Permaculture Seedball Forest Gardening, page 1

Originally posted by cavscout
Sounds like a good idea for farming in a coniferous forest where soil ph is often far from ideal due to years of pine needles covering the soil.

Here there is an advanced search where you can look for plants based on location, soil type or many other factors.

www.ibiblio.org...

A+ thread.

Thanks :-D

I learn from the top of ATS.
Truly a wonderful school,
of well organized posters.

I wonder if seed balls stored in one gallon zip locks would keep for a couple of years.

It's true that being in a seedball,
may make the environment more hospitable for the seeds,
as it will let the temperature and humidity fluctuate more evenly.

seeds generally only last a few years.
www.hillgardens.com...

here is a website on conventional ways of storing seed.
howtosaveseeds.com...

Think about the storage potential for a survival scenario. Imagine a single large ball, wrapped in burlap or thatched peat, dried out and stored with a seed packet in an extra large zip lock. You could grow any common garden vegetable that way.

seedballs are usually many marble size balls, with seeds in them already.
it's a method of distribution,
and it is true you can grow any common garden vegetable,
as well as many other kinds of plants in such a manner.

if you mean to have clay, compost and seed ready to make seedballs.
yes this is certainly a good idea.

in toronto the soil is so clayful that I usually just mix the topsoil with the clay layer underneath to make my seedballs.
so I make them directly in the field,
then I take seedball size clumps and throw them,
they dry into balls with the sunlight.
so it's a bit quicker and easier.

I've even done it with larger seeds,
like plum and peaches,
with correspondingly larger seedballs.

You could make seed 'blocks' that resemble rockwool but lend more themselves to organic vegetable gardens.

A one foot block tightly bound in burlap could grow 16 carrots, 8 bean plants, one tomato plant, one corn plant

this sounds more like container gardening.

On those lines, imagine utilizing stored seed balls or blocks in the aftermath of nuclear fallout. Typical procedure after fallout is to remove the top soil to a certain depth determined by the amount of rain fall.

With seed balls one could wait till the fallout radiation to dissipate to reasonable levels (1 month+) and set out seed balls on a rinsed or protected surface, such as the interior walls of a sealed building that did not have central air running during heavy fallout periods directly after the disaster. Simply remove wall paneling outside and set the balls on them.

Personally I think that's a bad idea.
Most of people that did that kind of stuff in Ukraine or Belarus after Chernobyl, died.
Dealing with radioactive waste is quite often fatal.

YouTube Link

A much better solution is simply to go somewhere else,
where it is farther away from any fallout.

Most likely only highly populated centers,
and critical transportation junctures would be targeted.

So getting to an upwind rural or wilderness area is recommended.
Remember in the temperate latitudes we mainly have westerlies,
flowing from west to east,
so being on the west coast is upwind of the rest of the continent.

Make sure to avoid being on the east of any fallout.
Though as happened at Chernobyl where there were south easterly winds,
the wind might be traveling in a different direction than usual.
So check where it's going at the time.

Nature will naturally restore the land.
As it has in Chernobyl,
there are birds nesting on the reactor.

Nature is doing quite fine,
it's now called "wolfs land",
many wolves, chickens and pigs,
it's mainly the humans that have left.

Perhaps due to much genetic engineering,
homo-sapiens genes are more fragile.

Ra from Law of One has stated there are radiation resilient beings in some deep forests,
that will be able to intermix with us in case the radiation levels become excessive.

9.18 Questioner: I didn’t understand what these vehicles or beings were for that were appropriate in the event of nuclear war.

Ra: I am Ra. These are beings which exist as instinctual second-density beings which are being held in reserve to form what you would call a gene pool in case these body complexes are needed. These body complexes are greatly able to withstand the rigors of radiation which the body complexes you now inhabit could not do.

lawofone.info...

When I imagine (remote-view) them,
I see white and black fur with red eyes,
highly stealthy and quick,
they have tails.

I am going to try this out. I am in the Pacific North West and it is not too late to try this out and get some small harvest in the fall starting with seed and transplants.

Yes certainly is a good idea.

Getting good at gardening to a level sufficient
to provide for even just yourself,
can take a few years of practice.

Also when you garden you'll get lots more seeds.

I may even write up an article posting my results here. I can take pictures and compare results

Great Idea!
:-D *hugs*

I've done something quite similar.
From seedballs I threw last year I've gotten some wild strawberries growing:

YouTube Link

From seedballs thrown earlier this spring already got some peas going strong:

YouTube Link

with other mediums like rockwool and passive hydro systems that utilize similar volumes of water. Of course I would have to add fert to the passive hydro but now I will try to find natural and organic nutrients to add to the water.

in case of an SHTF event,
how are you going to get rockwool or hydroponics?
lol

might as well get your plants growing in the natural environment,
then they could spread "wild" so you wont have to seed them yourself.

Oh, maybe you could place seed balls/blocks in trees to break the canopy of dense forest! You could rest a 1 ft block on a high tree branch secured with strips of burlap that wont harm the tree as it grows if it becomes necessary to leave the area quickly. Can you imagine pine tree full of tomato plants?

I can imagine it.
Though I can also imagine how difficult it would be to get them up there.

One way I was thinking of getting more light through the canopy is by introducing honey fungus.
en.wikipedia.org...

They are tasty healthy mushrooms.
And are a self-sustaining way of clearing trees.
For immediate vicinity cases a saw or axe can be used.
For generally thinning out the forest for more light,
honey fungus can be self-sustaining,
and food bearing.

Mushrooms are the only natural sources
of supplemental vitamin D and B12 for vegans.

Talk about a good way to avoid slugs!

The forest gardening solution is ducks.
Many ducks love to eat snails.
So might want to have at least one pond.
Ponds can also be very high producers.

Ducks might also eat other things,
so make sure to have enough food for the whole family.

Man, this is just what I have been looking for to pass the time, I'll keep you updated.

Thanks OP for the idea!

Would be cool to see others in different climates give this a go too.
[edit on 28-5-2010 by cavscout]

Seedballing and forest gardening been done in many different environments.
In India and Africa some forest gardens are centuries if not millennium old.
Indeed one might say all of nature is a forest garden,
every animal doing it's part as a gardner.

Sumerian slave powered plow agriculture has made sustenance difficult.

Homo-sapiens can also work with nature,
to produce a plethora of food,
for self and others

[edit on 28-5-2010 by lowki]