I like your description of "pest magnets", I have been referring to them as plant tanks. My overgrown raspberries tank the japanese beetles for the blueberries. Plus the yield of the raspberries isn't significantly dented by the japanese beetles.
My favorite piece of equipment is my wood chipper: I can turn all of the delivery boxes into mulch. And yard waste. And... basically any other biomass that will turn to dirt in 6-12 months.
We are not off-grid (dude, that's so much work). But I build most of my projects out of found materials (raised beds out of old fencing, etc). I tried my hand at making a basket out of grape vine, but grape vines are really "shreddy" and the basket is no fun to use. I was going to try coppicing some willow next -- baskets are really useful.
It's a fun hobby, but I am lazy. And I still end up with too much produce (though I have a lot of space, so that makes it easier).
Agreed on the wood chipper - we’ve fed vast volumes of organic waste through ours as we’ve 8ha of badly overdense and bramble/suspended dead wood choked woodland to manage, and the mulch is dead handy for paths and garden beds - our soil is very low in carbon, so everything helps.
Re: weaving, vines are impossible, rett them first - soak ‘em, maybe in lye, and then pound them with a rock to get fibres. Baskets, willow works great - we’ve goat willow all over, here, and use it for smaller stuff. Bigger stuff we use olive, as green it’s supple and dry it’s like a rock, and very rot resistant - we’ve made half baskets on a steep hill slope to catch runoff and encourage tree growth - the oldest ones (two years) are hosting self-seeded oak saplings now, which is kinda cool.
My favorite piece of equipment is my wood chipper: I can turn all of the delivery boxes into mulch. And yard waste. And... basically any other biomass that will turn to dirt in 6-12 months.
We are not off-grid (dude, that's so much work). But I build most of my projects out of found materials (raised beds out of old fencing, etc). I tried my hand at making a basket out of grape vine, but grape vines are really "shreddy" and the basket is no fun to use. I was going to try coppicing some willow next -- baskets are really useful.
It's a fun hobby, but I am lazy. And I still end up with too much produce (though I have a lot of space, so that makes it easier).