Alder Burns

I've been at it since 1985.  I was never able to get any kind of compost to really heat up, whether containing humanure or not. Eventually I gave up trying and went for long composting instead, and then eventually to simply trenching it in under garden beds or in planting holes for certain nutrient hungry things.  I rely on the burial at least six inches or more deep, plus not digging that area or growing salad crops or raw-use low growers there for a few years for disease control.  Never had an issue with this method for pushing 10 years now. Commonly now I use ashes to cover each deposit in the buckets....thus processing two wastes together and I figure to let the roots and soil microbes do the rest over time.  In warm weather, I've given fresh manure to black soldier flies as well, with excellent results, and then handle the BSF residues the same as I would the humanure.

The only way I've had success with peaches in the South is to grow them in a chicken yard. Or basically fence in the orchard and allow chickens in there a lot of the time.  Sometimes I would keep them out during the winter and grow a cover crop, but otherwise I would keep them in there and let them scratch up the ground.  Usually I'd  have to fence in the smallest trees to keep them from being dug up.  Pretty much any insects get eaten up.  They break the life cycle of things like curculio by eating any fruit that falls early, and also picking up the adults when the go to hibernate or when they hatch back out.  I had good control of curculio that way, especially on early peaches, and never saw any borers at all.

I tried to grow it multiple times once I found seed, both in Georgia (zone 8) and California (zone 9).  In both places it froze to the ground after any kind of hard frost.  After a mild winter in CA the last one got to maybe head tall, but was never very vigorous (no branch thicker than a pencil, so not much fuel use either), even with irrigation.  There were way more vigorous forage plants available in both places.

I've had good results in multiple situations with borax and/or boric acid for mold, both on wood and on drywall.  Simply dissolve either or both to near saturation in boiling water and paint on while hot.  I've put hot solution into a syringe and injected it into hard-to reach places and into holes through something like a shower surround (later to be filled with caulk).  Wood that was already wet I've treated by dusting the powder directly onto it.  In my most recent treatment (a moldy crawl space of a 100 year old house) I'd pulled a recipe advocating dissolving the borax into ethylene glycol antifreeze (a DIY version of a commercial wood treatment product called BoraCare, commonly used for log houses) which supposedly is even more effective.  The fumes are nasty to breathe as it's heating, though, and I found that this solution will actually cause a flush of mold at the outset, and only achieve positive results later as it slowly dries and crystallizes.  The simple borax in hot water solution crystallized quickly as it cools, and I think this action is what actually kills the mold.  Incidentally it will also stop wood rot (different fungi than common surface mold) and insects like ants and termites.  Once it's dry, you can wipe off the crystals with a dry rag and paint right over it.

Where I live in southern Illinois at least, chickweed and dandelion are practically everywhere, and they don't care about cold or snow...they will be there when you can get to them.  I simply haven't picked any yet because I'm still finishing off the last of the cabbage and broccoli, including their greens.

In an amenable climate (basically anywhere that isn't too cold or too dry), bamboos of various kinds seem to rise pretty high on the list for both resilience and usefulness.   If they can grow big enough to give canes multiple inches in diameter, their usefulness multiplies still further since you can split them into even "wooden" strips that can weave walls and fences, make hoops to hold cloth or plastic over beds and so much more.  

Oaks of various species with different uses are key players in your ecosystem, and in similar climates around the world.  Thinking first of acorn producers, both for people and for animals.  There are less-bitter varieties of many types available, and the hunt for more is ongoing and deserves encouragement. There are nurseries in America working with hybridizing oaks...a long-term project for sure, but the first generations of crosses are showing a lot of promise in acorn yield and precocity, growth rate, and climate resilience.  Mediterranean oaks like Q. ilex and Q. suber are common introduced trees in California....makes me wonder if anyone is growing California oaks in Europe....species like Q. lobata and Q. douglasii are amazing trees and produce huge yields of big acorns.  Growing oaks in a nursery is a challenge which would make you popular if you can master it....the seedlings are often taprooted and so things like air-pruning containers may be the way forward.

The other day going out, there was a fresh deer on the corner with the highway, not half a mile from home.  Still warm!  So I put all other projects on hold and spent the next three days getting 50 pint jars of venison, 2 pints of rendered fat, and 7 quarts of bone broth canned up, and more in the freezer! And half a dozen new trees got the skin and scrap into their planting holes!  And to think that in this state people pay $50 for a "deer tag"...essentially legal permission to shoot one!

I lived for three years in a place and time (rural Bangladesh in the 1980's) where humanure was commonly simply deposited wherever the urge overtook people on the roadsides, or in designated "open latrines" often near or even directly over bodies of temporary or permanent water. Diseases of various sorts were inevitable and widespread, even for those very careful of their own hygeine.  The stuff would dry out in the dry season and blow around in the wind so one could actually inhale the germs!   But by far, the majority of diseases were spread through three means....1. contaminated water 2. contaminated hands and 3. flies.  An ordinary pit latrine, enclosed to exclude flies or with each deposit covered with even a small amount of soil or mulch, would prevent the vast majority of cases.  Even moreso if water for handwashing were provided nearby.  One advantage is that most of the soil there is clayey, and so transport of bacteria through the soil, to the water table or elsewhere, is minimal.   Another danger common there, and to beware of elsewhere, is flooding, which would enter pit latrines and liberate their contents broadscale.  Humanure used in any way in a flood prone area complicates things hugely.

Bone broth is now a must-have for me whenever I process an animal.  Just last week I put up 7 quarts from a roadkill deer, and that was just the leg bones since I was in haste and buried the rest as I was cutting the meat off to can in warm weather.  With a critter that I get to decide myself when to do, I do it in cold weather and use every bit, even skinning the head, extracting the brain, and putting the rest into the pot.  And, here's a shortcut....put the whole mess in the pressure cooker.  2 or 3 hours at 15 pounds and sheep ribs are practically mush.