Permaculture

Razare said:

To do mushrooms so it pays off, you have to avoid the pre-made kits. Kits are nice, but it's just like a neat thing to try, not something to sustain yourself on. Maybe do it once when you start out to get some experience. To do mushrooms, what you basically do is make your own kits.

Material(seed / sawdust / coffee grounds) + Water + Canning Jar + Sterlization = Prepped Spawn Jar

Spawn Jar + Mushroom Spores / Spawn + Time = Spawn Jar Fully Colonized (can be used to start other jars, and keep the process going and going)

Spawn from Jar + Sterile Straw + Humidity + Time = MUSHROOMS!!!

So the cost here can be very cheap stuff, like seeds or straw, or sawdust. There are people who grow oyster mushrooms just on sawdust completely, and they mix in some minerals is all.

If you had a lot of spent coffee grounds, though, you could run mushroom farms on that and have some of the best leftover compost.

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Razare said:

Been doing some designing for a Michigan permaculture farm. Here are some starting ideas:

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Chickens

Free Range, Dried Corn, Dehydrated Kale, Mushroom Leftover & Other Veg/Seed -> Chicken -> Egg Shells, Egg Whites, Yokes, Feathers, Meat, Bone, Manure

Egg Shells -> Seedling Starters, Painting Pigment, Raw Calcium for Mushrooms or other uses, Compost, Chalk, gifts & trinkets
Feathers -> Padding Material, Pens, Gifts / Trinkets, Clothing Uses, Bone
Bones -> Chicken Stock, Bone Meal
Manure -> Mushroom Material additive, Composting
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Flax Plant

Compost if any + Seed + Rainfall or Water System -> Flax or Linseed * -> Seeds, Fiber, Flowers, Other?

Seeds -> Linseed Oil (cold pressing method), Edible?, Other uses?
Linseed Oil -> Painting Oil, Edible Oil?
Fiber -> Yarn, Linen, Rope
Flowers -> Edible?, Decoration, Pigment?, Infused Oils?, Essential Oils?
Infused / Essential Oils ingredient for -> Soaps, Shampoos, Cosmetic Products

*Flax plants favor fibers, and linseed plants favor seeds as production. They are the "same plant" bred down different strains for different uses. Maybe someone grows both? Or one suffices as both strains in a non-industrial situation, this is why it requires more research.
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Milkweed (Common, Asclepias syriaca)

Nature -> Milkweed -> Pod Fluff, Stalks, Leaves, Flowers, Attracts Monarch Butterfly, Seeds

Pod Fluff -> Stuffing / Bedding (used for WWII life vests, more buoyant than cork), used with wool to make yarn
Stalks -> Fibers (used same as Flax Fiber), Edible when young (must be cooked, mildly poisonous but cooking removes most poison, some are allergic, do not mistake for dogsbane), Other?
Flower -> Edible?, Other?
Seeds -> ?
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The core idea behind permaculture is to create a farm stead that manages itself, so you plant and compost, but do not till any soil. In my view, watering should also be automated as much as possible.

Once the farmstead is created, time should then ultimately be spent on higher level activities, such as harvesting food, preserving food, and making other products from what is harvested. A permaculture farm should in the end, be able to remain operational with as few external inputs as possible, especially inputs from industrial society that are non-sustainable products (ie. crude oil, coal electricity). Nothing against oil or coal, but why use that when you can grow it yourself!

If people really got hold of it, we could then do industrial level permaculture, with all the specialty fields and invention. Where a series of farms work together to produce a final product correctly, all while sustaining their workers with land, food and shelter. Metals are the only sort of hinderance to product inputs, but if that were the one exception to permaculture, that would be pretty good. In the end, there would be no reason we could not produce a permaculture vehicle even. So if it went industrial, no sacrifice in lifestyle is neccessary and improved lifestyle is gained.

For example, if someone worked in a permaculture factory, all factory equipment and building would be sourced back to permaculture outputs and design. The factory itself may double as a garden landscape with people living and tending those gardens. Such a factory has a positive environmental impact, and while it works like our factories today, it is a different kind of industry.

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