Busy, with small garden accomplishments

In spite of burning up the highways with many trips to Wake Forest Medical School in NC to see my doctors, I've managed to do a few things for the garden.

It's another day here of scattered t'storms. Good thing I have a table on the front porch where I can work on starting seeds.

According to the biodynamic planting calendar, yesterday, today and tomorrow are good days to start fruiting vegetable seeds. I started some tomatoes and a few winter squash yesterday but I need to find more seed flats. Hopefully there are some in one of the sheds; I'm such a pack-rat.

 

 

The few seeds I started 3-4 weeks ago are really healthy and ready to transplant. Like a fool, I thought I'd remember what was where without markers. I can tell the summer squash from the beans, but not which is which bean variety, nor can I tell the yellow squash from zukes. What an idiot! I made sure to use markers in the seeds I started yesterday.

I left last fall's dried Japanese morning glory vines on the new trellis, thinking some seeds would fall and germinate. Wrong! Too bad, because I built that trellis specifically to grow enough vines to shade the end-wall of the house from the hot summer sun. 

However, the 2 hardy kiwi I planted last spring on that trellis are doing great and have climbed to about 4-5' tall already. They won't fruit this year (I think they are too young); their fruit is a little smaller than a regular kiwi, and smooth-skinned rather than fuzzy, but tasty. I'll take some oics when the rain stops.

Mike accidentally mowed down the 4 grape vines I started last year on the other trellis. He mows for me when I'm unable, and complains more every year about the things he has to mow around, whereas it was just all grass when I moved here 6 years ago. I keep telling him that my goal is zero grass except maybe a small patch for the dog.

The 2nd food forest guild, started last year (with a plum tree seedling in the center) is slowly taking shape. The chives I planted around the periphery had grown enough by early spring to divide, which I did yesterday. They are wilted but will perk right up in a few days. (A ring of alliums or daffodils around the perimeter is said to keep the grass from encroaching. We'll see if that's true.) I found a bag of daffs that I'll plant tightly between the chives. I have several herb plants to place between the plum tree and the chives, plants that attract and feed pollinators. This year a few tomatoes will go in that bed since the plum seedling is still quite small.

Photo by RC Designer

As my friend in Chile says, borage is a great beneficial plant. It attracts bees, which increases pollination of nearby plants, enhances the growth of tomatoes (by confusing and repelling tomato hornworms); helps brassicas (by repelling and confusing cabbage worms); and strawberries. It's also beneficial for cucumbers, beans (both climbing and bush beans), grapes, zucchini/squash, and peas. Borage can help all plants increase their disease resistance.

Borage is also useful as a mulch, and is very good for the compost pile. It contains calcium and potassium which may account for another reason why tomatoes do well near borage. Blossom end rot, not only in tomatoes but also with zucchini, is caused by lack of calcium. Potassium helps plants to bloom and set fruit, which may increase production in tomatoes and strawberries.

Photo by nociveglia

Borage is an attractive annual that should be grown in every home garden. It produces beautiful star-shaped blue flowers and cucumber-flavored leaves. Used for flavor in salads, cream cheese, tall drinks or cook it and eat like spinach. The flower has a sweet honey-like taste and is often used to decorate desserts and dishes. If frozen into ice-cubes, the flowers become exotic drink coolers.

The oil that is extracted from the seeds (marketed as "starflower oil" or "borage oil") is a good source of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA). Borage also has herbal / medicinal value.

Elderberry bushes

My first unschooled attempt at elderberry cuttings has proven successful! I just transplanted 23 rooted cuttings into tall "treepots" so they can develop stronger roots before setting a few out in the yard; the rest I will trade or sell. 

In addition to these 23, I have given away 4 more, and there are still 6 in the rooting box that have produced top growth but alas no roots yet. Actually there are also 2 that have grown roots but no top growth. Being a Novice, I have no idea what will happen with those but I'm not trashing them (yet).

I'm a little upset at the company from whom I ordered the tall treepots and the carrying trays to hold them, because the trays do NOT adequately hold the post without adding fillers to keep the pots upright.

Two of the plants already developed a small flower but I pinched them off so the energy goes into growing, rather than fruit production. They will all produce fruit next year.

I'm a Happy Camper!

My Apple Grafting Experience

I attended a grafting workshop recently, held about 2 hours away at Foggy Ridge Cider (a small but highly acclaimed artisan hard apple cider producer) near the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was taught by several men from the Carrol County Extension Service and some of their Master Gardeners. What an interesting and fun experience!  

I took my camera, but forgot to check if the battery was charged. It wasn't (what a dunce!), so no personal photos from the class, but I found a few photos from Flickr that show some details.

Grapevine Rootstock, Photo from Southern Oregon Wine Institute

The class was limited to 15 participants, and they provided 5 rootstocks for each of us, and a choice of scion wood from about 25 apple varieties. In the photo above, the man is holding grapevine rootstock, but our apple rootstocks looked the same, just smaller diameter. (Scions are dormant twigs with buds taken from the tree you want to grow; it will grow on the rootstock into a genetic duplicate of the original tree, but with the size, vigor, and disease resistance of the chosen rootstock.)

Our class was provided M111 rootstock, which is a semi-dwarf tree size. ("Excellent all-around rootstock for apples. Induces early and heavy bearing. Tolerates wet soil, dry soil, poor soil. Resists woolly apple aphids and collar rot. Trees dwarfed to 85 % of standard.") Semi-dwarf apple trees can be pruned to keep them smaller, like the dwarf apple trees, but they will grow much more fruit than the dwarf rootstock. There are different rootstocks developed for a variety of trees; some are variety specific, and some will accept a graft from a different variety. For example, most (but not all) pears are grafted on quince rootstock.

I had already read a bunch of stuff about grafting, but it's a LOT harder to do the first time than it looks. (That might be because the rootstock they received for our class was a smaller diameter than they preferred, and which they lamented.) There are 2 important things to do. One is to get the cambium layers on at least one side of the mating pieces to line up. Otherwise, the graft will not grow. You have to also cut carefully so the cambium isn't damaged. (The cambium layer is the thin green layer you see if you scratch a bit of the bark off with your fingernail. It is only a couple of cells thick and produces new tissue for growth.) The other important thing is to be sure the buds on the scion are pointing UP from the graft!

a whip-tongue  or whip-cleft graft

Other than the problems due to our small-sized rootstock, grafting is really easy... at least the whip/cleft (shown above), and modified cleft grafting (below) which most of us ended up doing because of the skinny rootstock. The instructors didn't cover other types of grafts like bud grafting, chip grafting, and bridge grafting which is used to repair a damaged tree.

Modified Cleft Graft, sometimes called a "V" graft, photo by ghadjikriacou

My first graft cut was the "whip and tongue cleft", shown in the line drawing (above the Modified Cleft Graft photo). It was not easy with the thin rootstock, and very hard to get the tiny tongue cut and in place, so my other 4 grafts were cut like the Modified Cleft Graft shown just above. Much easier!!

 

I quickly learned my trusty pocket knife won't do the job of cutting grafts! A grafting knife (they had many for us to use) is only beveled and sharpened on one side... and sharp as the devil, so careful handling and cutting is necessary. The blade shape made me think of my grandfather's old shaving razor, which is also beveled and sharpened on only one side (the grafting knives they had were not the folding kind, although folding ones are available, and are safer to carry in your pocket out into the field). 

My grandfather's razor was honed on a leather strap, just as the grafting knives are honed. I still have my grandfather's razor and plan to try it out the next time I have the opportunity to do any grafting, but I'll probably purchase a good folding grafting knife. Here's a short video on How to Sharpen a Grafting Knife.

They also had a couple of fancy tools to make the cuts, but I chose not to use one. I figured I'd best learn with a knife since grafting has been done for centuries without a fancy and possibly expensive tool.

After we got each graft taped tightly to keep the matching cambium layers in contact (we used masking tape, although electrical tape would also work, but NOT duct tape), the graft needs to be waxed. I chose to bring mine home before waxing because I already had wax at home, AND I could drive 2-3 hours home without sticky fingers!

You can buy expensive grafting wax, but they used a toilet bowl wax ring... much cheaper and just as effective. The taped graft area gets covered well with wax, as does the very top of the scion to prevent moisture loss. The instructors said the wax may have to be replenished 2-3 times over the summer. (Probably melts in summer heat.)

These are my grafts, before waxing (what looks like double stems are just shadows on the blanket)

Grafts after waxing

All 5 of my grafts were soaked in water for 2-3 days to awaken dormancy, and then were potted. They will need to stay in pots for a year or so until they get some size, but for the class cost of $15 which included my 5 apple trees to bring home, it was a good deal. (Plus my gas for the trip, but still cheaper than hands-on class lessons, and then buying potted grafted trees + shipping!)

All the scion varieties I selected are vintage apples, and the one I'm most excited to have (hoping especially that my graft on that one takes) is a crabapple developed by Thos. Jefferson, who grew them in abundance for hard cider: the Hewe's Crab, sometimes called the Virginia Crab.

I only wish we'd had a list in advance of the varieties for choice. One I chose is an early bloomer (which I didn't know when we chose our scions) and we usually have late frosts where I live.

These are the varieties I grafted:

Shockley (a North Georgia heirloom, keeps its shape well for pies and preserves) Ashmead's Kernel (highly-valued apple for juicing and hard cider)

Cox's Orange Pippin (classic dessert apple, great for fresh eating, pies and cider)

Arkansas Black (very long-keeping tart apple from Arkansas, thought to be a seedling of Winesap)

Hewe's Crab (produces a delicious cinnamon-flavored cider that is both sugary and pungent. Thos. Jefferson planted his entire north orchard exclusively with this variety)

Did you know melons, eggplants and tomatoes can be grafted on hardy rootstock to reduce diseases and increase yields? (You won't find those plants in garden centers; those are grafted by growers for their own use.) There are a few companies who grow and sell the specific rootstocks for each of them.

I'll have a post on grafting vegetables in a few days.

Starting herbs for edible food forests

One of the basic necessities for an edible food forest is drawing in both the pollinators and the beneficial insects that keep the predators under control.  Some folks call these insectary plants. The "friendly insects" include ladybeetles, bees, ground beetles, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps. Other animals that are frequently considered beneficial include lizards, spiders, toads, and hummingbirds. 

Beneficial insects are as much as ten times more abundant in the insectary plantings area. Elimination of scale insects double with insectary plantings. Additionally, a diversity of insectary plants can increase the population of beneficial insects so much that these levels can be sustained even when the insectary plants are removed or die off.

Many members of the Apiaceae (formerly known as Umbelliferae) family are excellent insectary plants. Fennel, angelica, coriander, dill, and wild carrot all provide in great number the tiny flowers required by parasitic wasps. Various clovers, yarrow, and rue also attract parasitic and predatory insects. 

Low-growing herb plants, such as thyme, rosemary and mints provide shelter for ground beetles and other beneficial insects. Composite flowers like daisy, chamomile and mints will attract predatory wasps, hoverflies, and robber flies. The wasps will catch caterpillars and grubs to feed their young, while the predatory and parasitic flies attack many kinds of insects, including leafhoppers and caterpillars.

I have many of these insectary plants (which are now big enough to be divided this year) already in my garden, but as I expand my planting areas, I need more plants I don't already have for both the new and old areas. So, I started seeds of some herbs. Not all are insectary plants, but if not, they will still attract pollinators so it's a win-win.

New herb starts include:

garlic chives

fenugreek

green shisho (perilla), which is also edible

Mrs. Burn's lemon basil

borage

summer savory

sweet marjoram

sweet basil (old seeds, not expecting anything much to germinate)

An Italian basil a friend sent 3-4 years ago, (old seeds, not expecting anything much to germinate)

lemon bee balm

catnip
wormwood 
tall purslane
anise

I have a flat of bulbing Florence fennel I started a month ago, and last fall it looked like my dill had reseeded everywhere. The yarrow has grown enough since last spring to divide several times, as has the mint and anise hyssop.

I have chamomile seeds to start, and plenty of 2-3 varieties of shasta daisy's to divide for new guilds. My recent trip to Edible Landscaping brought me a couple of trees that can be an anchor in new guilds, but mostly I bought some fruiting vines and shrubs I wanted. I have great hopes for the fruit tree cuttings I have in mini-greenhouses but I'm not holding my breath since I'm new at rooting cuttings.

It's an adventure, for sure!

elderberry cuttings

I'm impressed, and pleased, with the growth of my first elderberry cuttings. Of course they seem to root easily, just like willow!

I took these cuttings on Feb. 15 and just dropped them into a jug of water. On Feb. 17, I dipped them in rooting hormone powder and stuck them in a mix of half sand and half potting soil. The photo above was taken March 23; that's 34 days from the start.

2 weeks later, I cut the rest of the elderberry branches I had brought home, and did the same treatment for them. They are still in their "tent", along with several other trays of various fruit cuttings. I probably won't peek for another month, but the leaves from the cuttings in the tray above were pushing up against the tent so I opened it. I can see a bunch of roots along the edges of the container!

According to the Biodynamic calendar that I am faithfully following this year, the next time to transplant these cuttings (and anything else) into individual pots doesn't start until March 29, and runs until April 9.

Update 4/2:
On 4/2 I transplanted most of the first tray of cuttings (from the top picture above). 14 out of 18 rooted nicely although I left 4 in the tray to develop more roots; only 4 were duds. That's probably because I didn't leave enough nodes when I sectioned them for rooting! Some of the ones I transplanted into individual pots are in the soda bottle planters sitting between the 2 trays on the railing above.

The second tray is lagging behind, or maybe I'm just impatient!

More edible food forest garden additions

Ramp shoots to re-plant

Last week I received a package of 3 dozen cultivated Ramps to plant, which means now I need to research and plan a shady mountainside garden that will enhance growing the ramps, and still include most of the basic tenets of a food forest garden. I think that will be a real challenge!

I have written before about ramps here. They are an interesting plant, but border on being endangered in the wild by over-harvesting. Ramps are an Appalachian delicacy!

"A wild leek, this onion relative with a garlicky flavor may have anticancer properties, with edible leaves and roots. Found in the rich woods of upper elevations, it's eaten raw or fried with eggs or just make plain old ramp sandwiches. The plants grow about a foot tall and, when eaten, a strong odor emanates from the skin of the ramps gourmand. Scientific Name for Wild Ramp (Allium tricoccum Aiton) better known as a wild leek, some other common names: rich woods leek, ail des bois, ail sauvage." Source 

Ramp Festivals are everywhere in the Appalachians in spring, as both a social and a culinary event. Visit one if you can, just do a Google Search. This webpage lists some of the Festivals, and several recipes.

I'm thinking my shady hillside garden for the ramps should include some ginseng, and goldenseal tubers (and maybe some mushroom logs), but at the moment I'm at a loss for what else to include.

Any suggestions? Maybe a Paw-Paw?

Expanding my edible food forest garden, round 2

Cornus mas, photo by wlcutler

Last year I started my first guild (and updated here) in a long-range plan for an edible food forest garden. Now with spring approaching, I'm ready to expand my food forest garden a little. I'm actually not expanding it yet since it's only March, but I just bought a bunch of new perennial plants that will get started in some new areas of my yard when it gets warmer. Oh, and I've also put a whole slew of woody fruit cuttings in little mini-greenhouse enclosures, hoping some will root.

Hardy Kiwi (female), photo by Joe+Jeanette Archie

My new plants just purchased include: 2 Cornus Mas (dogwood family) aka Cornelian Cherry which has edible fruit and shown at the top of this post; 1 Aycock green leaf plum that I have lusted after ever since I ate one right off the tree 4-5 years ago; two hardy kiwi (one male and one female) vines; 2 table grapes (a Concord and a white variety); and 2 different Haskap varieties.

Haskap, aka Juneberry; photo by Jeena Paradies

Haskaps are also known as Juneberries, and as Saskatoons, but for all practical purposes the fruits look and taste like blueberries. However, they do not require the acidic soil that blueberries do, and that's a big plus for me and my more neutral soil.

I had my three 20 gallon pots of figs, and my  several potted blueberries stored in the barn for the winter, covered in fiberglass insulation. Either mice or voles got into them, and only one blueberry survived. They didn't leave a speck of root nor branch except one blueberry and that one is iffy! The Haskaps will go in the ground soon and start to replace the blueberries. 

My big concern is that since some critters ate the roots and stems of my potted plants in the barn (like they ate all my sweet potato tubers in the ground last year), how do I protect new tree and bush roots in the ground? My instinct tells me to encircle each of them with planted garlic, chives and garlic chives. It will be a challenge, and my cat is sure not earning her keep killing the voles!

In April I will be attending an Extension Service grafting class about 2 hours away; it's being held at an antique cider apple orchard. They say we'll each go home with 5 apple grafts to plant! 

The woody fruit cuttings I now have under tents here at home include 2 trays of elderberries... the first tray of over a dozen seems to be growing fine. The second tray was just set a few days ago, so there's a long way to go. Other woody cuttings include beach plum, filberts (hazelnuts), Nanking cherries, Chinese chestnuts, black currants, buffalo currants, and maybe even some red currants (my currant bushes are unmarked).

I don't expect a lot of success with my woody cuttings other than the elderberries, since it's my first attempt, but I have to start somewhere... and buying a lot of fruiting plants is not in my budget. Any of these that do not root will be attempted again in summer with softwood cuttings. And again in winter with woody cuttings if necessary.

Been Hiding under a Rock?... Find the Groasis Waterboxx

Groasis Waterboxx  ©AquaPro

Groasis Waterboxx  ©AquaPro

I guess I DO live under a rock, because this terrific sustainable tech product has been around about 4 years, and I only stumbled on it about 3 months ago. I've been incubating the possibilities in my mind since then, and after a second review of the system recently, I still think the Groasis Waterboxx™ is the best product to support worldwide sustainable food production to come along in many, many years. (ps... I have no financial interest in this company, nor receive any remuneration from writing about it.)

As the Manufacturer says, "It's nothing more than an exceptionally well-designed bucket" that will grow trees even in the desert!

Groasis Waterboxx via Popular Science  ©AquaPro

Popular Science selected it as the 2010 Best of What's New, Innovation of the Year.

"This "waterboxx" is an ‘intelligent water battery’ that produces and captures water FROM THE AIR through condensation and occasionally a tiny bit of rain. The condensation is caused by artificial stimulation and the water is captured through physical capacities, without using energy.

The “Groasis” waterbox makes it possible to plant trees or bushes on rocks, on mountains, in gardens, in ashes of recently burned woods, eroded areas or deserts or any other place, without the help of irrigation with a 100% planting result. In moderate climates the “Groasis” waterbox causes a 15 to 30% faster growth after the start. There is no other planting solution comparable to this.

It is a product that the inventor foresees as a means to help save mankind as the world's population soars, a plant incubator that doesn't need irrigating, and which could help make fertile again the 70% of the world's arid and semi-arid lands whose productivity has been hit by deforestation and over farming."  Source

How it works is pretty cool... you put down a seed or two (or 1-2 seedlings), put the Waterboxx base over it, add 3 gallons of water to the box and another gallon to the seeds/seedlings... add the cover, and forget about it for the rest of the year.

The planting tub drips about three tablespoons of water a day into the soil via a wick, sustaining the plant while encouraging its roots to grow deeper in search of more water. By forcing the tap root deeper it strengthens the tree for it's entire lifetime making it less prone to wind damage and more likely to tap deeper for drought protection.

Too much water and a tree will create a layer of surface roots to maximize water consumption. These shallow roots, however, will bake and dry out whenever artificial watering stops.

Too little water and the tree dies.

Just enough water keeps the tree alive, but searching for more water - by sending the roots in the one direction that water can always be found - down.

Once these roots reach the aquifer, even if it is a seasonal aquifer, there is normally enough water to sustain the dry season.

I'm only surprised that such results can be reached in a single year!

Since I don't think I can adequately describe why it works, here's some text courtesy of www.groasis.com :

The Groasis waterbox - using natural principles

•Capillary: in each soil is capillary water. As soon as the sun shines on the soil, the capillary dries up. The Groasis waterbox prevents this. Do a test at home in your garden: lift a stone during the hottest days and look at the difference between the soil beside the stone and under the stone. Under the stone the soil is damp or wet.

•Rain: almost every place on Earth has rain. Even in the middle of the Sahara it is 50 mm per year. That is 50 litre per square meter. In most of the so called deserts or savannahs it is around 250 mm. That is 250 litre per square meter. The problem of this rain is that it falls in 2 days, and it all evaporates within a week. So the problem is not a lack of water, but the capture and distribution of the water over a year's period of time. The Groasis waterboxx captures this rainwater and distributes it via an ingenious stand-alone system over the year to the tree.

•Condensation: everywhere in the world where there is a minimum of relative humidity, and when surfaces are able to get colder than the air temperature, there is condensation. Two examples: 1) if you are cooking in winter and the warm air of your room touches the cold glass of the windows they will be wet. In Summer this phenomenon does not happen. 2) if you walk with glasses from the outside where it is cold into a warm place, your glasses will be covered with condensation. This is the phenomenon that the Groasis waterbox uses: during the night the temperature of the surface is able to drop lower than the surrounding air due to radiation. Due to the temperature difference between the surface of the Groasis waterbox and the air, the air is locally cooled down below its dew point. Now the air condensates at the surface of the Groasis waterbox and it gets wet. Because of its design which stimulates the production and collection of the condensation, the Groasis waterbox produces condensation daily. So the Groasis waterbox does NOT only collect dew, but also enhances the generation of it. To conclude: the Groasis waterbox produces on an artificial basis condensation that develops against its cold surface. Dew is the condensation of air humidity that develops when warm air is crimping.

•Distribution: the produced and collected water is distributed in small daily dosages via a small wick throughout the year or even for a longer period, to the plant.

•Avoid evaporation: the biggest loss of water is evaporation. That is why irrigation via tubes or sprinklers are so ineffective. The Groasis waterbox covers the place where the tree is planted. Therefore the capillary cannot evaporate nor the distributed water either. This means that the Groasis waterbox stimulates a 100% effective use of the added water. Compare this to irrigation: only between 10 to 20% of the added water is really used, the rest evaporates.

•Use of capillary: in nature seed is spread by grazing animals and birds. The seeds are sown ON TOP OF the soil. This is not a coincidence! In nature, coincidence does not exist, everything has its reason. The manure pastes the seed to the soil. In this way the capillary makes the seed humid, stimulating it to put a small root directly into the soil, giving it direct access to the available capillary humidity, allowing it to further grow. The Groasis waterbox planted with seeds copies this process: it does not disturb the soil and therefore maintains the existing capillary structure of the soil. Without capillary the soil would dry out to dust and erode.

•Temperature balancing: the buffer of water in the Groasis waterbox functions as an equalizer of the soil temperature. Avoiding extreme temperatures stimulates growth.

Here's what happens with the sun's movement over the waterboxx..

©AquaPro

©AquaPro

©AquaPro

I will tell you upfront that these planters are not too cheap. Bought in quantities of 10, they are $27.50 USD each... BUT, if you consider they are reusable for new trees/shrubs/plants for 10 years (or more), that brings down the cost PER TREE to under $3.00. I can't tell you how many expensive trees and shrubs I've lost over the years, but it's quite a lot of money. If I were planting trees up on the hill above my house, these would more than pay for themselves, because I surely WILL NOT carry water up that steep hill!!

It is amazing to see the possibilities we have available to provide all basic necessities for humanity. "Money" is pretended to be the constraint, but its only because providing trees would hardly be profitable for any financier. That’s why this kind of thing doesn't happen enough. We need to realize we have to use every resource, including money, to be efficient and sustainable.

Video Links:

How it works video
 

Growing Vegetables in Desert Conditions

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Video channel with many Groasis videos

Here's what a South African Dealer has to say.

Rooting fruit and nut tree cuttings

First time for everything! I finally decided to try and root some woody fruit and nut tree/shrub cuttings. So far I have a bunch of elderberry, Nanking cherry (for the birds, hoping they leave other fruits alone), filberts (hazelnuts) in potting medium under a plastic-wrap cover to increase humidity. I still have beach plum and both red and black currants to cut. According to my biodynamic planting calendar, the next optimal time is March 14-17, but they may be in full bud by then.

The hardest thing for me is remembering to keep the cuttings oriented in the direction they were growing when I cut and handle them. To plant them, I mixed up 1/3 sand with 2/3 organic potting mix, and dampened it well. I had put the cuttings immediately in a container of water, so all I had to do was cut segments below a node, re-wet the bottom, dip in rooting hormone, and stick in the pot.

The containers I'm using are half-size disposable steam table pans (aluminum) from Sam's Club (a package of 30 was $6.28). I poked drain holes in the bottom of a few, put some plastic spacers in the bottoms of some others without the drain holes, and put the medium-filled, drainable containers on top of the spacers. The pans are plenty deep for the cuttings, and the outer pan will catch any excess water.

Here's the progress so far:

Elderberry cuttings, dipped in hormone and placed in pot on Feb. 17, kept covered for a moist environment. I did have to take the lid off a time or two as something moldy-looking was growing on a couple of the tips.

Nanking Cherry and Hazelnut cuttings, started the same day as the elderberries. The hazelnuts don't show any signs of growth from the bud nodules yet, but the cherries flowered, and a few now even show tiny signs of leaf tips. Those white strips holding up the plastic "tent" are slats from a window blind.


It's too soon to disturb any of these cuttings to see if they are actually beginning to root, and frankly I'm a little nervous that they may not root! These trays are kept on the bookcase under my living room windows where they only get a half-day of light. I will post again when I know for sure if I passed, or failed the "rooting cuttings" test!

Permaculture??

Bill Mollison and his student (at the time) David Holmgren did a great thing when they developed philosophy of Permaculture in the 1970's. It's a topic that greatly interests me because it's as much about us, and how we treat each other and our planet, as it is about growing things. The more I learn about gardening, the more I realize how my garden is connected to everything (just like my self and my body), and how we/it all has to work together to succeed and survive.

But really, what IS Permaculture? For years I have heard that word, and read a smattering about it online here and there, but not enough to make any real sense to me until I read Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden last year. That book gave me a basis for understanding permaculture, at least in a general way, and I'm now firmly convinced that permaculture is the very best, and perhaps the only way to get us out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into.

Albert Einstein said, "We cannot solve the significant problems we face at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system."
~ Bill Mollison (from the permaculture.net website)

This definition of permaculture expresses a basic concept in permaculture - examining and following nature's patterns. Permaculture advocates designing human systems based on natural ecosystems. Permaculture draws from several other disciplines including organic farming, agroforestry, sustainable development, and applied ecology.  But, there are many other definitions of permaculture, just as there are many definitions of sustainable living.

The actual term permaculture is a contraction of the words "permanent," "agriculture,” and “culture.” Although the original focus of permaculture was geared towards sustainable food production, the philosophy of permaculture has expanded over time to encompass economic and social systems. It is a dynamic movement that is still evolving. For example, some practitioners are integrating spirituality and personal growth work into the framework of permaculture.

At the very core of premaculture are Ethics, sadly lacking in today's BigAg in my opinion.

The three philosophical ethics of permaculture (in simple form) are:

1. Care of the earth means that our number one priority is taking care of the earth, making sure we don't damage its natural systems so all life systems can continue and multiply.

2. Care of the people means meeting people's needs (having equal access to resources) so that people's lives can be sustained and have a good quality of life as well, but without damaging the earth.

3. Accepting (or setting) limits to population and consumption is realizing that as a human species we cannot continue to increase and also sustain the planet. By governing our own needs, we can set aside resources for the 2 principles above.

I think those are some really exacting standards... but as we begin to embrace them, some wonderful things happen even on a small scale.

"Care of the Earth" happens in both big and small ways, and not just in growing things. I like Hemenway's distinction of horticulture vs. agriculture. He points out that the etymology of  horticulture is the Latin hortus, meaning garden, while the etymology of agriculture is the Latin ager, meaning field. The big difference in planting huge fields and planting gardens could be considered as a part of permaculture.

I remember when I was reading The Celestine Prophecy back in the early 1990's, how one of the Insights was what happened to the plants when he talked to them. They flourished! That's just a tiny personal bit of "care of the earth" although permaculture goes much deeper. What happens when we give plants the real food they need, rather than a chemical soup which ends up harming our ecosystems like our soils and waterways? What happens when we put plants in nifty little plant communities with many diverse neighbors, and each plant contributes something to the success of the whole?

"Care of the Earth" is about what products we use and discard like trash. I fight daily to get my family here to consider the effects of all the cleaning chemicals they use, when hydrogen peroxide and baking soda would suffice. We live on a now almost-dead creek (from pollution); our creek waters flow down to the Holston River where they eventually join up with the French Broad River near Knoxville; there they become the beginning of the Tennessee River... and then they travel together along to the Ohio River and finally join and mingle with the Mighty Mississippi near Cairo, Illinois, and eventually end up in New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico with the massive floating dead zones created by the polluted rivers. Every individual along the many miles of this creek, and all the rivers downstream, could change some of the dying creeks and rivers by simple "Care of the Earth".

Another biggie is what we allow commercial enterprises do to our Earth... fracking, strip mining, mountaintop removal, nuclear power plant waste products that are hazardous for 10,000+ years... and GMO's. (A bit of scientific research about GMO's show that they reduce sperm count from the get-go; lab tests in rats show GMO's render complete sterility in 3 generations... if you think about it, that's really population control, without consent.)

"Care of the Earth"  is also how we manage our finite resources (oil, natural gas, the metals we mine, water, and the topsoil we wash away) so that we can continue to exist, and still leave some resources for our children and grandchildren. (We should all work on becoming more realistic about what our basic "needs"  vs. "wants" really are.)

Then there is BigAg, with their/our dependence on the rapidly depleting supplies of fossil fuels. The majority of the food we eat world-wide is produced by BigAg, unless we somehow manage to supplement it with a fruit-nut-veggie patch in our yards or our neighborhoods. Having a garden, even if it's just potted tomatoes on a balcony, IS one way we can start to make changes, and assure some nutritionally good foods in our households as we do. (There are many other ways, but a garden is a good one.) Permaculture can be a pathway because it can teach us, among other things, how to increase yield while eliminating dependence on man-made chemical fertilizers. We just have to learn to do as Nature does!

 "Care of the People" is a vast challenge, and is more than just not making war on them, or even just feeding them. Most of us mentally divide "us" and "them", and we weep and gnash our teeth at problems that happen within our immediate family and those we know and care about, whether it's a health problem, an auto accident, or job loss. Of course, we also lament the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in a catastrophe half way around the world, but it is a detached kind of lament and doesn't really touch us, deep down on some emotional level, like those at home do.

So, when we move manufacturing (sweatshops?) to foreign countries out of our view, we can act detached from the abuses. We prohibit DDT here in the US but sell it overseas, and we can pretend we have eliminated that particular toxin, even though it comes back to us in/on imported foods.

Here's a very simplistic "care of the people" test just in your own personal surroundings... If you work in a large office or plant, very likely there is a person you pass often, with just a cursory nod or "Hello". The next time you pass that person, stop and make a personal comment to them, something like "that color looks good on you"... or "hey, that's a great tie/tattoo/haircut"... just anything more personal than the previous impersonal nods. Watch the reaction... the whole energy pattern changes for the better.

"Accepting Limits to population and consumption"... Years ago, the Chinese limited the number and gender of live children a couple could have. It brought fierce turmoil to their people. But I think we all really KNOW in our hearts the world cannot continue to sustain the projected increase in world population. A big question for everyone is: are you willing to limit your number of children/grandchildren? Or is that just the responsibility of "others" in poorer nations?

But it's NOT just limiting population; it's about limiting resources so everyone has a fair share.

I personally believe that the principles of permaculture could cure the planet from the all the damage conventional chemical agriculture has wrought, and maybe save us from extinction.

The permaculture ideas I know about are wonderful, and I have adopted some of the food forest ideas, which are partially from the Permaculture crowd and partially from others... and they all pretty much follow the Wiki definition, "Permaculture is a theory of ecological design which seeks to develop sustainable human settlements and agricultural horticultural systems, by attempting to model them on natural ecosystems." 

I'd love to take a PDC but it is not likely; the charges for the PDC course vary considerably with location. Here in Virginia and nearby North Carolina, the going rate is well in excess of $1,000... while a friend in upstate New York can find the same PDC certificate course for under $300. I think the design concepts are important, especially the ecological ones, but I want lots of practical information applicable to my situation, too.

I must say, though, that if I had the opportunity (and the money) to take a PDC course from one of the established Permaculture giants like Geoff Lawton or Toby Hemenway, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

If money is an issue, as it is for me, there are some good alternatives to learning about permaculture other than taking a PDC. Unfortunatey for us in the US, much of the available information is for tropical climates, but that is beginning to change as the concepts are becoming more widely known across the US and Canada. There are some permaculture forums on the internet, and several blogs that focus on various aspects of permaculture.

If you learn easily from books, you can buy  Bill Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual; it sells for around $110. It is the definitive Permaculture design manual in print since 1988, and it is the text book and curriculum for the 72-hour Certificate course in Permaculture Design (PDC). Written for teachers, students and designers, it follows on and greatly enlarges on the initial introductory texts, Permaculture One (1978) and Permaculture Two (1979, currently OOP) both of which are still in demand over twenty years after publication. Very little of the material found in the Designer's Manual is reproduced from the former texts. It covers design methodologies and strategies for both urban and rural applications describing property design and natural farming techniques.

An excellent book if you are just starting out is Gaia's Garden (by Toby Hemenway) for around $20.

Another alternative is to investigate the work of Sepp Holzer, an Austrian man who has done some remarkable things in Natural Farming, much like the great natural farming pioneer, Masanobu Fukuoka. The Holzer Permaculture is a branch of permaculture developed by Sepp independently from the mainstream Permaculture. It is particularly noteworthy because it grew out of practical application and absolutely detached from the scientific community.

By the way, there has been lots of contention over who if anyone controls the legal rights to the word "Permaculture", meaning is it trademarked or copyrighted, and if so, who holds the legal rights to the use of the word. For a long time Bill Mollison claimed to have copyrighted the word permaculture, and his books reflected that on the copyright page, saying "The contents of this book and the word PERMACULTURE are copyright." These statements were largely accepted at face-value within the permaculture community. However, copyright law does not protect names, ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something; it only protects the expression or the description of an idea, not the idea itself. Eventually Mollison acknowledged that he was mistaken and that no copyright protection existed for the word "permaculture". Source

Soldier Rows in the Garden, Poly- versus Mono-

Monticello Garden Photo by Southern Foodways Alliance 

Maybe the only place where "mono" should be preferred over "poly" probably is in marriage and committed relationships. "Mono" certainly has no place on my dinner table because it isn't a balanced meal... and it should not have a place in agriculture, because rampant monocultures have done our ecology so much harm.  

"The United States has a topsoil problem. About 75 percent of it is gone, primarily because the large, single-crop farms that dominate American agriculture rely on chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to produce their harvests, depleting natural soil systems in the process." Source)

Even my little experiment last summer of mixing vegetables in among the flowers and shrubs produced better than my previous soldier-rows of each kind of vegetable. But why do we carry that monoculture concept over into our home vegetable gardens, and plant our veggies, all of a kind in neat, tidy little rows??


I find myself guilty of picturing "vegetable gardens" as neat, tidy and weed-free rectangular-shaped gardens, all laid out in nice little rows. It's really hard to ignore our mental pictures of how we have believed things should be... Mental imprints from childhood to adulthood are hard to eradicate because we simply don't think about them anymore... they just pop up, fully-formed. Say "vegetable garden" and our automatic mental picture is usually tidy little soldier rows.


One of the things I like about Edible Food Forest Gardening is that there are no soldier-rows. You may have squash or bean plants interspersed with comfrey, under the umbrella of a fruit or nut tree and all of it surrounded by a circle of garlic or leeks. It works because each plant contributes something to the whole... that is, each plant gives something to the benefit of all the other plants. They depend on each other to not just survive, but to thrive!


The comfrey (dynamic accumulator) brings up deep minerals that the roots of the squash never reach deeply enough to tap into... and the comfrey also provides almost perpetual mulch if you cut and drop the leaves several times over a growing season. The bean plants are nitrogen fixers, and the squash leaves provide some shade for some close-by strawberry plants or salad greens... and the salad greens or strawberry plants act as a ground cover for the tree roots, keeping most weeds out. The encircling ring of garlic, chives, leeks or even jonquils, are protectors and keep voles from tunneling into the food supply, and can help deter rabbits from chomping on the goodies inside the ring. The ring of alliums also tend to keep grass from encroaching.


My first trial "circle" (aka Guild) of planting in this fashion was last year around a young apple tree... although not a circle, just an area around the tree. I had green beans, tomatoes, artichokes, strawberries, comfrey, several flowering herbs and nasturiums (pollinator attractors) interplanted around the 6 foot tall apple seedling, an area much larger than the current apple canopy. By this spring, the strawberries should have multiplied, the comfrey and herbs will come back, and the tree may have grown another foot or so. I didn't have a surrounding ring of alliums because I got started on it so late, but hope to remedy that this year.


I have much to learn about perennial polyculture, and growing my garden in this fashion... things like what each plant brings to the party... but eventually I should have a garden that mostly takes care of itself... weed-free, self-fertilizing, a beneficial wildlife and pollinator haven... and pest-resistant.  

Seems a lot more sensible than all the work of planting, fertilizing, and weeding lots of soldier-rows!