As we buckle down and continue to read and plan (or purposeful lack there of!) for the homestead we strive to build next year I have found some really awesome resources. With the resources came motivations, local and far, to change my perspective. So much so that I find myself in quite a human intellect driven pickle! Biodynamic farming as we all know is a far cry from conventional agriculture, and a step up from organic agriculture. Permaculture, or the aspects I am absorbing, seems to incorporate a little less human labor and intervention, while still guiding agriculture and food production slightly. Then comes Natural Farming, or 'do nothing' farming which says human intellect has gone far outside its necessary bounds in this grand organism's sphere of influence. As nature knows and does best, the least amount of intervention by us is of utmost importance, hence no weeding, no tilling, no watering, no fertilizing, ultimately little to no planning. In such a case, all that is left is dispersing seed of native variety plants. Mostly legumes (tree to vines), cover crops, and mineral accumulators to naturally feed the soil. Seed balls are created and scattered in this method full of perennial flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, herbs, and the aforementioned green manure, accumulator crops. I have actually stumbled upon a few gardens and landscapes which use such practices and let nature make the greater percentage of decisions, such as Nature's Way Farm in hampstead, not watering a 50'x50' garden for 20+ years. Or even Jane's humble abode and the way the landscape and nature have seemingly designed a greater part of the vegetation naturally over time. Ideally we hope to manifest about 4 acres of edible food forest ranging from apples, pears, pawpaws to currants, blueberries, blackberries, goji berries, groundnuts, sea buckthorn, buffaloberry, ground cherry, kiwi, chinese wild yam (steiner's liferoot), prairie turnip, and much much more including leafy greens, perennial vegetables, even annual veggie and herb seeds we sow in seed balls. The idea is to blend these techniques and practices I have witnessed and learned to create this self sustaining foraging food forest, with the least amount of work input. Through swales and utilizing the slight hill we will inhabit I possibly hope to grow rice and utilize biodynamic flow forms too.

If you have followed this far, you are awesome... Possibly you can now see how my perspectives are shifting on agriculture. I even found an awesome farm out near Pittsboro that uses both Biodynamics and Natural Farming, growing rice in Chatham County NC haha awesome! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVupdIEH_7I

Anywho, here are the resources I have been deriving this information from, I hope it helps in some way!

• Documentary on just mulching, to simulate and create a forest floor type soil structure: http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/ film free at bottom, uses specific mulch, typically free from tree clearing companies, foraging chickens, and pruning old growth to flourish.

• Permaculture and food forest design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIFfTX7SPLs using legumes and fast growing soil fixers to usher in a food forest of fruit trees, fruit bushes, vines, and tubers within 3 years, 7 year old example to show towards end. 1 hour 22 minutes, lot to take in. Geoff Lawton is the man to learn basics from (youtube videos at this point or books, as his main website has turned into a sales pitch instead of the 20+ different short videos on varies subjects), keep in mind a lot of his work is in New Zealand and Australia so species and climates will differ but concepts won't.

• Another on Permaculture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXVnAMQRGbI 48 minutes easier to digest.

• This one on Natural Farming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft0ylk4sU5M 1 hour

• One source I have found to be absolutely priceless in learning and putting thought into our land is John K.'s site, http://tcpermaculture.com/site he has done amazing work! One of the hardest stumbling blocks when trying to learn Permaculture in this climate is the shift to a temperate climate mindset and biodiversity. I will use this site for years to come, on top of the dozens of hours spent there already.

• Another site I found useful to comparing and gathering information was http://www.fruitipedia.com/index.htm a pretty cool resource to food sources we commonly overlook from plants because they are not in Harris teeter, or even Tidal Creek for that matter, mostly fruits.

• Peter Tompkins' and Christopher Bird's Secrets of the Soil is a book I would recommend to anyone who is serious about not only producing food, but desires a better world through stewardship of soil and Nature. It is a hard read and took me over 3 years to complete 24 chapters, but the knowledge to be gained is invaluable. Some call it witchcraft, but like race, social status, sexual preference, religious resonance, we should hopefully be past the age of judgement and fear of the unknown.

• The Natural Way of Farming, the Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy by Masanobu Fukuoka. This book will help to deteriorate the dependency we find for science and technology driven agriculture, our modern day conventional mockery of stewardship. From Liebig's law of minimums to the scientific method, even organic farming practices are philosophically approached. It has helped to deteriorate my perceived need for man's intellectually contrived work. Nature truly works perfectly and if we can be humble enough to embrace the humility of errors and ignorance, we can turn our species around for the better.

• Fukuoka also has a book entitled The One-Straw Revolution. I have yet to read. Both books seem to teach, from Fukuoka's experience and observations, letting Nature play her rhythm with the least amount of intervention possible.

• Sepp Holzer has an awesome book on Permaculture as well.

• http://www.permies.com has an amazing forum for Permaculture techniques of all kind, it is a way of living to some and the topics covered express this clearly.

• http://www.pfaf.org/user/Default.aspx has lots of info about many plant remedies and uses among growing conditions and more.

• http://www.xerces.org/pollinators-mid-atlantic-region/ Is preselected for our living region, if you live elsewhere please choose your geographic location. This site is an excellent resource for pollinator information. One link I used heavily was of the native perennial flowers to which pollinators will choose first, based off both color or time of blooms.

It feels to me as though Natural Farming, Permaculture and Biodynamics have similar perspective and reverence for Nature, each with their respective core lessons. This lifetime I am resonating best with a blend of the three practices, in an attempted to re create a garden of eden. A Garden of Eden in which we don't cast aside our plant, animal, and spirit co companions as lesser life forms, resulting in our embrace of balance and harmony.

The gardens are doing well here in Wimington, not much to update nor take pictures of until Spring.. bare with us folks, only a few more weeks! The crab apple, bulbs, and even azaleas are showing signs of spring coming ever closer in the cycle of seasons.