Tag: Permaculture

June 8, 2023 – I’ll Do Better This Year, I Promise

June 8, 2023 /

I really had high hopes of doing more gardening in my life. My dad probably has 2000 square feet of productive garden (most years) that we grew up hating because it seemed like our summer days were spent weeding. Later in life, after buying produce for a number of years and realizing how poor it really was, I changed my tune.

I spent half of 2010 in China, I probably averaged 50% overtime in 2011 and 2012, I spent half my time on the road. I got a really big bonus and I decided to spend a tiny bit of it building a garden. This was the yang to my yin, something manual and about the earth not about computers and technology.

The first two years, I had a pretty good yield, but then my interests started wandering. Maybe it wasn’t my interests but the pull of life and work. Left to my own devices, I think that I would do much better. But, you have to realize your limitations. The last time I put in any serious effort was in 2019 when I was home all summer because I wasn’t working. I built an irrigation system to try and do better. I found that I was more interested in building the irrigation system than growing things. For what I had planted, I did OK.

I have said this before but for me, growing things is about experimentation. I have tested a lot of boundaries over the years. For instance, I tried to start some seeds earlier this year, but I put them in a cold frame style with temperatures in the 70s. I think that they got cooked outside.

If I was ultimately concerned about yield, I would just copy what works, buy starts of the long leader plants and provide continuous care. Part of what motivated me to build an irrigation system was because I want to put in minimal effort. Unfortunately, I tore out my garden beds the next near because of my construction expansion, so all of that work went to waste.

I have waffled around on where to build the next garden because or our sell/not sell proposition. We are ultimately going to sell but it is a matter of when, probably two years. So, I am not prone to invest a lot into building soil, or anything related to something that I will not gain a return.

Hence, I bought two tomato starts for a total of $4. My plan is to nurture these to their best potential this year. I planted in this same spot last year and I got a dozen or so small tomatoes. This year is more about me proving to myself that I do not have a black thumb. Because as much as I like pushing the limits, I am a little discouraged at my near total lack of success.

I am already starting at t disadvantage. There is a concept in permaculture where you zone your property. Zone 1 is somewhere you go multiple times a day. Zone 2 is somewhere you would go once a day. Zone 3 is used but sometimes by animals or infrequently. It goes on to Zone 5. But, I would say that my garden is in Zone 2/3 and that has always been the case.

I keep the potted plants on the deck alive and prospering because I walk past them twenty times a day. I make it a point to water every night and I notice that they are wilted and even need water in the middle of the day. My garden, not so much. There have been times when I go weeks without even walking out to it because it is out of sight.

**Tip** If you are like me, get your garden as close to your zone 1 as possible so you don’t do like me and say that you will do it tomorrow. Pretty soon, several days go by and those problems compound. So, despite where I put the tomatoes, I am going to try and change my habits to make them prosper, despite my tendencies.

End Your Programming Routine: I would definitely write more about gardening if I did more of it. I want to do more of it, but time is hard. Last night, I spent several hours staining the deck and it was almost dark when I came in. My dedication to those home projects takes priority over all the other things, including gardening when it comes to this season and that is just the way it is. We all have skills and priorities, it is how we choose to spend them. Some day, I might have the time to do all the things I want to do.

May 8, 2023 – Ethics and Laws

May 8, 2023 /

Just like when I read Atlas Shrugged and came upon the philosophical concept that ‘A is A’ this connection hit me in the face when I was writing about Animal Farm. I had never made the association that laws are moral when they fit our ethics. I have heard and even said, that law is immoral but I didn’t really get it.

But even more so than that, I finally figured out why all these things bother me. Despite the fact that I have little control over it, many of these laws violate my ethics. Don’t tell me what to do, dont prohibit by law items that have no victims, honor our tradition and culture. I don’t know, I have never sat down and figured them out. Maybe I should do that?

End Your Programming Routine: At the end of my podcast I holistically came to the phrase, “do things that matter”. This is what I try to do with all of the do-it-yourself projects and demonstrations that I do. But, I don’t emphasize that aspect of what I am trying to do enough (another epiphany). I try to offer ways to deal with programming, but I didn’t recognize that there is a second part to my tagline that I have left on the vine for far too long.

March 23, 2021- Rapers Gotta Rape

March 23, 2021 /

I heard this phrase a couple weeks ago, at least I think the link below was the right episode. I listen to this podcast mostly because it entertains me, but in a humorous way. Paul Wheaton is a big character in his words and heart so I believe that he is coming at his angle for the right reasons.

podcast 524 – The Click – Part 2

For those of you not familiar, “Permaculture” is the combination of two words, ‘Permanent’ and ‘Culture’. It is often misconstrued as ‘permanent agriculture’ which is about half of the equation. The premise as I understand it anyway is building a sustainable life which includes community and agriculture. Further, it seems like there are two camps in Permaculture. One side seems to focus on the community and the other agriculture bringing quite a dichotomy of interests together.

As I stated above, Paul has quite a way with words. He runs a forum and often uses the rant as a form of communicating his feelings. This particular rant is all about how people ‘let others do bad and get away with it’. Hence the slippery slope from ‘haters gonna hate’ to the extreme ‘rapers gonna rape’. You can read the post here.

After I got a chuckle out of the podcast, I went and read his post (several times) to see more context. I have to say that I struggled a bit following along. I have been listening for years so I am familiar with the trials and tribulations of what he is trying to accomplish. The post was pretty ‘rambly’ so it seems like he was triggered by two things. One was a video that people name the ‘Fouches’ put out and the other incident was a lackluster response to a presentation that he made at a conference called ‘Permaculture Voices’ a few years ago.

After reading the post, I watched the Fouch video (not linking to it, but is easily found on YouTube). I did find it a little petty, but for the most part it was a timid, critique of their experience. Paul has treated this as an all out assault and has pushed back with his media with extreme vile and anger. I guess you would say this is where the story ends about Paul and the real lessons begin.

If you know that you are doing something different (trying to change the world), know that there is going to be pushback. I know that when I got my first negative comment on YouTube, I was kind of PO’d about how rude it was. But, the advice is that if you do not have detractors, then you are not making a difference because you are not reaching enough people.

In my last job, I was literally running circles around the establishment to the point that they were sabotaging my customer relations and interfering with the business I was in charge of. I was making money out of written off customers, salvaging impossibly damaged projects and building a very successful team with cast-offs. I was so upset that my methods were clearly getting results and making a difference yet they would be allowed to behave unethically with no consequences, I quit. I did everything I could to get away from those people, moving divisions and going all the way to the president with my concerns. I now know that they were threatened and that by quitting I didn’t prove anything to the business. I suspect that there will come anther day in my career or whatever I do that I will be faced with this again, I have to refer to my first point above.

There are two kinds of criticisms, constructive and trolling. When I watched the Fouch video I did not see trolling. I suspect that if Paul would have followed his software engineering training rather than getting all emotional and had done a ‘root cause analysis’ he would have a better understanding of why they were not happy. I do not subscribe to the theory of pleasing everyone, but at least attempting to understand their discontent he would be in a better place.

When I looked at my YouTube comment, I understood that the guy was saying I didn’t show every nut and bolt part. I never intended to, I made the video for this blog and I was working out how to edit, embed and so forth. I get it that it wasn’t an exhaustive how to, nor did I promise that it was. Such is the way of the world so I didn’t respond back. Maybe I should have offered to help personally because he was so distraught about his situation, who knows.

I guess that where I differ from Paul is that fighting back is rarely productive. As much as I have written about government overreach and related items, has it changed one bit? Focus your energies on supporting the positive and causes/people that agree with your values for sure. But, spending time on your detractors wastes energy to that could be used to move forward.