Horticultural society

[Ludi]

I don't know what the "permaculture list" is, but I would avoid introducing species which are considered or may be invasive in your local ecosystem.

I have planted cinnamon vine aka Hardy Yam, but far from being invasive here, it has died every time I've tried to grow it.

[rattleshirt]

My cinnamon vine plants are doing ok despite being left in little pots and not water for weeks, the one I gave my friend early in the summer is about 7 ft. tall and has lots of aerial tubers on it. I started them from aerial tubers in the spring.

[Sober]

What is exactly horticulture? small-scale farming?

[redstategreen]

More like gardening.

[General Doom]

Yes, my understanding is the difference between horticulture and agriculture is basically one of scale. I looked up the definition and that seems correct. I also tend to think of agriculture as monocropping (e.g. giant fields of corn), with horticulture using a diversity of plants in a given area, but I don't know if that's part of the official definition.

[Ludi]

Here's a discussion about the difference between horticulture and agriculture:

http://tobyspeople.com/anthropik/2007/0 ... index.html

Jason Godesky thinks there is a much more profound difference than merely scale.

'The distinction of “agriculture” from “permaculture” may seem quibbling or even pedantic, but it strikes directly to the heart of this phenomenon, the most important change in human history. As members of a culture on one side of that historical divide, we are naturally inclined to see our way as the only way, even though it is the novel, untested way. To call horticulture or permaculture a subspecies of agriculture is one symptom of this, a semantically Freudian slip that evinces and reinforces a much deeper cultural conviction, and a much deeper cultural narrative. By transforming the living world into nothing more than a unit of production, agriculture trains us to see all cultivation not in terms of ecological relationship, but as an economic equation of energy in and energy out. It makes our scale one of how much we modify the ecology, rather than the kind of modifications we make. Intrinsic to this view is our mythology of humans vs. nature, reflected most recently in the Romantic view of “wilderness,”9 but stretching back even further, to be found in the struggles of “human vs. nature” set up in Antigone with Antigone and Creon, and before that, in the Platonic dualism of the world of Forms, a mythic narrative of the literate mind.10 That is to say, what compels us to see horticulture as a kind of agriculture is precisely the underlying problems that define agriculture itself. Stepping beyond that gets us past clumsy phrases like Quinn’s “totalitarian agriculture,” aligns us with our colloquial understanding of the differences between “farm” and “garden,” and sets us in a point of view that immediately highlights the most fundamental crisis of our time: the catastrophic nature of agriculture, and the hope we still have in horticulture.'

[hillsidedigger]

My 20,000+ square feet of cultivated area is not monoculture at all with about 50 different produce and grain crops planted and harvested each year. As well, the area is surrounded by about an acre of fruit trees, fruit vines, nut trees and some perrenial food plants like artichokes, asparagus and rhubarb all managed with 'organic methods' and no motorized equipment.

On the cultivated area which lies on a North-facing slope I have constructed with a shovel 18 semi-permanent raised planting ridges of 180' in length with about 8' between the centerlines of the ridges. The ridges are planted with the primary crops with many of the ridges having multiple crops per year. Between the ridges in what amounts to a flat step I plant grains and legumes for feed for the 12 chickens and also with a green barley and pea crop thru the winter for the birds. Note - The chickens are mainly for fertilizer production with the eggs and garden insect control as a bonus. The chickens will die when they get old and be buried among the fruit trees.

While at this time I would only call this activity a hobby it still only takes a yearround average of about 2 hours per day for ridge reworking and management, planting, cultivating and harvesting and I wish I had the time to expand the area and work on it 4 hours per day. Even though it's on a slope there is no net erosion. In fact over the year I move dirt up the hill.

Horticulture? Permaculture? Something like it or at least moving in that direction.