grazing / cultivation land ???

[phytochemical]

firstly - great stuff - i heard about peter andrews' book on the radio, bought both, and devoured 'back from' and 'beyond' in one day.
 
i'm currently looking at buying some landholding and converting it into a carpet-bombed green permacultural paradise (!) using the principles of permaculture and nsf. i don't expect to make much (or any) money from it - i'll be giving what i don't use away or recycling it back into the soil - but i see it as a small way of giving back, helping to repair a small part of the country.
 
i've been looking around for land on the nsw coast and the the best value seems to be mid north coast nsw, around kempsey (any closer to sydney on the north, and the ENTIRE south coast are out of my price range). but looking at the soil maps from the nsw govt, they seem to suggest the land is suitable for grazing not cultivation. this is a bit confusing to me - i've been up there to look at properties and particularly on the plains the soil and grass 'look' great (i don't see many trees but i put that down to the stupidity of modern agriculture). should i pay head to these classifications and look elsewhere? the area has good rainfall. if i follow nsf principles - mulch - grow a very rich diversity of tree, shrub and grass species, break the area up into the three sectors peter proposes, and continually impreove the soil, do i stand a chance of success in this area? the success stories i keep hearing about seem to be on much drier and degraded land than this.
 
and would i be ok on the plains - like totally flat clybucca/kinchela (would love to be near south west rocks), or should i look at the hills to the west where the the land's elevated slightly above the floodplain. is it such a big deal if the land floods every ten years if i have most of it thickly covered with biodiversity?
 
i obviously have a lot of learning to do, and have been looking over the net quite extensively, however - most of the info is from the perspective of modern agriculture - and modern agriculture has NOTHING to teach me, except maybe to learn what NOT to do.

and so i turn to this forum. would appreciate any advice or net resources that would help me out.
 
once again - peter, thanks for your great books!

[Adrian]

Hello there,
Mate if you are deciding to not make any money from your land and would love to rebiuld, do the country some good and pick the worst land you can find. This would mean you would get alot more land for your money plus the satifaction of seeing your property transform on a bigger scale with about the same money spent!
It wouldn't matter what part of the country you would buy!
Cheers and Beers
Adrian

[novaris]

i'm currently looking at buying some landholding and converting it into a carpet-bombed green permacultural paradise (!) using the principles of permaculture and nsf. i don't expect to make much (or any) money from it - i'll be giving what i don't use away or recycling it back into the soil - but i see it as a small way of giving back, helping to repair a small part of the country.

While I am no expert on Permaculture principle 3 obtain a yield "You can't work on an empty stomach" comes to mind.
I understand the urge to heal and repair the land and share it however, I think that we need to consider the wider impact. For instance if one has resources to spend on buying the land and working it for no return then those resources are most likely from unsustainable processes. More to the point if you can create a worthwhile sustainable living from the land it leads the way for others to follow. If however you create a nice green patch but it runs at no profit then others would not want to follow in your foot steps, and even if they did it requires the energy/resources to come from somewhere else. In many ways current agriculture evolved from good intentions but from improperly costed inputs and unsustainable practices.

do the country some good and pick the worst land you can find.

In the end this may actually also be the best way to make a profit, it may however take longer to become profitable.

[phytochemical]

i see what you are both saying and thanks for replying.

adrian - i asked because from the soil maps i've seen of the area from the dep of ag, the land is marked as not suitable for cultivation - which i assume means not suitable to grow food. so i'm asking that exact point - why and can it be turned around?

at the moment the land i'm looking at don't seem to be doing much. certainly doesn't have biodiversity. i want to change that for my small part of the world. and in terms of 'just having a nice green patch' - surely nsf and permaculture show that to have sustainable production - you cannot have a monoculture densely packed over all the land - you MUST have most of the land which isn't in direct production - wetland and hedgrow. in modern farming terms - that is exactly what they would be viewed as - just a pretty, wasteful, unproductive green patch. but we know that is a grossly inaccurate description.

notwithstanding the incredible work done there, tarwin park was/is a horse breeding property, it wasn't growing food as i understand. but even so, it captured nutrients that would have been lost, provided a water buffer in the area, cooled the land, sucked up carbon, along with all the other benefits espoused by peter. which of itself is excellent. if it were decided to mobilise it for food - i imagine it's ready to rock. i had a look at land prices in the area of tarwin park by the way and from what i can see its waaaaaaaaaaay beyond my means even if it is degraded.

if i were to buy thousands of acres somewhere i would need a capital investment and time i could not afford even if the land were free. i would love to do a tarwin park but it aint gonna happen. i think i saw a photo of peter andrew's tractor on one of these nsf sites. now i don't know exactly how much they are but it looks outa my budget.

the land i buy will be my home and i will work to cover it with as much biomass and bio diversity as i can. that in itself will be of positive value. i will use some level of mechanisation in the early stages, like building swales etc, but within a few years i want a self sustaining system that can work without much if any fossil fuel input. from what i read it can be done.

so - live a less consumerist lifestyle, grow at least my own food without screwing up the place. which is more than i'm doing now. if i'm near town i'd like to start a community garden where people who don't have the space can cultivate their own plot for themselves - if anyone were interested that is. i can't see i'd ever compete with monocultural strip miners to grow food at the cheapest price. whether small farms can actually be viable under current conditions i notice is a recent topic on this forum.

bill mollison developed a patch on the northern rivers and david holmgren developed a patch outside melbourne. they pretty much invented permaculture. i'm want to emulate what they did. i don't think they're commercial, but i admire what they've done.

will anyone notice the value of my example? not many. what do you suppose the difference in traffic would be between the 'so you think you can dance' website and this one?

anyone taking the time to post on this forum cares though - so thanks very much for your thoughts

[Adrian]

Sounds to me mate that even not knowing who you are, you could have a major influx on your local area that all the locals would love to have you around. With the way things are going in the world for credit wise and you wanting to have a community garden for the town, who realy knows how your life will end up. For the sake of this country i wish there was more of you that do have a heart of wanting to give back to the people.
Remember it took Peter 30 years for his work to fully evole, and he is so proud of what he has achived in his time, he can now look back at his life and say "I have done the best i can" if you do the same in your vision you will too.

[novaris]

phytochemical I really do hope you find the right land and that it goes well for you. My wife and I are basically wanting to do much the same. I started the thread here on small farming in order to see if we can help each other by sharing experiences.

adrian - i asked because from the soil maps i've seen of the area from the dep of ag, the land is marked as not suitable for cultivation - which i assume means not suitable to grow food. so i'm asking that exact point - why and can it be turned around?

Where did you see the maps? Are they available online? Is there an explanation of what the terms mean?

The reason I ask is that there might be a reason that the soil is not usable. Here is a quote on the experiences of a very successful and awarded gardener in Perth.

"The first garden developed here on our 4 acre property was based on permaculture after a visit to City Farm (East Perth)
Three large areas were sectioned and fenced around a central enclosed chook pen. Each had a gate and while two areas were planted, the chooks foraged in the third. We have gutless hydrophobic- water repellant sand and after hundreds of dollars of sheep manure, pea hay, rock dust, compost and water it tends to want to revert to sand. Quick sand. When I saw Joel on Gardening Australia with his aquaponics system I said to my husband that looks like the way to go. Its funny because everyday I hear customers in the shop look at me and say "This is the way to go." The thing is that water has become more precious and a lot of people waste it. We have been regulated and allowed only to water 3 days per week. I can't grow lettuce in the ground in Summer without breaking the rules. Why would I want to now anyway, as the rabbits turn them into organic pellets, sand splashes on them and the bugs eat them if the sun doesn't scorch them. With my aquaponic beds I can be harvesting lettuce leaves 4 weeks after planting them. My original permaculture gardens still house the chooks and I have begun to add fruit trees which cope well on 3 days a week watering to establish them. I can still grow lots of potatoes which rely on the winter rainfall. The aquaponic system provides us with fish, plenty of greens for the chooks and lots of tomatoes, herbs, spinach, lettuce, beetroot and all I have to do is feed the fish each day. My vegetable growing has evolved and I now use much less water, save time and spend less money."

My point is that sometimes the soil is resistant to the usual improvement practices.

the land i buy will be my home and i will work to cover it with as much biomass and bio diversity as i can. that in itself will be of positive value. i will use some level of mechanisation in the early stages, like building swales etc, but within a few years i want a self sustaining system that can work without much if any fossil fuel input. from what i read it can be done.

If you take land that could not support someone living on it and provide yourself with sustainable shelter, nourishment and an enjoyable healthy lifestyle then in my opinion you have created an asset, to me an asset is something that feeds you. It is not enough just to shelter you that is why most peoples homes are not as much of an asset as they think, for most the home has ongoing maintenance costs and interest costs. It has no net energy inflow only outflows, if however they can supply food or it provides a work place that allows them to generate income they can balance the outflows, at some point this can become a sustainable and profitable asset.

will anyone notice the value of my example? not many. what do you suppose the difference in traffic would be between the 'so you think you can dance' website and this one?

If you succeed and share the success as Peter, Bill and David have done then others can follow in your footsteps. Having example properties and websites like this have an exponential effect on spreading the effectiveness of these technologies.

Remember sites like this are not for entertainment, very few of those that visit "So you think you can dance" will ever actually become a dancer.

I also think it is important that we all tell others what has not worked for us, sometimes it's hard to admit when things don't achieve our goals but when we tell others they can sometimes avoid the same pitfall and sometimes they can provide a real solution

[phytochemical]

thanks for that novaris. i know it's not necessarily that easy - if you have very challenging soil its a hard slog, or if its very arid you simply cannot yield much from it. getting a lot of organic material into the soil would make it hold more moisture, but you start with a chicken and egg scenario to begin with.

yeah aquaponics sounds like a great idea - i know about it and i actually want to build a big greenhouse on my property and incorporate it into the plan. i hear someone used their swimming pool in the deisgn somewhere - THAT is a great idea.

on good soil rotating chickens around garden beds to do the work of mulching and fertilising works very well from what i hear.

the soil database i referred to is called spade, theres a link on this page:
http://www.regional.org.au/au/gia/22/729mildford.htm

i also found out why lower floodplains plains are grazing only - they are high acid sulfate risk areas, which seems to be a common problem when wetlands are drained.

this may actually be a good thing for me. if i revegetate the fields and maybe let some of the land go back to wetland, i imagine they would keep a water buffer and prevent the sufates from oxidising when it gets dry.

more homework! cheers.

[novaris]

yeah aquaponics sounds like a great idea - i know about it and i actually want to build a big greenhouse on my property and incorporate it into the plan. i hear someone used their swimming pool in the design somewhere - THAT is a great idea.

I love aquaponics but I think overall strategies like NSF and permaculture are much more important. I would love to see thousands of people contributing to forums like this.

Regarding pools I love the idea of a natural swimming pool basically same as aquaponics but for swimming rather than fish. They are apparently common in Europe.