Here is one way I'm stacking functions here at our farm.

I finally got the #biogas system up for this year, and it's starting to bubble away and I'm finally got enough pressure to supply a trickle of gas. I haven't tried to ignite it yet.

This is the Homebiogas 4 anerobic digester.

I've been feeding it cow and pig poop.

The "main" output is biogas, but the other output is this effluent rich in microbes (in the 5 gallon bucket), which goes into the worm bin for production of worms and castings.

I'm hauling the effluent to the worms by hand every couple days, but I set up the anerobic digester purposefully uphill of the worms so eventually I can gravity feed the effluent to the worms automatically.

#grownostr #permaculture #biogas #vermiculture #worms

Glad to see nostr becoming a very rich experience and glad I can be a part of that!

#grownostr

I've done some of that too.... Those were my first butterfly bush and goji berry propagations.

All this propagation talk... I'm tempted to cut some branches off that tree for propagation purposes....

Let's talk tree #propagation in your #nursery by hardwood cuttings.

Like nostr:npub1vwymuey3u7mf860ndrkw3r7dz30s0srg6tqmhtjzg7umtm6rn5eq2qzugd had mentioned... this is like printing money out of nothing, but we're printing value through biological processes and our own resources.

Hardwood cuttings are pretty simple.

You just cut a dormant branch into a size you want and stick them in the ground, literally. Make sure they are the right side up!!!

Trees such as poplars and willows can be propagated by this method.

Here are some basket willows planted from 8" cuttings to get you thinking. I use them as a wind break:

About a month ago, I planted some 1' OP-367 Hybrid Poplars.

Here they are planted into some landscape fabric to keep down the weeds, about a month ago:

Now here they are 1 month later, I'd say average 2 stems, each 18" to 2' tall:

Here are some Silky Willows (Steamco) I planted last Thursday. Already putting on growth. Planted in 3' wide landscape fabric with drip irrigation under the fabric.

That's a black walnut in the background. Printing more trees via propagation from nuts.

Now let's look at the economics. 1 month in I have 4x'ed my cutting length on the poplars, which I bought for $2.50. In the fall if they grow no taller than they are now, I have $10 worth of cuttings.

This is the 2nd year for those basket willows. I cut them down to the ground in March and they've put on 7-8' of growth already on conservatively 30 stems on each plant. Say conservatively we have 210, 1' cuttings. So now I have $500 worth of cuttings per year possible from that one plant.

Let's say we pot them up and sell them like "fastgrowingtrees.com" does for $86.95 a plant! Now we have our single "parent" plant making us $15,000+.

At this point it's a marketing game.

Or all you chicken and duck farmers, use these plants in your chicken and duck yard for cover for your birds as well as to soak up the nitrogen in their poop. The birds will weed the trees for you and help them grow faster. Stack functions in your businesses and life.

Also as an aside.... these cuttings should go in the ground earlier than July! But they still work. Pretty forgiving.

#permaculture #grownostr #propagation #nursery #business #plantstr #garden

Not at all... no offense taken whatsoever! I hope I didn't come across that way.

That sounds super awesome about your goji berries! I'm doing that with raspberries and elderberries.

I'm a computer guy by day. My job is easily replicated.

So I'm trying to build businesses that produce value that are "slow" value and not easily passed overseas or done via AI. Also things I can do with the resources I have in place.

Biological systems seem to fit that bill for me: plant propagation, bees, worms...

My overall goal is to create and share systems so others can replicate as a side hustle or full time work. Where you can manage and let the biological systems do their thing.

Thank you. I learned this from Mike McGroarty on YouTube. There are others who do similar things now as well... SaavyDirtFarmer is another.

He has a paid forum/ course you can join to discuss, learn more, and sell your rooted cuttings if you desire.

The one thing I need to do to improve it is put up some shade cloth covering to catch all the leaves/ pine needles in the fall.

I'm creating value (more plants) out of an asset I own.

Turn your landscape plants from a liability into an asset!

I suppose I am making "something" out of "nothing", like printing money, only, I'm not devaluing anyone else's money, only trading plants for their printed money.

Then giving a large portion of profits to the government through taxes 😜

Once I figure out how to get that tax money back through Food Stamps/SNAP benefits or something like that, then I'll be on to something 😉

I do willow and poplar from cuttings, for forage like you said. Growing out now to get into that business, selling cuttings.

I'm also considering raising willow trees as plugs in forestry trays.

I also do pear, apple, locust, stonefruits and nuts from seed for pasture.

I have not gotten into grafting fruit trees yet for commercial sales, just experimenting.

Here are some more pics of the mist bed and hardware for the #nursery.

First off here is the bed in operation. It's about 24' long and 3' wide and made of old landscaping timbers and filled with concrete sand. Concrete sand is chosen because it drains well.

Here are the wands. They have a pin that goes down into a hole in the head to create the mist. They haven't been cleaned in years.

I cleaned them up in some citric acid:

Here is the valve I use to control the mist wands. It's wired into a controller in the house, and connects to a piece of 3/4" PVC pipe with holes drilled in every 4' or so to accept the lines from the mist heads. The other end is fed by a 3/4" poly water line (not shown):

Finally, the controller: A Galcon 8056 AC 6S. This will control 4 valves and can be programmed down to the second which is useful for the mist system since I'm on from 8-15 seconds every 10 minutes depending on wind, temperature, etc.

#permaculture #plantstr #garden #grownostr #propagation

Here is how to take cuttings out of the mist bed in your #nursery.

These are "Green Mountain" boxwood that I propagated from softwood cuttings last year. You can find out more details about how to do that in another recent post I made.

Here are ~100 cuttings from 2 rows in the mist bed:

First, pick out a small bunch and hold them at the level you'd like to plant:

Next trim off the tops and roots. It looks harsh, but it is good for the plant: it encourages branching both above and below ground:

Next plant them in some cell flats and put under intermittent mist for a few weeks:

After they've acclimated under the mist, they can be placed under daily irrigation for a few months. Their next step is into "Trade 1" (3/4 gallon) pots.

#permaculture #plantstr #grownostr #gardening #propagation

I've been getting ready for next year's #nursery by starting cuttings in our mist bed propagation system. We will be expanding into some flowering perennials next year.

I wanted to share some quick notes on propagation by cuttings in case there is interest. Many woody perennials are propagated this way, not from seed. We are "cloning" the plant so we get a copy.

This is just one technique for propagation.

Where a plant stem has leaves coming out, provides us with the cells needed to produce roots. This area on the stem is called a "node". Therefore, for most varieties of plants we need a set of nodes below the soil to provide cells for roots.

Here is a 2 node cutting from a butterfly bush called 'Black Knight', before and after making the cutting. The leaves are stripped from the bottom node that will go under the soil. The leaves are also cut back to reduce water loss from drying out:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

If we have some plants that would have a very short space between nodes, we can make longer cuttings. Again, one node with leaves cut back that go above the ground and then strip off the leaves on all other nodes. I also wound the bottom of the cutting a bit to encourage rooting. These are cuttings from a Korean lilac called "Miss Kim":

BEFORE:

AFTER:

One exception to the rule is hydrangeas, those you can get away with a single node above ground and they will then root from the stems. This is an Annabelle Hydrangea:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Regardless of the cutting type, I dip the cuttings in a rooting hormone called "Dip And Grow" and stick the cuttings fairly close in a bed full of concrete sand. This bed is in the shade.

The cuttings should root within a few weeks. I mist 8-12 seconds every 10 minutes from 8:00 AM until about 8:30 PM at night with an automated timer.

After they root, I can leave them in the sand bed until they go dormant, or if I dig them up and pot them up I just need to keep them misted until they recover from the transplant shock.

An other option other than the mist bed is to stick them right in plastic cell packs and mist them there. That alleviates the transplant shock but takes up more room.

It varies a bit, but you can figure you can get about $1.35 per well rooted cutting, or if these are grown out and sold next year I'll be asking $10 for them.

The last thing I'll say is you can only do this legally, freely,with plants that are not patented, or whose patents have expired.

Please feel free to ask questions!

#propagation #permaculture #grownostr #plantstr #garden

Bouquet of butterfly bush for my wife and our beef ration for the week: a 25 lb chuck roll.

on

#bloomstr #carnivore #grownostr #flowerstr

One of these signs on your car should keep would be thieves or carjackers away.

#grownostr #beekeeping #bees #beestr

It's a Stihl BG 86 vacuum, handheld.

I'll get some pictures next time I do it.

I just wait for the char to dry out then vacuum it up into the bag. The impeller breaks it up into 1/2 inch pieces down to dust.

I got that idea from Michael Wittman.

Will do.. I'll be sure to post when I make more.

I wanted to share a little on the potting soil we use for the plants in our #nursery:

What we are looking for is a medium that drains easily, yet retains moisture. The cost is also a factor.

Since we pot mostly perennials, I also am looking for a fungally dominant potting mix vs. bacterially dominant as you'd have with fresh compost.

Wood chips around here are easy to get by the truckload, and I use well rotted ones for the basis of my compost mix. And by "rotted" I mean "rotted": They look like soil and are completely broken down by fungus, it takes about 2-3 years.

On top of the wood chips I add about 5% by volume charged biochar. About half of this is sifted to 1/4" + and the other half of the biochar is right out of the leaf vacuum I use to crush it up. The biochar is charged with azomite, sea minerals, worm casts, and effective microorganisms (EM-1). We make the biochar right here on the farm. It serves both to provide and retain nutrients and moisture as well as provide drainage:

Then worm castings sifted to 1/8" and finer at around 5% by volume. I also raise the worms for the casts, the current system involves growing them in 4'x8' Waste Management Bagsters:

Finally about 1 quart of activated EM-1. This is 1 oz Terraganix EM-1 mixed with 1 oz blackstrap molasses in 30 oz of water:

This all gets mixed up by hand, and then we use it to pot our plants.

I mix it in a gorilla cart which will provide enough for about 25-30 trade gallon pots.

#grownostr #permaculture #fungi #plantstr #garden

Fabio

Yeah. You have to call the number and talk to someone to order it.

They go through your application, flow rates, etc with you to help pick the right size.

So when I'm watering full out it's 3‐5 gallons a minute, so that is how they sized it.

If they got some better marketing I think they could do a lot more business.