Silvopasture By Addition: Planting Trees Into Actively Grazed Pastures
There are two general methods to establish silvopasture – by addition or by subtraction. This post details a method for silvopasture by addition pioneered by Wyn Miller of Lick Skillet Farm for establishing high-value trees for livestock forage, fodder and shade in actively grazed pastures managed for commercial livestock production. Her method utilizes tree tubes…
Growing Mushrooms In The Forest
Log-based Mushroom Culture Preparing Logs Mushrooms can be grown on freshly cut, inoculated logs within a natural woodland setting. Logs are recommended to be cut in late winter to early spring and inoculated shortly thereafter. There are many methods to inoculate logs, some of which work better for different types of culinary or medicinal mushrooms.…
All About Live Staking
What Is Live Staking? Live staking is a tree establishment method by which small-diameter branches or certain tree or shrub species can be pushed, dug or pounded into wet, perennially moist or irrigated soils prior to bud break, where they will strike root and become an entirely new tree or shrub. How Does Live Staking…
Air Pruning Beds For Healthy Tree Propagation
DIY Air Pruning Beds – Grow Hundreds Of Trees With Well-Formed Root Structures In A Tiny Footprint What Is Air Pruning? Air pruning is a technique for developing healthy, fibrous, non-circling and non-girdling root structures in trees and and plants raised in a nursery setting that uses air to prune and shape root systems. Trees…
Sovereign Food Systems – Pantry Ponds ~ Epi-59
Today we look at another Sovereign Food System – what I’m calling the Pantry Pond. Basically a homestead-scale aquaculture system designed to maximize your food sovereignty via independence from the centralized systems of supply and distribution for any of the inputs required to grow what you want to grow – fish, aquatic vegetables, crawfish, shrimp,…
Sovereign Food Systems – Perennial Protein From Silvopasture Meat Forests ~Epi-58
In today’s show we are talking about creating Sovereign Food Systems. I think this will be a series, or at least a collection of episodes, each one focused on a different type of sovereign food system that can be applied at a variety of scales across a broad range of contexts. Basically, a sovereign food…
Silvopasture – Sustainable Food Systems For The Era Of Energy Descent
Silvopasture is one type of agroforestry system, which is a catch-all term for managing multi-species tree-based systems for the production of valuable products (food, fiber, fodder, fuels, timber, medicine and more), often in concert with livestock and annual or perennial crops. There are six main types of agroforestry practices, between which there can be considerable…
040 – All About Amazing Vetiver Grass
Homestead Super Plant Showcase – All About Amazing Vetiver Grass If you haven’t heard of vetiver grass and are homesteading in USDA zone 7b or higher, this is a must listen! Vetiver Grass – Chrysopogon zizanioides – is a perennail, tufted, clump-forming grass that grows up to 9′ tall in the tropics, and typically 6′ tall…
010 – Air Pruning 101 – How To Grow Better Trees Than You Can Buy And Save Money Doing It
Today’s show is all about the science and application of air pruning to grow hundreds or thousands of trees with incredibly healthy root structures in a small area. Air pruning is what happens when a tap root or growing root tip gets exposed to air – it essentially dehydrates and goes dormant. This creates a…
008 – Why You Should Start Planting Trees On Your Homestead Yesterday
In today’s show we cover some of the amazing gifts and benefits that trees can provide to your homestead and larger landscape, including: Trees are the ultimate alchemists – creating stored sunlight Trees are energy translators – between the surface world and the subsurface world Trees are hydraulic engineers – they bank water for hard…
