Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yep - I visit the one EB has linked to. Tis where I met EB. Good place - though I spend much less time there than I did a few years back. Not as active as here - but a great source of info.

You call this temperate weather???
(Must be talking -10F and not C)

Yep, the coldest I saw while growing up in Cincinnati was -15 degF (I think...it has been 3 or 4 decades), one winter we had a week that never got up to 0degF (-18degC). That was very unusual, but each winter would go down to that at some time.

So how come the Mexicans, Pueto Ricans and Cubans want to move to the US.... and why doesn't everyone just arrange a swap....

Just finished up with a rash of cold weather in MN. -25F.

Is is the only killer in starting an AP system here. Have to drain it every fall no double cropping like you guys. Unless heated and Insulated.

two aussies, bill mollison and peter cundall founded the idea and the name permaculture..

a 17 y/o tassie uni student named david holmgren went to his teacher with a thesis (the teacher was mollison) and together they wrote permaculture one...

and for the next 30yrs they have taught permaculture to who ever would listen around the world.

sorry if i cause a hijack...not all of the US is that cold. winter in my area means a rare mid 30s f night, but daytime temp of 60 to 75f. but don't tell anyone

Just thought I'd post and mention that I am getting very excited about permaculture at my place again. Had a hiatus due to water restrictions and no water tanks, but now I have a goo dsize water tank full, I am keen as mustard again to get my permie garden going again. Over the years since we moved to our place, the Mrs seems to have relented on my desire to relace lawn with food forest, so the area around my veggie garde is about to expand to include fruit trees and more garden space

I would love to have a food forest! Just dont have the time and my soil is pure red clay and rocks so Im not sure I want to put out that kind of effort either, lol.

I would like a look at that food forest dvd thats for sale down under. Perhaps I might be able to buy it and ship it to one of you guys that can rip the dvd and post the file for me to download. I hate long shipping waits.

Dan - red soil and rocks sound pretty good to me. You'd have what you want in no time if you started some no dig gardens. Start with a big patch of potatoes and go fro there

I will be doing some square foot gardens this year. The top soil at my location was removed years ago when this hill was strip mined for gravel.

Hey there!

i was browsing the web for some permaculture books and i read some reviews that say:

The Manual of Teaching Permaculture Creatively
by Skye and Robin Clanfield
is the best as far as teaching methods are concerned

The Permaculture Garden by Graham Bell is supposed to be a great permaculture manual for making your own garden.

was also looking at sepp holzer's books, what do you think about all this?

thank you for your comments!

I have added a lot to the soil in the backyard with very little results so far. Now I'm planing on planting a few mexican fern trees(mile-a-minute). They grow fast and still drop there leaves. Aparently they use them to regenerate rainforests. I think a big problem nowdays is evergreen trees. No one wants to pick up leaves but it robs the soil of mulch. Planting some fast growers that will drop leaves and slowly build up the soil sounds like a better idea. Plus the shade would help some. Looking around town in winter you realise that all the trees grown localy keep there leaves all year round.

Just because some trees are "evergreen" it doesn't mean that they don't drop leaves, they just usually are not bare. Heck, where I live now, even trees I'm used to loosing their leaves in colder climates have leaves year round here.

I'm about to plant a bunch of fast growing nitrogen fixing shrubs that will hopefully provide some extra nitrogen to the soil when I prune them for mulch.

What shrubs have you chosen TCL?