top set onions, tree onions, walking onions, egyptian onions

 If you haven't tried these they are wonderful for the food forest, or for any garden for that matter. If you know of someone who has them, they'll happily give you starts, as they are prolific multipliers. They multiply below ground, and above ground on tall stems. They grow these clumps of baby onion sets in t he summer on top of a long stem, that will dry and bend over so that the clump touches the ground. Each tiny little onion on the clump will grow a new onion plant. The bottoms will never get as large as a big onion, but they are good eating. And even the little top sets can be pickled if you have too many. In Spring they produce green onions that are wonderful in salads.

This  year I had so many, even after replanting hundreds, giving hundreds away and walking through my food forest paths (see other posts) and sticking little sets in all along the forest paths, gurilla gardening style.

Freezing Blossoms

 

Well, we had 80's in March, 70's in April and 60's in May, and 19 to 24 degree overnight now. The warm Spring weather encouraged all of our fruit trees to blossom, and our perennials to grow. So far since the perennials have come up and the fruit trees started blooming we have had dozens of hard freezes and several light frosts. It's so disappointing knowing how hard this is on the trees and vines and plants. Right now the plums are already dropping their blossoms as are a few of the pear trees, the peaches are just opening now and the apples and grapes are holding on tight to their buds. There have been a few wild strawberries bloom so far, but the rest of the berries are holding on as well. I've picked 22 small morel mushrooms already in the lawns near our back woods.

We have 30'. and  20's in the forecast for the next two weeks yet. Last year we lost a lot of fruit and grape buds to late spring frosts in May and June which limited our fruit harvests. Looks like we'll be in for this again.

So this spring I've mostly been doing cosmetic stuff on the property. Cutting up downed trees, picking up branches, pruning and weeding. A little dividing and moving and planting. 

Can't do too much until the weather clears up, but I have tomatoes in the greenhouse ..and  Basil. And lots of starts growing in the house waiting for the weather to stabililze. Hope you are having better weather than I am and don't lose everything to frosts.

Sustainability

Sustainability, what does it mean to you? 

To me, sustainability means keeping all of your property as close to how nature would have it be. Looking around your property, is your property sustainable? Would a black bear or a deer be able to find a safe place on your property to sleep? If the grocery stores had no food, would YOU even be able to go outdoors, to your own property and be able to find enough food for you and your famiy?? I would. I have made a habit of planting enough food and cover and  browse for my family, and all of  the wildlife that would like to live on my property.  

Often a lot of people think that they are sustaining the planet by driving an electric vehicle, or recycling their trash. Not true. There is nothing sustainable about any of the liberal idea of green living at all. How many trees have they planted on their property in the past year? The past 50 years??

My husband and I will have been living on our property for 50 years this year. And since we moved to this property, we have consistantly planted trees, forbes, berries, shrubs and wildflowers, as well as native pants that will feed ALL of God's creatures that would choose to walk across our property.

Even people who do have a few fruit trees, and vegetable gardens, would not be able to live over a few weeks if grocery stores closed down today. Many of you during COVID discovered that very quickly. People all over couldn't find toilet paper, bread, sugar, flour, and hand sanitizer..OUCH.

I'm a bit concerned over people who are totally dependent on stores and government to make it on their own. On my property you might not even survive, cause you might not even recognize the food plants that are growing everywhere. To the untrained eye, most of what is edible on my land may appear to be weeds, woods, and rodents..Most human beings would never ever, even if they were dying, eat a mouse, squirrel, grub , ant, deer, bear, dandelion, or get their medicine from the willow shrub or barberry bush in my yard. 

There are some excellent books available that you could read that would help you to recognize the foods and medicines on my property, I have a lot of those books and have collected them. But by the time the grocery stores are out of food it is too late for you to  buy the books, or grow the plants, or to welcome the wildlife to your land. 

Even my friends and relatives that hunt and fish, arent even likely to plant an apple tree in their own yard. A short list of a few of the food plants and animals growing every year in my yard are: Asparagus, kiwi,serviceberry, apple,chokecherrry, barberry,beech,blackberry, black raspberry, blueberry, butternut, carrot, catalpa,cattail,cherrry,chestnut,comfrey,corn,currant,dandelion, daylilly, elderberries,fat hen,filbert,frogs,garlic,chives, gooseberry, grapes, heartnut,horseradish,rhubarb,jerusalem artichoke,knotweed, malva,medlar,milkweed,motherwort, burdock root,oak,onion, parsnips,peaches,pears,plums,rabbits,raspberries,sage,thyme,wintergreen,walnut,turtles.....deer, bear, racooon, possum, etc.

That is just a few items that grow here, I also plant vegetable gardens each year, I save seeds from my plants so I don't have to go to the store to buy seeds, but I always add new seeds, plants and trees from the stores every single year. You can never have too much growing on your land. You can always preserve the extra or give it to the needy, or sell it. Or feed it to the wildlife.

I'm only trying to encourage some of you, since the covid scare....to at least start a few pots of vegetables this spring, or to plant a few fruit trees in your yard. There are really good books out there that will tell you how to prepare, eat and kill what you need to, to survive. But PLEASE at least plant a tree this year.

 

Plums, Plums, and more plums....

This raggedy plum is what was left from a fruit cocktail tree. It was supposed to be plums, peaches, nectarines, etc. But all the other grafts died and it has only lovely red plum. I'm not really recommending multiple graft trees as I've only had ONE that survived with multiple grafts, and it hasn't borne yet so I'm not really sure what will bear on it. I've planted many multigraft trees that didn't do well.

Anyway, this lovely twisted mess is my favorite plum tree, I pick beautiful red freestone plums on it every year from the porch, and have to duck under the branches as they hang so low when they are heavy with plums. It is underplanted with lilies, hostas, poppies and other plants. I see this plum from my favorite chair in the living room and it is always full of birds and critters.

I have a Santa Rosa dwarf plum to the far left of this one that has its first blossoms on it this year. 

The Santa Rosa plum is also supposed to bear red plums, larger I believe than the ones from the previous tree, and maybe we'll find out this year. This is NOT in a bed and does have some grass around it which is not supposed to be there, I've just not had energy with my 6 surgeries in the last few years to work on the area around it. Tot he right behind it is a large black currant bush that is loaded with buds now.

I have dozens and dozens of American wild plum trees in the back of my old garden near my hazelnut bushes. These have loads and loads of small freestone plums that also are red and about the size of a jawbreaker when ripe. Ron loves these, they aren't much more than a bite, but they are beautiful plums. I have taken pits from these and planted them all over in the woods and along the property lines. They are wonderful for wildlife as well as people and I'm always trying to plant more trees for wildlife.

I also have a tiny little baby plum tree that I got a start from a neighbor, Winn McDanial, but it isn't wanting to  grow well where it is. This one has the small purple plums, different than any we have here, but it is way too small to bear at this time. Maybe someday.

Pears and peaches in the food forest gardens

Pears in the food forest garden are one of the most important fruits. If you live in the far North, as I do, zone 4b Michigan, Pears will be the most reliable and hardiest of all of your fruits.

I have several varieties of pears, some bear reliably, some tend to get their blossoms nipped by frosts in May.

The pear above bore for the first time last year, it is a dwarf moonglow pear and this year it is loaded with blossoms.

One thing about your fruit trees, especially in a food forest garden, you want to plant them in guilds with beneficial plants around the base of the trees, and no grass if you can avoid it as it robs nutrients from the tree. This moonglow guild has comfrey which is a dynamic accumulator and a mulch plant, as well as a pollinator which draws in large numbers of bees. There are also maximillion sunflowers clematis and other perennials as well as spring flowering bulbs, lilies, and others around the base of this pear tree. Moonglow is one of my favorite pears, it is a reliable bearer and it has delicious pears which keep well and don't have gritty flesh.

To the right of the Moonglow pear is a dwarf 5 on one pear tree, I'm not fond of multiple grafted fruit trees as they tend to not be very hardy, but this one is doing OK. It did suffer quite a bit of bud damage with our May freezes, and there are only about a half dozen buds open this year, but it is it's first year to bud so I'm thrilled to find out which pears will bear on which branches this year.

The pears that were grafted onto this tree include : Bartlett, Kieffer, Moonglow, Orient and Ayers. We have other Bartlett, Moonglow and Ayers so are hoping for Kieffer and Orient to bear well, but would be happy if they all bear (although I'm not fond of ayers).

Around the base of this tree are more perennials and bulbs as well as roses, hydranges, hollyhocks and many other plants. There are crocosmia and other bulbs as well.

On the SE corner of  our house we have a baby dwarf Bartlett Pear tree, this one also has never born, but has a few blossoms that didn't freeze, so we might get a few pears off of this one this year. There are some forsythia and perennials growing around the base of this tree.

This pear tree is an Ayers. It was totally loaded with blossoms this year and they didn't freeze, two years ago this tree bore so many pears that the branches were lying on the deck. We pruned it back really hard after that and hope to not have such a glut of pears from this tree, as we aren't really fond of the Ayers pears. I have attempted to graft others to this tree to no avail. This tree is underplanted with a lot of perennials and comfrey. There are also now two baby peach trees planted on either side of this tree (2 other ayers pears were there but died).

These two baby peach trees are Semi-dwarf Belle of Georgia peach trees, the above one has a few pretty pink blossoms coming out on it and the below one has no blossoms, but is surviving it's second year in its new home.

We have a couple other trees that MAY be peach trees, we have had poor luck with peaches in our zone 4 b garden, it's really too cold for them here, but I'm a die hard trier...

This tree may be a peach, it has the pink blossoms on it now like the above peach tree, and may have survived from one that was barely alive in the past.

The one on the left has pink blossoms like a peach, the one on the right and in the rear are cherries.

this tree is planted at the edge of the woods, it was the rootstock left after the grafts died of a peach tree, the blossoms at the top are white, not sure what the rootstock was, but some day I maybe could graft peaches back on, or we'll see what comes from the blossoms, probably plum.

widowmakers

When you get storm damage in a woods, often you are presented with partially downed trees commonly known as widowmakers...

there is NO easy way to take down these trees. Thank God this one fell down in the windstorm we had this spring after hanging up there for a LONG time.

This is part of the TOP of the tree, it actually was so long it fell completely over the brush pile and there is still about 20 feet of uncut tree on the back side of the brush pile.

This is the bottom part of the tree, except  I had to cut down the trunk part that you can see in the top photo had not yet fallen down.

This is the widowmaker piled in 4 neat piles, can't really see the farthest  back pile. Nice to have that one done..but widowmaker # 2 was more of a challenge. As I said, the top of the tree is still on the back side of the far brush pile, it can stay there for a while.

Widowmaker # 2..

This was a very large heavy tree, broken off up about 10 feet, but still attached by a bunch of bent and splintered wood. This one was NOT going to come down by itself. Ron attacked it while I was gone yesterday with our little oregon battery powered eversharp chainsaw. Well this was the result, using a step ladder, and getting the saw pinned in the falling tree, having to use a wedge to get it unstuck, and unbend the bar...yup...he's good.

Yes, you can see the mess still standing where the tree was hung up, it was up so high I could drive the riding lawnmower under it to mow the path without ducking. Yes it is still in piles, I'll clean those up soon and stack to dry for firewood. Aspen doesn't burn really good, and especially when green, but dry it will burn if you have to burn it. We have a lot of dead ash, and aspen that need to come down, I cut down 3 dead trees this week besides the widowmakers, and there are more that will need to come down. We are pleased that there are a LOT of baby maples and oaks growing up in this woods, and we also have a good deal of alder and wild cherry. I've been planting a lot of trees, on the south edge of the woods I have several baby black walnut, a carpathian walnut, a butternut and two heartnuts. I've also been putting in fruit and seeds of wild plum hazelnut and medlar trees.

We have been gathering fallen branches, smaller trees and brush to put along our property line as a dog barrier, the neighboring dog (when here) loves to attack pets and chickens, so we need to have a way to keep it off of our property.



Hope you enjoyed the widowmakers..

2020 Spring, Containers on decking

Well it has been awhile since I posted on the blog, I've not done a lot since I had brain surgery 11 months ago. I have been doing a lot of thinking after having 4 surgeries last year, so I'm trying something a little different this spring. I purchased 6 containers and had 2 rubbermaid totes, and I'm doing a little planting in these on the porch and deck to have some vegetables highly accessible, near the doorways, especially salad vegetables.

With the Covid19 hitting this spring, it has made things even a little more difficult with our Governor telling us that we were unable to buy, planters, plants, seeds, soil, etc. But we are making some progress despite the rules.

I purchased the 4 brown containers before the Covid19 and I purchased the 2 black containers after the purchase ban was lifted as well as some dairy doo.

This is my first container, I had started 4 cabbages in the house earlier and set them out in two containers, but one died, and had to be replanted, so I still have 4 Katrina cabbage plants. The tiny plants in the container is from a Mesclun mix and soon should be yielding some salads. Parsnip seeds are planted in the back and maybe a few pea seeds (my peas rotted and had to be replanted).

This is my second container on my front porch, there is another Katrina cabbage from the first planting and a smaller one from the replanted planting, the center is Space Spinach.  There is also peas and parsnip seed planted in this container, not up yet.

Not much growing in this container, there are two kinds of radishes, and a badly frosted broccoli, as well as some peas and parsnip seeds.

There are some wierd pelleted salad greens called simply wok along the left side, and some beets sprouting in the center of this container, have not done any thinning yet, there are also parsnips and peas planted in this container.

There are two more containers just like these on the front porch that are filled and have parsnip seeds planted in them, but they aren't up yet either, I'll also plant some warm weather crops in those. We are having snow this week from a late polar vortex, so glad that I haven't planted those yet.

I have two rubbermaid totes on my east deck also..

This tote has two kinds of russian Kale growing, one red and one green as well as a few parsnip seeds.

This tote has carrots planted in it, they really need to be thinned badly, I'll get to it when it stops snowing out.

I had 6 tomatoes planted in my greenhouse, but its been very cold, and even in the greenhouse all but two of them froze, I replanted but they haven't sprouted, and I'll probably have to buy a few plants instead, but the stores haven't gotten them in yet.

I have garlic growing in the greenhouse and I planted some parsnips in there too, Ron loves parsnips so hopefully some will grow well. I also started a top of a parsnip and a carrot for seed....and the bottom of a celery and they are all growing. I bought some top set egyptian onions by mail and they came, 10 of them, and they are planted in a bucket until I can plant them in the ground.

My raised beds are still waiting to be planted and worked on AFTER the snow stops !!!! Yes it is May.

My Stinging nettles from last year came back beautifully as well as all of my perennials and my fruit trees and herbs, so I have a LOT growing in the gardens, but I thought I would share the container experiment while I wait for the snow to stop.

HABITATS for Inhumanity, if you build it they will come..

Habitats for Inhumanity can be many types of things, here is an example of two brushpiles that I've built (today) to clear my trail in my front yard. The small pile on the left by the lattice fence will eventually be covered with fox grapes which are growing nearby, the trees beyond the piles are dead and wil be added to the piles as they fall down. The pile on the right ahead is built over a honeysuckle bush that succumbed to the shade, and formed an arch, so I've added brush and logpiles to the pile to form a larger pile (I have another view below). The arch forms the doorway into the pile and there is about a 20 x 20 pile about 7 to 8 feet high around the doorway arch. Many critters will use this brush pile, birds, animals, snakes and lizards, etc.

This is the backside of the above brush pile along my trail which you can see right here.....
This hides the archway and provides smaller branches to catch the snow when it falls so that critters can overwinter inside the pile, you can't see it but there is a pile of bear poo in the path just to the right of the pile..There is also a little HOUSE that I built many years ago and it's kinda falling apart tot he right of the pile by some dead pine trees that the small animals use. You can see a lot of small trees, these are quaking aspen that are growing up in the area and will make it a woods, there are also baby ash, oak and hemlock trees growing in the open areas among the ground covers and daylillies.

This is another animal and bird habitat in my front yard, this is just north of the ones shown above by the lattice fence which encloses my front yard. To the left above you can see what is left of a large stump that small animals love, and you can see that t he plants have been beaten down by critters.

Rocks are a wonerful habitat for small critters, especially those that love to warm themselves on them, snakes and lizards especially. This is actually a waterfall that flows into the pond but I have the pump turned off right now because the pond is nearly dry as we have been having a drought here, which is normal in July and August for us.

Here are several views of a pond that we have only for wildlife, we allow natural weed and plant growth for the animals, I have seen deer give birth in this pond shortly after we first built it in 2002.

You can't see the water lilies or other flowering plants growing in the pond right now as the flowers are done with for the summer except a few stragglers.

Above are several brush piles and woodpiles that we have throughout the property North of our Pond. Animals and birds really love these piles, the birds are darting in and out all the time looking for bugs and amphibians.  These are very close to the pond so that the animals and birds that are living in the brush piles and wood piles can hunt in the pond for fish and insects and be close to cover should they be alarmed.

Brush piles are great for small animals like woodchucks, rabbits, skunks, squirrels, chipmunks, mink, weasels, bobcat, fox and maybe an occasional bear. I'm not sure what animals are living in my many brushpiles as I try not to disturb them unless I'm adding a new layer of brush to them, which you do have to do from time to time, as the brush will deteriorate after a few years and compact.

One of the brushpiles above you can see a woodbine vine growing over it, eventually vines that grow wild around here like grape, woodbine, nightshade, honeysuckle and others will take over the woodpiles and provide even more food and cover for the critters and birds.

A lot of people will haul off their brush, or burn it, but it is a very valuable habitat to have on your property to provide food and shelter to wildlife and it is always better to keep as much of your carbon on your property as possible. We always will have trees dying or branches blowing off, you can always put them in a deserted corner of your property or behind a bush or shed..and if you have it within sight (which ours are not from our house) you can watch the comings and the goings. I have thought of placing game cameras near the larger piles to see what comes and goes, but that will have to wait until I have the extra money for the game camera. In the meantime I'll just make the habitat available for all of the inhumanity on our property. And you can too.

Mid summer in the food forest..

We have dozens of grapevines on our property as well as wild grapes growing along the ditches. The ones above are from our 100 year old seeded concord grapevines that were planted here by the Triplett ancestors before we lived here.Below is an arbor that I built in our backyard with  several varieties of seedless and seeded grapes This is one of 2 arbors in this garden that also has apples, asparagus, cherries, plums, hazelnuts, rhubarb, raspberries, jerusalem artichokes, and chestnut. Below  that is an arbor that I built that has a dozen varieties of seedles grapes as well as kiwi, thornless blackberries, Medlar and strawberries. This arbor is east of our house. We also have 3 other grape arbors on the property with other varieties of seedless grapes.

The photograph above and below shows also a new addition to our garden this year, north Georgia Candy Roaster Pumpkins. There are 3 or 4 baby pumpkins on each of the 3 vines so they are growing well.

We also have a  variety of winter squash growing in a forested patch by our north woods, the packet was of several different heirloom winter squash, and there are a few baby squash setting now.

The fun thing about food forest gardens is growing trees, shrubs, vines, bulbs and herbaceous plants all together.

This bed has baby blueberry plants among wild strawberry plants. We are gettng some huge blueberries off of the baby plants this year and the wild strawberries, although they are small berries, they give us berries all summer long. Behind it you can see a medlar tree with perennial wildflowers growing around it for pollination.

We have a number of pear trees, many are dwarfs. By the red crocosmia is a 5 on one pear tree, it bloomed this year for the first time but haven't seen any baby pears on it. The small tree to the left of it is the Moonglow pear also shown below, and it has a lot of small pear trees on it. Beyond it is a red plum tree which I've shown in several pictures, loaded with plums.

The pear tree below is the Ayres Pear tree that was so loaded last year, it has some pears on it but a lot of the blossoms froze this year so it isn't as loaded down as last year. Below it on either side are 2 baby peach trees, so small that they aren't showing up in the photo.

This tree below is a baby Bartlett pear tree, it also had a few blossoms on it for the first time this year, but I don't see any pears on it, we did have a late June freeze that killed off a lot of blossoms.

This one below is a fruit on the Moonglow pear tree, There are a lot of baby fruits on this tree.

This corner of the back garden is where the hazelnuts are growing, but the corner is American Wild Plums. There were none on when this photograph was taken earlier this spring, but they are all loaded now with small red plums. We grow these wild plums in a florest setting mixed with 2 kinds of nut trees as well as maple, cherry, aspen trees and gooseberry bushes, Jerusalem artichokes and apple trees.

We have a dozen or so apple trees, several of the small ones were damaged by wildlife over the winter but all but one have grown back, obviously no apples on those, but we have several larger apple trees as well, one is loaded with apples but the blossoms frozen in the June freeze on all the rest. The crabapples mostly survived the frosts. All the berries are doing fantastic, we have black and red and gold raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, gooseberries, service berries, wintergreen berries, blackberries (which haven't bloomed yet), and elderberries and other wild berries yet to come.

Soon we will be overwhelmed with fruit to can and freeze and make jams and jellies with. As well as tomatoes and vegetables which we also grow. Kinda glad to have a bit of a slow fruit year this year as last year everything was so loaded we couldn't give it all away..maybe we'll have another bumper year again next year.

The hazelnuts are still not quite ready to pick, when they are it will be a race with the forest creatures to get them first, last year they won, year before we won..anyone want to put bets on it this year??