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Old 06-04-2007, 05:47 AM posted to aus.gardens
FarmI FarmI is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Feb 2007
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Default worms! (book recommendation)

"Chookie" wrote in message "0tterbot"
wrote:

it IS! (the previous residents ["permie me, la la la"] , that is, not
necessarily permaculture as a whole). for e.g. they wrote in their farm
report how they located the chooks in the orchard (excellent, no problem
there) but didn't explain why they put the run in a far-off corner
equally
distant from two taps but close to neither. (nor why they planted
raspberries & an apple tree IN there with the chickens where the chooks
destroy them, etc). or why they planted all the trees so close (i know
some
people are into close planting & that's fine cos i am too, but a hazlenut
&
a fig literally a metre apart? i think not!!) i could go on & on.
everything
from paths to fences to trees and everything in between has been put in
places i cannot fathom. there's a row of jonquils 100m long in a straight
line. we have had to cut down so many trees in the yard (due to being
located either dangerously, ridiculously, or unable to grow) that it's
disturbing to us. they installed leaky hose in the orchard at great
expense
but for nothing, as relatively little (it appears) survived the 2.5-odd
years between them & us when the place was a weekender (& hence mostly
neglected) even though the drought here was not so bad & there's no real
reason things should have died like that had they been well-placed
originally. i would note that the raspberries in teh chook run survived
(until i got more chooks, that is) yet their blueberries etc put in at
(again) great expense & with a great deal of "planning" (cough) didn't.
many
fruit trees just didn't. for all the work they did (which was apparently
considerable - soil testing & surveys over the entire property, etc etc)
they haven't left anything anyone would want - it didn't last. only the
misplaced infrastructure has!!


OK, I'd say not permies, just idiots.


Yep. It sounds like idiots to me to. Just because they called themselves
(or saw themselves) as being permies, doesn't mean that they were or that
they even understood the principles. I don't call myself a permie but I do
use some of their principles to my advantage. I have to take account of the
tastes and interests of another resident in garden design and I also
inherited a garden which would need significant redesign to be a permie
garden. I live with what I have and who I do and just use some ideas as and
when I can.

Your lot sound like total dills and inexperienced and unthinking ones at
that.

I would guess they had never kept
chooks before and didn't know they needed care at least once a day (eggs,
food, water) -- this is usually mentioned specifically in the pc books I
have
read. Therefore, you want the chooks close, but not too close, to the
house
(and water tap and feed bins).

Close planting of (productive) trees is the cardinal sign of the novice.


And not just productive trees either. BUT, I do know someone who plants
very, very close together and she has a wonderful garden and they use the
cull as firewood.

Note
that in some cases people plant wattles and similar as "nursemaids"
(dappled
shade for slower-growing productive trees, and if these were left to grow
instead of being removed once the saplings were bigger, you'd end up with
a
jungle. The years of neglect might account for part of what you are
seeing.
Could the fig or hazel be self-sown, for example?

The 100m of jonquils might have been an earlier planting -- it certainly
doesn't sound like something a permie would do. What was the history of
the property? Was there a house on it 100 years ago?


And I can't for the life of me remember one incidence of permie planting of
Jonquils. It does make sense however to plant in rows if they intended to
plant for the cut flower trade and if they were the dills like they ousn
like, they may have planted one row, lost enthusiasm and then never planted
more. Think of how many "vineyards" one sees when driving the countryside
that are obviously asd and sorry experiments. I can show you one in my
front paddock (I TOLD him not to plant it there, but what would I knoe, I'm
just the one who has had the lifelong interest in growing things and am not
a male so obviously I don't know best).