Permastead

"Permastead" was a lazy portmandeau of "permaculture" (itself a portmandeau of "permanent" and "agriculture" in case you didn't know) and "homestead" - a search indicated it's not in wide use so I'm using it.

Here we are

A blog for the learning of all the things for creating permasteading (permanent-agriculture "permaculture" influenced modern homestead principles and practices).

Other Apiums

Includes: Dill; Parsley; Queen Anne's Lace; angelica; anise; caraway; chervil; cicely; coriander (cilantro); cumin; fennel; hemlock; lovage
Role: Companion, Fodder
Helps:
Helped by:
Attracts:
Repels:
Avoid:
Details:

Plant with:
Planting notes: 

Use Queen Anne's Lace with tomatoes, instead of carrots; carrot growth can be stunted by tomatoes.

Parsnip

Family: Apiums
Role: Companion, Fodder
Helps: fruit trees
Helped by:
Attracts: a variety of predatory insects
Repels:
Avoid:
Details: The flowers of the parsnip plant left to seed will attract a variety of predatory insects to the garden, they are particularly helpful when left under fruit trees, the predators attacking codling moth and light brown apple moth. The root also contains Myristricin, which is toxic to fruit flies, house flies, red spider mite, pea aphids, a simple blender made extraction of three blended parsnips roots to one litre of water through a food processor (not one for preparing food) and left overnight, strained and use within a few days.

Plant with:
Planting notes: 

Celery

Family: Apiums
Role: Food, Companion
Helps: Bush beans, brassicas, cucumber
Helped by: Cosmos, daisies, snapdragons, leeks, tomatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, bush beans
Attracts:
Repels: whiteflies
Avoid: corn, aster flowers
Details: Aster flowers can transmit the aster yellows disease

Plant with:
Planting notes: 

Carrot

Family: Apiums
Role: Food, Companion
Helps: Tomatoes, alliums, beans, leeks, lettuce, onions
Helped by: Lettuce, alliums (chives, leeks, onions, shallots, etc.), rosemary, wormwood, sage, beans, flax
Attracts: assassin bug,lacewing, parasitic wasp, yellow jacket and other predatory wasps
Repels: leek moth, onion fly
Avoid: Dill, parsnip, radish
Details: Beans provide the nitrogen carrots need more than some other vegetables. Aromatic companion plants repel carrot fly. Alliums inter-planted with carrots confuse onion and carrot flies. Flax produces an oil that may protect root vegetables like carrots from some pests.

Sage, rosemary, and radishes are recommended by some as companion plants, but listed by others as incompatible. For the beneficial insect-attracting properties of carrots to work, they need to be allowed to flower; otherwise, use the wild carrot, Queen Anne's Lace, for the same effect. Tomatoes grow better with carrots, but may stunt the carrots' growth.

Plant with:
Planting notes:

Other Alliums

Includes: Chive, Garlic, Shallot
Role: Companion
Helps: Brassicas; Carrots; Fruit trees; Nightshades
Helped by: Carrots; Carrots & African Spider plants; Marigolds; Mints
Attracts: Thrips
Repels: Aphids; Cabbage Looper/ Maggot/ Worms; Carrot Fly; Japanese Beetles; Rabbits; Slugs
Avoid: Beans; Parsley; Peas
Details:

Plant with:
Planting notes: 

Onion

Family: Alliums
Role: Food, Companion
Helps: Beans; Beets; Brassicas (Broccoli, Cabbage); Carrots; Cucumbers; Lettuce; Peppers; Strawberries; Green onions with Chinese cabbage
Helped by: Apiums (Carrots; Dill); Asters (Chamomile; Marigolds; Lettuce; Summer Savory); Beets; Brassicas; Mints; Strawberries; Tomato
Attracts:
Repels:
Avoid: Lentils, Peas
Details:

Plant with: Brassicas, Carrots
Planting notes:

Start indoors Feb-15.

Plant outdoors Apr-15; leave room for Brassicas, Carrots, etc.

Leek

Family: Alliums
Role: Food, Companion
Helps: Apiums (Carrots; Celery); Onions; Tomato
Helped by: Carrots; Clover
Plant with:
Attracts:
Repels:
Avoid: Swiss chard
Details:

Planting notes:
Start indoors Mar-01.

Plant outdoors May-01; plant w/Brassicas, Carrots

More Plant Browsing

Part of my motivation of this blog (see this about "social Internet use") is to create a resource for my education on all things permastead.  As such, it's more about my specific questions (which have as much to do with planned region as anything else) and what I learn about potential answers, NOT a general knowledge-base that will be suitable for anyone else.

Days have been spent on learning about specific plants, for example, and their companion plants, and their companion plants...

Planning Help

I was able to make things very easy on myself (which is good since I am trying to take in so much at once) with the general garden planning. The Old Farmer's Almanac - my favorite periodical since forever, even before any thoughts of anything like this - proved its worth yet again.

Browsing Plants

The ECL is a wealth - almost overwhelming - of information.

Planning a garden is the first learning experience. I don't have a great relationship with food, but I do have a better one (as well as a decent understanding of) living things. (Most living things are essentially similar after all in the facts that they require fuel taken in, often but not always water to help use the fuel, and a waste disposal system.)

ECL

My wonderful husband bought me a copy of "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Carla Emery a year or so ago. It sat for a good while (seasoning, if you will) but of course now I am primed to read - devour - it.

Hobby Farm

A “hobby farm” is a small holding (small by actual farm standards) that the owner is not using as the primary source of income (even though for many it does turn into a second full-time job).  It is a common enough thing among retirees (and others) of varied age, for many different reasons.  So there is fortunately plenty of “how-to” information available online for starting and early running of a hobby farm.

Volcanoes

The risks (volcano, earthquake, and earthquakes caused by volcanic activity) almost killed the deal.  But I dug deeper on those points and discovered that while the area is considered “seismically active” quite rightly, “seismic activity” isn’t always (and in that region most usually isn’t) strong enough for people to feel, let alone enough to cause property damage.  And the UCRB hasn’t had issues with flows (of any kind) from either closest volcano and will continue not to because the geography protects it.

It is a perfect little pocket of awesome.  And that matters when looking for the place that might become the location of the ancestral home.

So: learning more about everything so that next year we are ready.  Since we want acreage (not just a house in a suburb) but aren’t fooling ourselves that we are going to be farmers, the term “hobby farm” starts showing up.

Decisions

I woke excited (like a kid before a holiday) for the first time in ages.  Yesterday we decided that our move West would be taking us all the way over the mountains to Cascadia – more specifically, the upper (west of I-5) Cowlitz River Basin (UCRB) area of Washington.