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I’m looking into freeze drying to preserve some produce for winter (mostly greens, maybe some beans, squash, tomato powder, or others as we grow new things). We currently freeze a lot of stuff, but obviously that takes up a lot of room, and from what I’ve read, freeze drying retains the most nutrients of all the preservation methods, which is important for me and my health.

I’m completely new to this method of preservation, and while I understand the basics, I would really appreciate specific product recommendations and beginner’s advice you wish you knew when you started! I’m willing to make a modest investment in a product that will last me a long time, but I just don’t know much about the technical specs of this type of machine.

TIA for any insight!

I have a horse and she’s a very important part of our family. But we have several toxic weeds destroying our grass areas.

The sandburs make it dangerous for all of us to walk out there and the chamber bitter is making my animals sick. If I don’t do something this spring, they will completely take over the entire property.

Is there anything I can do?

Any herbicides will end up getting into the garden via manure or compost, etc. not to mention all the other toxic effects.

I have had good luck with cuttings received in the mail and thought it would be fun to see what else is out there!

If you’ve got something great to share list it here and anyone interested can DM you to get it mailed out! You’re in charge of figuring out a trade or payment or however you wanna do it.

Hey,

I am currently studying Geography and got into digital terrain analysis (for soil sciences).

Basically you can derive certain terrain attributes out of data that shows you the geometry of the lands surface (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_elevation_model). Some of the terrain attributes that might be helpful to plan a permaculture garden are slope, aspect, and some wetness indices (TWI).

Areas with high slope might be favourable for different crops, wet location might be good for other. I guess especially the TWI would be helpful, as its not really possible to estimate this acurratly by looking at the fields.

If possible I would like to create some maps that visualize the attributes of the garden to help plan the permaculture. The only restriction would be that there is high resolution terrain data available for free online (which is in most “richer” countries). The area should be quit big too if possible. I would just be interested in the process, especially if the gardener has some well-founded knowledge about permaculture, soil science, ecology and agriculture (bonus points if he or she has a scientific education).

If interested, just hit me up!

edit: just wanted to undeline why its interesting for me to implement souch data into planning your garden:

Its not that hard. You just have to know what to expect from the maps you get and how to use the software on a basic level.

I cant find anyone who already used it. Its common for precision farming, but not for permaculture. Why? Its interesting for me to use digital methods on a sustainability-approach as permaculture.

Its more comparable than subjective data like (how does the soil feel, how is soil moisture distribution in my garden. If you had both, you had a very good impression.

Its cheap, its free. Its fast.

You could combine it easily with other data (geological maps, soil maps).

Lets use geodata to make permaculture even better!!

EDIT: THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST. I appreciat it a lot. I have one good area that I will try out and currently I dont have the capacaties to do more. REMEMBER IM JUST A INTERESTED. IM NOT A PROFESSIONAL AGRO-ENGINEER that can help you decide what kind of property you should buy, or how to do flood managment. Its just a fun experiment. All the data i can produce is just based on topography, ignoring different lithologies, canopy and so on. Surely it will give you a good proxy for soil moisture and solar radiation, thats how its used in research papers all over the world. But its still limited.