Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Permaculture” category
Showing results 86 - 90 of 105 for the category: Permaculture.
1 Feb 2006
Let’s hear it for the nitrogen fixers. At present, nitrogen fertilisers are made from natural gas, and hence clearly won’t be able to continue for too much longer, yet nitrogen is a key ‘ingredient’ for healthy plant growth. Of course there is the fact that the average adult puts out roughly the same amount of nitrogen in their urine as it takes to grow their food, but that is an area for a later posting, and this is a bit early in the morning to be discussing urine separating toilets.
The use of nitrogen fixing plants is a very useful way of introducing this precious element into soils naturally. Nitrogen fixing plants range from
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31 Jan 2006
This one slightly stretches the definition of being a tree I’m afraid, as it is really a shrub and not a tree at all, but so delicious, so easy to grow and so wonderful is it that this list would be incomplete without it. Also known as the Chilean Guava, ***Myrtus ugni*** has a uniquely delicious taste that is beyond compare. It tastes like a kind of
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30 Jan 2006
I love walnuts. They are the finest tree you could ever plant. They should be planted everywhere, and it strikes me as one of the great wonders of our age that we have developed the life-size dancing and singing robotic Santa that wriggled its hips at me in a suggestive manner very time I went into my local corner shop over Christmas, but are only just starting to produce reliable fruiting varieties of walnut.
The first walnut I ever planted was
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27 Jan 2006
On Monday begins a new 5 part series at **TransitionCulture**, looking at trees that will be of most use to us as we redesign our communities for the realities of energy descent. I make no claim to it being a scientifically unbiased list, these are trees I have come to love and which I think will be an essential part of our transition toolkits. It’s a ridiculous concept really, as if there are only five trees that will be needed beyond oil peak, but what I am trying to do is to interest and inspire you about some of the less mentioned and more essential ones. I’ll post a new tree every day. Trees are uniquely useful, they build soil, they clean the air, they make rain, they provide habitat, they lock up carbon, they shelter, feed and inspire us, and they can be among the most beautiful things on this earth. In choosing the trees I will be offering to you in this series, I have
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17 Jan 2006
I wrote back in November about Toby Hemenway’s article on urban versus rural sustainability which had had such a profound effect on me. You might like to read his follow up article to that one, called **’Cities, peak oil, and sustainability’**, which builds on the previous one, and responds to some of the criticisms the first one has received. For me he hits the nail on the head again. The article appears in the Permaculture Activist, surely the
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Let’s hear it for the nitrogen fixers. At present, nitrogen fertilisers are made from natural gas, and hence clearly won’t be able to continue for too much longer, yet nitrogen is a key ‘ingredient’ for healthy plant growth. Of course there is the fact that the average adult puts out roughly the same amount of nitrogen in their urine as it takes to grow their food, but that is an area for a later posting, and this is a bit early in the morning to be discussing urine separating toilets. 
