From skye@tortuga.com Fri Jul 30 12:03:52 1999 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 20:37:05 -0600 From: Skye Reply-To: permaculture To: permaculture Subject: Re: raised bed organic gardening [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Me again! Regards raised beds and suitable tools - two points Firstly - I envy all of you that can use raised beds. Guess it rains sometimes!!! Here in a drier climate, raised beds make it extremely difficult to maintain moisture - especially in porous soils. So, just a comment - lets not advocate raised beds everywhere - keep it relative to your climate. And some of us don't get much rain. Secondly - after you have finished digging and hoeing your beds, you should get to the stage of needing to harvest all that produce. If you want good quality scythes etc, suggest you look to Japan. Their "kama"s are of high-quality steel (remember they have lots of practice making samarai swords) and come in a size to suit every need. Their knives (splitting bamboo etc) are excellent. For more information contact Matsumoto-san, a PC activist in Japan with good contacts with many local factories that make high quality tools, often by hand. His address is Noboru Matsumoto, 402 Shiyona-Zho, Kasugai-Shi, Aichi, Japan. Can't find an email address for him at present, but Catherine Pawasarat (asaka@gol.com) should know it. Good luck Skye -- Skye - Apdo # 391, Patzcuaro, Michoacan, CP. 61600 México. fax (52) 01 (434) 24743 Profesor y diseñador en Permacultura Director del Instituto de Permacultura de México A.C. Talleres de desarrollo humano, planeación participativa y economía comunitaria. --- You are currently subscribed to permaculture as: london@metalab.unc.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-permaculture-75156P@franklin.oit.unc.edu