some extra biodiversity.