Greta Lee

I have a large pile of mostly green leaves with twigs and small branches raked up after Hurricane Helene.  I am wondering if this pile could be used to grow some wine caps or another mushroom.  I am not as excited about growing them for food as using them to break down the pile and to add beneficial mycelium to the surrounding soil.  Has anyone had experience growing mushrooms on fresh piles of leaves, twigs and small branches?  I can flatten the pile to give more surface area but don't really want to rebuild it with layers.  Maybe inoculate the edges of the pile with spawn in sawdust?  I can wait for wood chips but not sure when we will get the chipper fired up.  There will still be a lot of leaves in the mix.

We have about an acre-sized pond that has a lot of muck in the bottom.  We also have piles of brush and cut-up dead pines near the pond.  I have been wondering about pumping or using a rake and wheelbarrow to remove the sludge and then covering the brush piles with the sludge in a sort of Huegelkultur fashion.  But really unsure if this is a good idea.  The piles are mostly shaded so it wouldn't create a great growing space.  Just thinking it might speed decomposition of the wood and reduce the fire hazard.  I have also read online that, for ecological reasons, it is better to treat the muck with enzymes than to pump it out.  Has anyone tried using sludge on brush piles?

In our previous residence, we had a garden pond that had to be re-done after a hurricane came through.  The sludge was pumped out into an area of the garden.  I found that plants did not do well when planted directly into the sludge.  My guess is it needed aerating.  

Jotham Bessey wrote:Aloe Vera - keep it out of direct sun and water it occasionally. Not need for set watering schedule.
Micro Dwarf tomatoes - needs watering often but the fruit is sooooo tasty! even better that the home grown regular cherry tomatoes.

Jonathan, Ever since I saw your post on micro dwarf tomatoes, I can't get them out of my mind.  I looked them up online, and there are multiple varieties available.  It seems the size of the plant is somewhat dependent on the size of the pot.  Would you please give a little more info about your tomatoes?  What variety?  What size pot?  And do they produce well on a south-facing windowsill or do they need a grow light?

Thanks.  I really have to try these.  Our tomato-growing season is so short here, and I don't like buying out of season produce.

A bay tree makes a very useful houseplant.  Add a leaf or two to a pot of beans or stew, and you fill the house with a wonderful fragrance while making the food taste better.   My bay tree has been living in a pot for over 30 yr.  I repot it every few years, and it is now up to about a 3 gal pot.  It goes outdoors into partial shade after frost and stays out until it gets cold in the fall.  On a few occasions, I let it get too dry, and it lost almost all its leaves.  But new ones grew back after it was outside and getting all the water it wanted.  The only issue is scale, a tiny insect that forms a waxy shell over itself and secretes honeydew.  If you let it get out of hand, the floor under the plant gets sticky.  My solution is to wash each leaf with a rag dipped in water with a drop of dish soap and a drop of cooking oil. This happens once a year in late fall/early winter.  For maintenance,  I scout for sticky spots on leaves and scrape off the scale with a fingernail.  Washing every leaf is great motivation to use lots of leaves in cooking so there are not so many leaves to wash.

I used to have a sunroom full of houseplants.  I felt like a plant-slave maintaining all of them.  Now I just have a few that tolerate getting too dry occasionally.  My 40 year old weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) add lovely greenery to the house in the winter and also clean the air of chemicals.  They do well in indirect light but not so well in a sunny window.  They also tolerate a lot of neglect, like not being re-potted or fed regularly.  If they get too dry, they will drop leaves.  Pruning keeps the size down and makes them bushier.   They used to live outdoors under the shade of large trees in the summer where they would sometimes bloom but not produce fruit.  Now I just set them outside when it is going to be warm and raining for a few days.  That cleans the leaves.  

When the soil surface looks dry, I stick a finger in the soil to see if the plant needs watering.  I like Nancy Reading's idea "Another tip is to have a wooden stick in the compost. When you think about watering, pull it out and test whether it is damp or dry to judge whether the plant really does need a drink or not."   Popsicle sticks could work really well.

We too have been contemplating a wood shed.  The EPA has pictures and plans for a simple wood-drying wood shed.   EPA woodshed.  We haven't used them but the plans are straightforward.

At our previous house, we had a custom built wood shed where the back of the shed had a shallow enclosed tool shed.  The doors to the tool shed opened out the back of the shed.  That way the tools could be accessed without going through the firewood.  The tool shed was kept shallow (about 3 ft deep) for organizational reasons as well as the overall size of the shed.

After over 40 years of living with the same partner, I can say that a commitment to get along and stay together gets you through many differences of opinion.  When you are committed to getting along, you will find a way to work out your differences.  I have also learned that when people are in pain or have other struggles, they will say things they don't mean.  It is best not to take such comments personally.

And from mindfulness classes, don't tell yourself stories.  When you make up stories about yourself or the people in your social sphere, you can start to believe them even though they are not based on reality.  

The concept of turning dead, fire hazard wood into useful moisture holding soil on a large scale makes great sense.  My first thought is how to implement the program at a scale that will be effective in the near future.  I have recently heard about two programs: Transition Networks which helps people organize, find funding and accomplish tasks and the American Forest Foundation which is working to help family-owned forests become more sustainable and to serve as carbon offset markets.  The latter is only available in 5 states so far.  Their approach is interesting though.  They have partnered with the Nature Conservancy and issued a $10 million dollar green bond underwritten by Morgan Stanley to pay for the start-up costs.  Ben Zumeta has laid out a reasonable, well thought out plan or road map and done a major successful pilot project.  So who implements the plan? How?  Is there a state agency that could be approached?  Or is it better to work through a non-profit organization?

On a more personal level, I live in the North Carolina mountains where fire hazard is rare but not unheard of.  We bought a property that had about 3 A of mostly pine forest with a large number of dead small pines still standing.  We cut the smaller ones and hired someone more skillful to cut the larger dead trees.  We had made numerous brush piles.   Our wonderful hired person laid the trees (branches mostly removed) in linear arrays outlining paths throughout our forest.  We still have the dead wood, but it is mostly in contact with the ground.  I have often thought of hugelkultur but cannot conceive of where the soil comes from to cover the wood.  I would like to do some thinning of live trees but am afraid of increasing the fire danger by adding more dead wood.  

One of my big struggles was handling a heavy rubber hose and trying to get it through a perennial bed without damaging plants. So  I bought a flexible, expandable hose that is super lightweight. Problem solved.  Amazon has several.  I can't remember the brand I bought.  The only issues are the need to empty it when you finish watering (otherwise it won't be lightweight), and the hose tends to shrink a little in length as you water.  But not a real problem.  I just turn the faucet off and then run the hose out on my favorite plants.  The other thing about this type of hose is that it compacts to a very small space for winter storage.

My 80 yo husband and I (71 yo) built a raised bed using a kit from Lee Valley Garden Tools and concrete pavers held on edge.  The kit consists of metal brackets that are attached to 2x4's.  The brackets have bolts that hold the pavers in place.  We think the bed will outlast us.  Filling the bed was a major challenge.  Online there was a description of a "core" method of filling a raised bed.  This consisted of leaves mounded in the center, wetted thoroughly and tightly packed.  That got us about a quarter of the fill we needed.  And so far is working very well.  Based on our previous experience of gardening near trees, we lined the bottom of the bed with inexpensive pond liner to keep out tree roots.  The pavers don't seal together so there is plenty of drainage on the sides. We made an L-shape which was a major challenge.  A simple 4 x 8 ft bed would have been much easier.

Another thought about getting help with gardening and helping others is to start a Friend-to-friend program.  The Department of Aging in Orange County NC started one pre-Covid.  Volunteers were paired with people who needed a companion for an hour or two a week.  The volunteers were screened and references checked.  Don't know if something like that could be started for permies.  Volunteers could help their companion with gardening tasks.  We are all going to need help at some point in our lives...

I have wooden clothespins that go into a nice clothespin bag after every use.  The bag hangs on the line and is super convenient to use.  The clothespins are 5 to 10 yr old and are getting a nice natural sheen from regular handling.  Good quality wood clothespins can be purchased at many hardware stores.  Skip the Dollar Store ones.  I also hang my shirts on clothes hangers on the line, a great time saver.  But the hangers just hang on the line with a clothes pin next to it to keep it from sliding.  I wonder about the carbon footprint of the stainless steel pins. Is it wise to buy stainless steel when wood will do the job?   I have been needing to replace my plastic carousel sock hangers because they are falling apart after many years of use.  But I have only seen stainless steel ones for sale on Amazon.  Wouldn't a folding bamboo one be nice?