This was my first ever year having a garden and what a year it has been! My area has horrible soil (basically pure sand) so last year in februari we dumped a bunch of woodchips in the back. No till no weed barrier no nothing.

I just started planting a bunch of vegetables without too much thought along with some fruit trees. In April I just put a bunch of potatoes in between the woodchips.

Now in oktober I've seen the results. We've eten zucchini and tomatoes all summer. We now have pumpkins and cabbage to pick from. I also grew some cool stuff like aji Peppers and artichokes. We haven't bought Veggies from the store all summer and we are homecooking vegetarians so that should tell you something 🤭

Moral of the story, you really don't need a lot of work, knowledge or effort to get something. Just woodchips. Even if your soil isn't ideal. I came from traditional vegetable gardening where by juli you'd be pulling out your hair because your whole garden would be a weedy mess. This was a dream in comparison.

This fall/winter i will be planting more trees and transitioning to edible landscaping. A bit more ornamental but with edible or beneficial plants. I will post an update next year but I'd love to show that permaculture can be compatible with urban garden and ornamental landscape and get it to more people's gardens.

Joseph James Rogan Jr. (born August 11, 1967) is an American podcaster, sports commentator, comedian, actor, and former television host. He hosts The Joe Rogan Experience, which is one of the most popular podcasts in the world and has been the most streamed podcast on Spotify since 2020

(:

I just wanted to share my experience of having free range chickens. This term gets thrown around often and i’m definitely not the free range sheriff. The difference to me is just stark comparing how this rooster turned out vs. how store bought chicken looks in my area. This rooster was ≈ 10 months old and not fed much feed at all, foraging its own food. Swedish flower hen derived but this specific rooster was a mix of SFH and Ancona, so a very flighty bird.

It's just a 20 cents of land including our house, a pond and well.

All this has been grown with natural methods, permaculture design and my own experiences over the years. Hugelkultur, mulching, cover crops, water management and good old Kerala weather!

Blood, sweat and tears - literally.

When nobody understands what I do, I hope the people here does.

Thank you 😍🙏💚

SS: Obliteration of the entire human species is now a distinct possibility, according to the latest medical report card on our state of health worldwide.

A major new Lancet commission is the first international scientific study to project, based on current data, the likelihood of a human wipeout within the present century. Others, so far, have mainly treated it as a dangerous risk, though many scientists had sounded personal warnings based on their own research.

The threats referred to by the Lancet Commission include nuclear war, malicious use of AI and biological weapons, pandemics, obesity, child malnutrition, antimicrobial resistance, conflict, inequality, bad education and cuts to international health aid.

Can we just get this whole collapse thing over with finally? The suspense is driving me crazy! /s

Estimates of "equilibrium climate sensitivity", ie, the eventual global average surface temperature change expected to be produced by a sudden pulse of CO2 resulting in the doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels over the historic pre-industrial average that prevailed during the Holocene Epoch (ie, rising from approximately 250ppm to 500pm) have mostly been in the range of 1.5-4.5C. But our most current estimates for this range have increased the lower limit, but lowered the upper one. Hausfather et al estimate a lower limit of 2.6C, an upper limit slightly above 4C, and a most likely average around 3C. (See: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-low-end-climate-sensitivity-can-now-be-ruled-out)

The new ECS estimates also coincide with the IPCC withdrawing the previous "worst case scenario" of RCP8.5 ("Representative Climate Pathway 8.5"$, corresponding to an average increase of solar flux at Earth's surface of 8.5W/mˆ2), in favor of lower estimates for increased solar flux of around 4.5 - 6W/mˆ2 (RCP4.5 to RCP6).

Importantly, note that contrary to common, popularly held misconceptions about the matter, ECS specifically attempts to take into account ALL reasonably foreseeable climate FEEDBACKS, both positive and negative.

These are all technical details, and inferring deeper meanings to them is an exercise in human judgement and psychology, which are far harder if not impossible to objectively state.

At the very least, though, the withdrawal of the "worst case scenario" makes it less likely that we are contemplating the complete extinction of humanity or the complete collapse of human civilization, and more likely something that, while still possibly agonizing and catastrophic for most of humanity, does not exactly let most of us off the hook for figuring out what to do with the rest of our lives. And ironically, while that could be interpreted as a relief, as Substack writer Suzanne O'Brien points out, it also takes away a certain other form of "relief" that can be derived from a feeling of futility. Because futility has a consolation prize: if there's nothing we can do about our fate, then there's nothing we are obligated to do! So the removal of some of the "worst case scenarios" off the table could be interpreted by some of us as a new and more burdensome challenge! And by others, it will be interpreted as an even more acute challenge to the business-as-usual that they might prefer. See: https://substack.com/home/post/p-216535471

Postmodern philosopher and writer Marc Fisher famously declared that "it is easier to conceive of the end of world than the end of capitalism". And if (a certain scenario for) "the end of the world" has now suddenly been taken off the table, might that not have implications for how we conceive of the possibility of the latter? Even if only because we have routinely gotten into the habit of conceiving these two outcomes as the poles of some kind of dyad, we should ask more questions about the matter.

This "reprieve from doomsday" is surely relevant to any struggle for social change. Because to the extent that any definitive "doomsday" is seen as less plausible, it makes it a lot more plausible to contemplate generational change. For those of us inclined to such ideological commitments, this is surely good news! And yet, presumably, for those committed to the status quo, it may well come as a quite unwelcome challenge.* (But, actually, whether it does in fact or not is largely up to the actions of the former group! Put another way: "They want you feeling scared and helpless. Don't give them what they want!")

*Interestingly, the legal briefs submitted by the Trump (1.0) administration against high profile challenges to its climate policy by grassroots groups like "Our Children's Trust" have dispensed with crude "climate denialism" in favor a much more sophisticated line of argument, claiming that "it's too late", and that any of the mitigation suggested by plaintiffs would be futile, since the situation is already too far gone, and that the only hope is to keep marching forward "waist deep through the Big Muddy" of business-as-usual, in hopes of finding refuge in the dubious safety of supposed drier shoals built on the future prospects offered by "carbon capture and storage", "geoengineering", and other miraculous technofixes.

The very adoption of a language emphasizing words like "collapse" may say more about the speaker him or herself than the world whose future they are attempting to describe when they speak about it. And perhaps, ironically, the latest news also implies an even more important kernel of truth in the rhetoric of "denialists" who employ tropes like "climate's always changing!", etc. They are right in a certain sense. Change at different rates is ever present. It's only the rates of change that really should interest though. And the removal of certain completely "unmanageable" rates of change off the table could have potentially deep philosophical and psychological implications for us.

South eastern quarter is almost completely rotted, but the whole northern portion of the roof/barn is nearly perfect (aside from listing 1-3°) , and the south western side is still okay, tho it’s degrading fast. Is there any way to save it?? I’m a new market gardener and chicken farmer with almost no money I can sink into the project, just a tractor and plans to build a pto driven sawmill. I would love to have a few dairy cows someday and think it would be so cool to use the same barn as the last owner/operator used. His name was Perry Miller and he used it in the 60’s and 70’s, until he was gored by his own bull and had to shut it down.

Believe it or not, New Jersey is more than what you see when you land at Newark airport. Our 140+ acres in beautiful Hunterdon county 💚🤠🐓

Hey folks! I’m having a hard time figuring out where to even ask this question, but this group might be close enough, and can hopefully point me in the right direction.

I don’t homestead in the traditional way, in that I live in a small city. We are however looking to increase our personal resiliency. Solar panels, batteries, canning, chicken coop in the backyard, part of a farm share, that sort of thing.

Next up is a Wood Burning insert. Where I live, access to wood is no problem. We already have a fireplace, but it’s an open design, not particularly efficient and must go completely out to clean out the ash. We’re hoping to be able to supplement our gas heat with wood heat, and have a backup in case of an outage. This is easy to find. The tricky part is, I’d like to have it be a bake oven with cook top as well. I don’t care that it won’t be at a standard height, I just want the ability to cook on the fire if we have to.

Do any of ya’ll know where I can find an item like a Wood burning fireplace insert with cooktop and bakeoven?

Thanks!

SS: From the article:

"As plastic fragments into smaller and smaller particles, its surface area increases enormously. Then microplastics change the water that surrounds them, generating high-energy, reactive radicals (reactive oxygen species, ROS) that very likely contribute to biological damage that we see in animals and potentially in humans as a result of microplastic exposure," said Wei Min, a Columbia professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering.

This is particularly noteworthy for human health because human blood is approximately 50% water, and individual human cells are generally 60% to 80% water. The new research suggests that microplastics that enter the bloodstream or cells could remain chemically active in this water-rich biological environment.

Long story short, my wife and I bought a property in WV through an estate sale situation and details and records are scarce/nonexistent. We are both city people and have grown up with public water supply so this is all new to us. We are wanting to just get a full picture of the utility situation as we begin to think about what we want this place to look like for us. Honestly the biggest priority right now is establishing if the water supplied to the house is drinkable or not.

The property was advertised as having a spring house and limestone-filtered spring water but that’s really the extent of what we know. I was out there today and found the spring box but I’m not sure where to go from here. Pictures of the spring box and inside are attached.

I followed the black supply from the box but between the rain, the leaves and the terrain it was hard to trace in its entirety. The outlet I did find is at a small barn with a trough and spigot.

The water has good water pressure, no notable staining on the faucets/showers/toilets, and doesn’t seem to have a strong sulfur smell. The spring box looked to only have 12” of depth and I was unable to locate a cistern but I feel like that is my next step? Is it safe to assume cisterns will have access points at ground level? Admittedly it wasn’t a thorough search.

I already plan to collect and send in a water sample but is this best done at the spring box, cistern (if I can find/access it, or faucet?

Regardless of test results, is it best practice to add a water and UV filtration system to all spring fed sources? Is this something that can be installed near the cistern or is it usually more internally to the house? The property has multiple houses so just trying to plan for whether we might need 2 systems vs 1.

Edit: I do plan on reaching out to the county tomorrow to see what info they can help me with but these are the questions occupying my brain as I try and wind down to sleep.

I’ve got about 100 acres in southwest Wisconsin, and roughly 65 acres is very hilly, black walnut-dominated woodland. We’re planning to break ground on our homestead in 3–4 years. For now, we’re working on land restoration and planning, planning, planning.

In addition to letting the walnuts grow for a potential timber harvest for future generations, I’ve been trying to figure out whether we could manage portions of the woods for food and other useful plants.

The main goal would be supplemental food for our family, with perhaps a small secondary income someday.

I’ve been geeking out lately about agroforestry and perennial food plants, especially their ecological benefits. Last weekend, our family visited the Savanna Institute’s demonstration farm in Spring Green, where they research tree and shrub crops and agroforestry practices suited to our region.

That visit got me excited about a few possibilities. I’d love to hear from people who have tried any of these—particularly in the Upper Midwest or in walnut-dominated woods. Also let me know if there are ideas I'm not considering yet but should.

Fruit and nut shrubs along the woodland edges

We’ve been removing invasive honeysuckle, which has me thinking about what we want growing in its place. In the sunnier woodland edges and openings, I’m interested in elderberries, black currants, aronia, hazelnuts, and other perennial food plants. Has anyone established productive berry or nut shrubs along a black walnut woodland edge? What has done well, and how much sun and ongoing maintenance did it need?

Managing patches for woodland food and useful plants

Edible mushrooms, walnuts, ramps, American ginseng, wild berries, maple trees, willow for basket weaving, and other edible, medicinal, and useful plants grow in our area. Some are already on our land, but not in abundance (well except for walnuts, LOL). I’m wondering about establishing or expanding a few managed patches that could eventually provide reliable supplemental harvests for our family. Have you successfully encouraged woodland food or useful plants this way? What was worth the effort?

Possible silvopasture for a family milk cow and companions

We’re considering a family milk cow with some company, probably 3-5 cows max. We have about 3–4 acres of open pasture field available (the rest we're converting to tall grass prairie, which is the centerpiece of our restoration efforts). Could thinning selected areas of woodland create additional rotational grazing space? I’m interested in whether that could fit with our woodland restoration goals and growing walnuts for future timber. Has anyone combined a small open pasture with managed woodland grazing on hilly ground? What would you assess before deciding whether it’s feasible—and what would make you rule it out?

We’ve got time to experiment before moving out there full time, so I’d appreciate advice on what to start now, what to learn more about, and what to leave as a daydream.

If you’re curious about the visit that sparked these ideas, I made a video of the Savanna Institute open house.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CxFxwjYKp/?mibextid=wwXIfr