The permaculture demonstration garden has trenched footpaths filled with wood chip mulch. These paths serve as an example of materials management and how everything in permaculture serves a purpose. Here’s an outline of what these paths do in the demonstration garden.
Continue readingWalking Zola, I heard the sound of chainsaws in the distance. Big Al & Sons Tree Service removed some troubled Poplar and Pine in my neighbor across the ways backyard. It only takes seconds to ask. These guys are champions.
Continue readingMartinsville, Virginia, faces a typical challenge with other mountainous areas, soil loss due to erosion issues. Permaculture-designed growing space addresses water management and creates a bounty of mulch and organic materials.
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Can you name these yellow mushrooms? It will be a few mushroom classes before I am confident about eating mushrooms found in the woods. Hundreds of these mushrooms are all around Prosperity Homestead.
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Bamboo is a valuable resource that must be managed, or it will get out of hand. In a recent post about brush clearing causing erosion, wasted resources, and a general mess — the contractor involved cut bamboo off at the ground. The only thing that would be worse than this would be to cut the bamboo and then bury it. Here's why …
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Every rain inch washes away soil, never to be seen again. Follow this soil down streams of run-off, down creeks into rivers, eventually into disappearing ponds. Lake Lanier in Martinsville, VA, like hundreds of ponds across Virginia, pays more than $150,000 to be dredged. This is a massive budget for a private pond.
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Neighbors made available to me an opportunity resource by clear-cutting brush between our homes. It was a nuisance to them, bamboo, young poplar, scrub pines, and ivy. Within this still stands large oak, hickory, and birch. This hill, as outlined by the image in red, is about a 30-degree slope heavily eroded.
Continue readingSerious homesteaders, preppers, gardeners, and wealthy individuals are actively hiring professionals to help them get the sustainability they seek. Why should you be left out?
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Our Mission Statement: This homestead provides educational resources to individuals interested in sustainable living. With partners across south central Virginia, we form a web of eco-tourism for Martinsville, VA. It is community building in practice.
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