Alder Burns

This could actually be a very useful tree in a permaculture system, almost like a temperate version of Leucaena.  It coppices readily, it fixes nitrogen, it makes good forage for ruminants.  I have heard of people trying to do alley cropping with this....chopping and dropping annually or every two years and growing corn and other things between the trees or rows.  It's "invasive-ness" is actually key to it's benefits.  Like many other such maligned plants, it's a pioneer....colonizing disturbed sites, and it is short-lived and does not propagate in shade; so it is replaced by other species as forests age.
    What's more, it's a valuable medicinal in Asia and is catching on elsewhere....the flowers and bark of young branches are taken for "unhappiness".  My partner swears by it as a mood stabilizer, and it works well in combination with St. John's wort.  I have spent quite a lot of time harvesting flowers to make tincture, sometimes from a ladder.  Once I grow some trees to adequate size I will probably coppice them on rotation simply to keep the flowers accessible for harvest.

I trust my gut and sense of fear, and have never had a serious accident in 40 years gardening and homesteading, except one time tripping over a piece of roofing tin, almost cutting off my big toe!  So it's always the unexpected that's the danger.  I'm very contemplative with the chain saw, planning every cut and thinking which way something might fall or roll, often spending extra time rigging blocks or ropes or something to try to be sure it will go the way I want it to.   I always tie off the extension ladder to either side so there is no way it can slide in any direction.

I've had good results with a more day-neutral Thai roselle here in Illinois...now doing it a second year from seed.  The seeds are hard and need to be chipped and soaked overnight before sowing....do it early like tomatoes either indoors or in a coldframe etc.  They are from monsoon climates so they like lots of water!  The fleshy calyxes can be processed similarly to berries like cranberries....made into jam, etc. or else they can be dried for tea.

How did I miss this?  I think I've probably posted this under another thread somewhere on here before.  My partner is allergic to most nightshades, but loves both pasta sauce and salsa.  So I invented a way to make acceptable substitutes for both using beets.  Yay beets! I cook and peel the beets....now usually whole in a double boiler set up inside my pressure canner; so as to not lose a lot of the colorful juice into water...and then puree them in a blender. Put all in a big pot and start it heating, adding just enough water for the right consistency....again the double boiler idea works good to avoid having to stir it constantly to prevent it scorching.  Then I add all the additional spices and ingredients for either product, and then, (this is the secret!) add vinegar or lemon juice!  This acidifies the stuff and largely gives it enough of a tomato-like flavor that it's acceptable, especially with salt and the other spices in there.  Bring to a boil and into the canning jars it goes....I use a recipe for tomato sauce with meat in it to be sure I'm processing it for long enough, since even the acidified beet sauce might not be acid enough for ordinary tomato recipes.

Could you just can it, so as to save it for later use without feeling rushed or needing precious freezer space?  I make bone broth from every animal I "do"....something like a deer will produce several quarts.  I use it for everything...soup, stew, chili, curry, etc....just replace the water with broth.  For that matter I save the water when I cook veggies, too (especially since we are filtering the water so there is more value and expense in that water)....I use this veggie broth similarly, even to cook things like rice or potatoes in....

My default has always been as little as possible in hot weather, but then again I tan easily.  So shorts and sandals and that's it, often barefoot in areas of the yard I trust to be free of things likely to puncture. One commune I lived at actually experimented with nudism for a summer, which was enjoyable (after my butt caught up with the rest of me for tan!), but I found that I missed my tools that I wear on my belt, like a knife or a leatherman or clippers...so it didn't last.   Multiple women in my life would go with taking cheap or free T shirts and cutting them into tank tops and halter tops...

I dealt with nutsedge and bermuda for the ten years I lived in south Georgia.  I found that the only viable short-term answer was cardboard and top-mulch.  This would usually give vigorous transplants enough of a start that they would succeed anyway even as the weeds came back.  I would have to re-do the mulch every single year.  All the other ideas...tillage once a week, solarizing all summer under plastic, penning pigs or chickens on it for months....all of these might set it back but not get rid of it permanently, and at least with the cardboard I can be growing some crop in the space anyway.  Neither weed tolerates frost, so if you can, grow stuff from fall through spring as much as you can.  I did gradually notice that both of these weeds do not tolerate shade for very long....they don't grow in the woods, or in dense thickets of bush, and even a heavy tall dense covercrop of something like sudangrass seems to set them back a bit.  I think a long term answer to them is to learn to treat an annual garden as an event in time, in succession, rather than as a permanent institution.   The idea of a kind of shifting cultivation began to grow on me....wherein I would clear an area of bush and grow annuals in that spot until these nasty perennial weeds showed up, which would be the signal to let that spot grow back up to bush and go clear another.  This is an ancient and sustainable practice in much of the warmer parts of the world, actually, although from what I read about it, it is usually soil nutrient depletion that drives the cycle more than weeds.  Alas, I've moved to colder climates where winter makes these weeds less vigorous, so I never got the chance to test this theory.

As far as determining maturity of canes for harvesting for crafts, I was taught at a bamboo workshop years ago that new or first-year canes are bright green, and in the second year, just below each node, a ring of white wax forms.  At year three and older this white ring ages to black or brown, indicating that cane is mature enough for harvest.  There is a particular procedure for harvest and curing for maximum durability....cut them and let stand, supported by the other canes around them, until the leaves dry up.  Then drag them down, cut roughly to length desired, and then submerge in water for a month.  I've done this by tying the canes into bundles and making a raft, and then weighting the raft down with heavy things till the whole thing is held under, bamboo being hollow wants to float.  This leaches the sugar and starch from the canes and makes them less attractive to insects and mold.  After leaching, haul them out....split them right then if they are to be split....you could also split before leaching and they would leach quicker that way.  For whole canes lay flat or stand up somewhere in the shade so they dry out slowly with minimal cracking.  This process ensures maximum longevity in use; although even uncured bamboo worked green will often outlast other woody species of similar size.   When joining bamboo, either split it and weave or else use fasteners that wrap around, like twine or wire, rather than anything that penetrates like nails or screws, which will often split it.
    Bamboo leaves make excellent forage for all ruminants, and it is valuable for this as an evergreen.  A patch of fenced bamboo surrounded by pasture will never get out of hand!  The fear of running bamboos is overrated.  All of the new shoots come up at a particular season, usually spring or (in the tropics) the beginning of rains.  Gather these to eat, mow them, or just kick them over....after a few times it will be done for that year.

Here's how to "shop" for groceries on the cheap.  Go around back and hit the dumpster.  I have much of the time eaten like a king this way, ever since being introduced to this art in 1995.  I have never gotten sick, and have fed myself, my friends, and my animals this way.  Smaller and discount groceries are more likely to have open dumpsters, as contrasted to compactors, which are often impossible.  The food processing skills that I've mastered as a homesteader and gardener have done me well at this as well....discerning when food, including meat, is spoiled.  Dumpsters tend to produce in gluts and famines, just like gardens and wild foraging, and so the arts of food preservation are key to making the most of it.   Oh yeah, and cheap food tip #2: roadkill.  Right now I have over 100 pints of venison on my shelves thanks to two deer that presented themselves in fresh condition last winter.  Over the years I've enjoyed not only deer but wild pig (still have a few jars of lard somewhere from the last one, six years ago or so; and turkey.

40 years plus gardening and my conclusion is that unless I'm in a tight spot....say in a crawlspace, the long straight handle usually wins.  It really puzzled me traveling in Asia that nobody there (and in a lot of places in the world, actually) seems to think to put a long handle on a tool....the commonest farm tool there is a kind of broad-bladed grub hoe with a short handle, that you must bend over to use.  Ugh, the back!  And wood isn't that scarce!  Maybe the heavy clay common in so many areas breaks a long handle easier?  
    My very favorite shovel now is one I made the handle for myself, from hop-hornbeam....and I made it a good foot longer than an ordinary "store-bought" shovel handle.  The extra leverage really pays off whether for turning sod over, trenching, or digging holes.