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Post by MikeH on Nov 23, 2012 4:40:50 GMT -5
Since there doesn't seem to be a thread to collect them........
The Gift is a portrait of Dan Jason, a pioneer in seed farming who has gone against the grain of industrial agriculture. He shares with us an alternate vision of the bounty nature provides.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 23, 2012 13:18:28 GMT -5
Gotta love that seed threshing box.
At 1:27 there was a photo of the wheat that was developed on the farm I grew up on by my gg-grandfather. The family story we tell about his wheat is that James was walking through his wheat field and he saw one wheat plant that was growing much more robustly than any of the other plants. He saved the seed from that plant separately and replanted. Before the Green Revolution it was the most widely planted wheat in Northern Utah and Southern Idaho.
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Post by davida on Nov 23, 2012 14:47:24 GMT -5
Gotta love that seed threshing box. At 1:27 there was a photo of the wheat that was developed on the farm I grew up on by my gg-grandfather. The family story we tell about his wheat is that James was walking through his wheat field and he saw one wheat plant that was growing much more robustly than any of the other plants. He saved the seed from that plant separately and replanted. Before the Green Revolution it was the most widely planted wheat in Northern Utah and Southern Idaho. I liked the threshing box also. Another project to build during the winter. I noticed the Lofthouse wheat. What a great family history.
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Post by raymondo on Nov 23, 2012 18:05:34 GMT -5
My ears pricked up whan I heard the name Lofthouse. I wondered whether it was your family Joseph. Farmers are an observant lot.
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Post by MikeH on Dec 4, 2012 13:58:15 GMT -5
Making a Living on 1.5 acres Techniques for Small Scale Intensive Organic Market Gardening [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBDcsLKwxew&feature=youtu.be [/youtube] Since 2004, Jean-Martin Fortier and his wife have been making a good living by growing on less than 1½ acres, on their farm Les Jardins de la Grelinette in Quebec, just north of the Vermont border. Last year, they sold more than $130,000 worth of vegetables, selling at two farmers’ markets and through their 140 member, 21-week CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). How they do this is the topic of a book Jean-Martin recently authored in French called Le jardinier-maraîcher: manuel d’agriculture biologique sur petite surface.
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Post by MikeH on Jan 1, 2013 18:27:41 GMT -5
It's for children and then you realize that you've been drawn into it.
[video src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl7ujHupWgQ&feature=youtu.be[/center]"][/video]
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Post by trixtrax on Jan 1, 2013 22:51:49 GMT -5
Does anyone know what the seeding machine is in the Les Jardins de la Grelinette video posted by MikeH? Very cool stuff
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Post by sandbar on Jan 6, 2013 23:38:20 GMT -5
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Post by MikeH on Jan 23, 2013 20:27:09 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Jan 23, 2013 22:39:19 GMT -5
It's a pleasure to see people work together to accomplish something "just because it's a good thing".
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Post by MikeH on Jan 24, 2013 8:25:00 GMT -5
Yeh, it's such a small difference between saying "We can do that" and "We can't do that" but the impact of each is immeasurable.
I find that when we transplant saplings, albeit bareroot, it takes 3 years for them to adjust. This tree will take many more years than that.
Hopefully, they maintain a regular watering programme for at least 5 years. That tree has had a massive shock with the severing of its roots.
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Post by steev on Jan 24, 2013 14:24:56 GMT -5
I was once hired by a client in a richer area of affluent Piedmont; she'd just graduated from a program in landscape design and wanted her huge front yard re-done to show her skills; we were to do the demolition. At the angle of the sidewalk and driveway there was a perfectly conical 12' Blue Spruce which was to go, though we hated to destroy it. We scheduled work to start the next Monday.
Saturday night, at some event, she met a guy from a tree-relocation service who said he'd be happy to take it off her hands and conscience first thing Monday.
He shows up with a huge flat-bed truck with a hydraulic apparatus at the back, backs up near the tree and starts working control levers, rotating this huge bucket 90 degrees off the rear, opening it like a clamshell, raising the four curved triangular spades that formed the bucket so they separated, extended it and closed it around the tree; the idea being that as the spades were driven into the soil, they would meet, re-forming the bucket, which would hold the tree, rotate back 90 degrees, retract to the truck, and there's the tree, lying on the flat-bed, rootball and all, ready to tarp and go, easy-peasy.
He said he wished he could position the spades a foot further toward the street, but there was the sidewalk, so he commenced driving the spades, one scraping its back on the cement, but all very impressive.
Then the burglar alarm went off, soon stopping. Thinking he'd cut its cable, she went in to call the company; the phone line was dead. Oh, well, deal with it all later. Her kid came out to report the cable TV wasn't working. Well, get it over. Water spouted from the ground; oops, the watermain was cut (who knew it had been rerouted from the meter when the driveway was widened?). Sparks were flying (the electrical lines were underground, of course). Got the tree out, and the water shut off. Remember wanting to start the spade a foot further out? That spade hadn't just been scraping the edge of the sidewalk; there was a shiney spot on the gas main for the whole block which was right along that edge, quite near the sparking cable.
All I could think to say to her was "At least it wasn't your first client". The tree was fine. Easy peasy.
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Post by MikeH on Mar 4, 2013 13:14:24 GMT -5
The Fruit Hunters
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Post by MikeH on Mar 9, 2013 14:29:09 GMT -5
Controlled livestock grazing that mimics Nature is the solution to desertification. An elegantly simple solution. Unfortunately, the fact that it involves man makes it complex to execute. There are examples though - Joel Salatin and Mark Shephard immediately come to mind - of people who practice rotational livestock grazing.
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Post by MikeH on Mar 10, 2013 7:02:08 GMT -5
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