Companion Planting Guide
Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees — by Peter Dilley July 30, 2010
IDEP’s Companion Planting Guide
Click here for full PDF
Sometimes you end up wishing you had a resource at hand to make it easier to apply Permaculture principles. This was the case for myself when it came time to start thinking about beneficial groupings of plants and those groupings that do not go well together.
Comments (27)How to Make a Home Made Chicken Feeder
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Livestock — by Peter Dilley June 23, 2010
Photo copyright © Craig Mackintosh
In the old days, farmers would have lots of left over pieces of galvanized tin sheeting. To make a chicken feeder they made the tin into a tube cylinder and suspended it above a plate and hung it in the coop.
Today, unfortunately, most people forget how easily people made these things for a dollar or less. I went to our local Feed Store and they wanted $70 to buy a galvanized chicken feeder. I was so angry.
Comments (12)How to Make a Home Made Bee Hive
Insects, Processing & Food Preservation, Urban Projects — by Peter Dilley June 21, 2010
The photograph above is of my home made bee hive. This is the ultimate beginner bee hive and the one I highly recommend you consider. Its benefits are that it is horizontal and not vertical so you don’t break your back lifting heavy boxes. The legs are cut to make the top of the hive at your own waist level. Now you can tend your bees without much bending and in a very comfortable relaxed state. This hive does not use bee frames. Instead of forcing bees to make comb cells the size we humans want, bees in the hive design I run build their entire comb themselves with their own wax (store bought wax has chemicals and pesticides treatment that stores in the wax fat, so your bees get medication even if you don’t want them to, or other potential diseases). Because the bees make all their own wax you get lots of honey like with traditional hives but you also get lots of wax. This is perfect for the homestead as you can make so many useful things from wax – from furniture and wood polishes, to candles, and so on! This hive is also perfect for beginners because you don’t have to buy thousands of dollars of honey extraction equipment. I bought a bread knife from a dollar shop and use that to harvest comb.
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