guildfordcycads

Hi everyone, I’m currently working on my master’s dissertation focused on sustainable housing solutions for rural communities in Mozambique, specifically looking at improving thermal comfort and indoor air quality using passive design strategies and local materials (e.g., wattle and daub).

I’m modeling some scenarios using DesignBuilder and referencing passive cooling concepts like stack effect, cross ventilation, and the use of natural shading.

I’d love to hear from anyone with experience in: • Designing for hot-humid climates • Passive strategies for low-resource settings • Retrofitting traditional rural dwellings • Community-based sustainable housing projects in Africa or similar contexts

Any articles, examples, or ideas would be super helpful! Thanks in advance!

Both my Loganberry and Raspberry (Heritage) are only showing growth on the bottom. I am not sure about them budding; if they are, their buds must be very small!?

I wonder if both bushes are showing signs of die back. Our winter was rather mild but the winds were strong.

I am not sure what else could explain this, unless this is totally normal?

I have had great success using it as weed suppression and beginning pathways, preppeing the garden and preventing grass from spreading into the garden.

I hear a lot of people be totally against it. I’m not sure why.

What are your pros and cons?

Hey yall,

I wanted to share my experience germinating these suckers. I live in Chicago, they’re native, and i’m excited to support local permaculture. I have read a LOT of “misinformation” about germinating these – but primarily, they do not need to be cold-stratified. Most information on the internet suggests that they do. I’m not sure why. Credit to prarie moon though, they did say to germinate in the heat, ~95f. I’ve even seen advice like “soak the seeds in orange juice.” Here’s what i did:

• “scarified” the seeds (clipped an edge with nail clippers, didn’t use pumpice)
• soaked them for 12 hours
• put them in paper towel on top of my grow light, in the dark (in a hat)

It worked great. I wanted to copy this comment from /u/Adventurous-Glass236 who had some great info and put me down the correct path.

prop spot: https://imgur.com/dhN91Qw germed seeds: https://imgur.com/a/VVRD4Qr

I stuck them in some soil, and i’m sure a lot are duds, but I should get plenty of plants. It was pretty easy. Wanted to share first-hand my experience, cuz there was so much conflicting info out there for passiflora incarnata. Hopefully they grow and I can send an update.

I’m doing an autumn prune in the orchard at the moment, and have a fair amount of fruit wood which I’d like to turn into wood chips to use in our smoker. I’m thinking of having a dedicated shredder/chipper for the purpose – it would only need to be smallish – but I’m concerned that a wood chipper would shred the timber too finely, and I’ll get mulch rather than chips. Am I going to have to process the wood by hand? I have arthritis so I’m hoping that’s not the case!

Does anyone have any suggestions for the best way for me to go about turning my prunings into chips? I’m in Australia, so brands of wood chippers here may be different from those available on the US, but I’d love some advice on what to look for if I do have to buy a machine.

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