Sine Firewood

Firewood #1

Boycott war, Capitalism, and boredom. grow your own food! Nothing beats it! Put a seed in the ground, get your hands dirty, pick and cook the most delicious, fresh food. Get to know the seasons and the local snails. Best of all, you'll never run out of things to learn, the garden is full of surprises.

One of the main areas of research at our farm is in what has been dubbed "Paradise Gardening."* We want to turn our little five acres into an edible paradise. Fortunately nature has already done most of this for us, and if we were knowledgeable enough,we should be able to live off of the land just as it is. We would probably have to fish and gather shellfish as well in order to survive, and some of us are already doing that; but the idea of paradise gardening is that it is a kind of step between hunting and gathering and agriculture, although it's aim is to loose the agriculture part completely. It's kind of like extreme permaculture. Many hunting and gathering cultures practiced this kind of "gardening" simply by taking care of and tending the plants they were gathering from, ensuring that nothing was never depleted.

One way to move in this direction is to plant a lot of perennials. Annuals require an amazing amount of work and must be replanted every year. We still have a large garden space dedicated to annuals, and with permaculture methods and seed saving, we hope to reduce the work and the cost of this part of our garden. Another problem with a garden of annuals is the nutrient depletion of the soil, but we are taking care of that problem with our handy automatic humanure factory. Perennials are the backbone of the paradise garden. Fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, bamboos, artichokes and many other plants can provide. an incredible amount of food with just about zero work involved.