Intro to Permaculture

Fixing and making things, what tools to get and what skills to learn, ...
7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Actually, the best stuff to store up for calamity would be rich healthy soil and some knowledge of how to grow stuff. Offers more options and resilience than over-developed plan. However, practice makes perfect, so as always “do both” is even better. Maybe start with “grow” your own soil and process nature or other human produced food first, then start planting your own.

Vaikeasti
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Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2019 3:02 pm

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by Vaikeasti »

That's the route I've decided to take 7Wannabe5, I'm composting and learning about soil and all the edible nature around me. Being able to actually use and preserve the produce is a skill that I think will be crucial if I ever actually get my garden to produce something significant.
(Still at the same time I've been trying sprouting and growing things from seeds, and even if that usually doesn't work out, I still learn.)

I have a question regarding healthy soil, but I've become wary of starting a thread. So, I'll try here.

Does anyone have some principles on how to deal with soil that is really "moldy"?
I have around 1/3 cubic meter of soil that's been shoving mildew growth. If I just dump that somewhere (like compost) won't that spread the mildew? What can I do about it? All info regarding mildew I've found, talks about fighting it when it's on the plants, or just tells to throw everything away (which I'm obviously hoping to avoid).

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The simple answer is that all soil is moldy by design or definition, so opposite of a problem. The more complicated answer is that there are a bajillion different types of fungi which may be helpful, benign, or harmful to the propagation of any given preferred human crop. Not every mildew, whitish mold growing on surface, is of one of species of the particular mildews , such as those that cause powdery mildew, which are known to be harmful. However, if previous plantings were infected with powdery mildew, likely best bet is to dump it out in Zone 5= Wilderness.

Closing loops is tough. I am in the process of throwing a large quantity of inferior, possibly formaldehyde and/or lead leaching 1950s-70s era building materials into large dumpster on my project, because I do not personally own enough Wilderness within my boundary.

Qazwer
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Joined: Thu May 16, 2019 6:51 pm

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by Qazwer »

What are some good resources for anti-Borlaug logic in a world with increasing population? Add to that GMO. Now latest playing with RNA
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/rna-bre ... ate-change
Earlier in this thread there is discussion of how need large scale agriculture to support permaculture space. I do not see any non-awful solution than techno optimism. Add in climate change and other environmental destruction created in the anthroposcene. We cannot go back. We can either go forward and hope it works out or catastrophe. Just finished a book by Smil and do not see the math any other way. How can I know techno optimism is wrong? What are good sources to show that we cannot go forward? Looking for authors, scientists to read, fields to learn. Thank you

7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Have you read “The Wizard and the Prophet?” It does,IMO, have a somewhat pro-Borlaug take on the continuing dichotomy/debate, but very interesting and well-written. Borlaug was motivated by his experience interacting with malnourished civilian corps workers and bankrupted small farmers in depression era U.S. and the claim that his efforts likely saved 1 billion humans from starvation is not without merit, so hard to pin him as pure “evil.” OTOH, as you move further along the techno-optimist spectrum through Ridley and then Diamandis, ...?

Actually, although I am huge fan of permaculture, I try to remain as objective, non-dogmatic, and open to Bayesian update as possible in reflecting on the overall system. I went through a phase where I was doing a lot of reading on the topic of what is this magical term known as I for innovation which is plugged into dubious math of economics to extend growth exponentially into future? The doomiest of the energy descent apocalypse writers argue that it is all about cheap energy and other resources which were excised as too cheap to even be considered in economic calculations over 100 years ago. Reality informs us that the structure of the modern human world is due to both short-term glut of cheap fossil fuel and that which we call innovation, and there are also complex feedback loops between these and other important factors such as population growth and urbanization. I think Geoffrey West’s “Scale” might be the best read to get a feel for the underlying skeleton or physics/math related to growth and limits to growth in human systems such as cities, corporations, etc. Ultimate bottom line is that infinite growth in finite system is impossible. Details of how/when this will play out are much more debatable.

Qazwer
Posts: 257
Joined: Thu May 16, 2019 6:51 pm

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by Qazwer »

I have read Ridley, Diamindis. I will check out the Wizard and the Prophet. While I am not a big fan of the pure economic theory work on I increasing, I am impressed with how empirically it seems to increase with population. The more empiric economics also seem persuasive. I will check out Scale as well.
A priori, I do not see a pure scientific argument as to why innovation cannot win. Yes, if you keep the terms the same, infinite growth is impossible. Yes, fossil fuels will run out. Yes, fossil fuels are changing the world in many ways for the worse. Yes, our economy and food supply relies on them. But I have no idea how that feedback loop you mention will play out. I have no idea what a good life will mean. I think being a rational techno optimist is realizing the entire game has changed multiple times throughout history and expect that it could again. Likely we do not know what will be important in 30 years. https://xkcd.com/2481/
So the optimist and realist can both co-exist.

7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Intro to Permaculture

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The concept of business and economic cycles, and of implied cycles of innovation, has been around for a long time and is now standard rhetoric in economics and the business community, even though it is primarily based on broad phenomenological deductions with little fundamental theory or mechanistic understanding. It is implicitly taken for granted, and often taken as unquestioned dogma, that as long as human beings remain inventive we will stay ahead of any impending threat by continuous and ever more ingenious innovations.

Unfortunately, however, it’s not quite as simple as that. There’s yet another major catch, and it’s a big one. The theory dictates that to sustain continuous growth the time between successive innovations has to get shorter and shorter. Thus paradigm shifting discoveries, adaptations, and innovations must occur at an increasingly accelerated pace. Not only does the pace of life inevitably quicken, but we must innovate at a faster and faster rate!

...We’re not only living on an accelerating treadmill that’s always getting faster and faster, but at some stage we have to jump on to another treadmill that is accelerating even faster and sooner or later have to jump from that one on to yet another one that is going even faster. And this entire process has to be continually repeated into the future at a faster and faster rate.
West “Scale”

OTOH, for example, it could also be argued that the urban/educational/electronic networks necessary to produce and support the intelligent systems level designs and designers of permaculture are just as modern or high-tech as the notion of a solar powered solar panel producing factory. However, I would argue that there is some important level of inherent difference between applying ingenuity at smallest most specific scale or situation vs extending innovation over entire system. In simplest terms, there are obviously many, many, many more ingenious solutions that can’t be universally applied or provide great economic benefit if traded, sold or shared, than there are solutions for which these are possible.

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