Mary Cook

Some asked about topping a tree. Here we have only American persimmons, it's zone 6B, just a little too cold for the Asian ones I think.  But most of the trees we collect from have been grafted. You can cut a sizable tree at three or four feet from the ground, then do two grafts in a cleft and have a good chance of at least one taking. I think we have several varieties but have not been good about keeping track. However, they are mostly twice the size of the wild ones, and have few or no seeds--whereas the wild ones--well I have not found a better way to remove seeds (and that little tail at the blossom end) than to go through them with my hands, a messy process. And then I have equal quantities usable pulp and seeds/ caps. (Which I have learned not put in the compost as these seedlings are a pain to dig out of my garden). And often you miss one--so then you have to eat the results carefully. I read that the reason (some of) the grafted ones are seedless is that they result from a cross between out native Diospyros virginiana and a D texensis, and that these have--surprisingly--different numbers of chromosomes. But it seems my trees will drop some fruits that do have at least one seed. I wish I new the role of male trees--should I get rid of most of them, or do the females need males around to fruit well? Persimmons are one of those trees that come in male and female individuals.  Incidentally, if you are disappointed that your growing tree has turned out to be male, you can graft it to accomplish a sex change operation. My main two wild trees are relatively tall and slender compared to the grafted ones, and while I'd call the fruit inferior because it's smaller and seedier (same taste), one of them has often had hundreds and hundreds of fruits--the whole fifty foot tree turns orange in a good year.
My three main recipes are for a muffin, a cookie bar with lemon icing and a cake. Since I do have gastric issues and have identified persimmons as a factor, I don't often eat any raw, but I save the pulp in the freezer so I can make one of these whenever I want.

I just use ordinary cheapo scrunchies. If I double it, it holds all day; but I discovered this year that it gets less tangles if I don't double it, tho then I have to keep redoing it as it loosens and starts falling out on one side.  The tangles might have something to do with showering (but not washing my hair) with the scrunchy still in place, which I have to do after a gardening shift from late May to early September because of chiggers.

I clicked on this one because it's a quandary for me. I used the green plastic scrubbies for years--till it got concerned about the shedding of microfibers --I'm working to eliminate plastic. I live in zone six and had no trouble growing luffas--to the green stage, which is good enough, there is a good Youtube video about how to cure them (using the oven). The problem is that they are not as abrasive as the green scrubbies, even when new--and after some use they get soft. Letting them dry helps some. I use washcloths, not for dishwashing--thing is, I prefer to let dishes accumulate for 2 or 3 days and then wash a big load in very hot soapy water-but for counter wiping. I use the same one for a week or more. After use I rinse it and drape it over the faucet to dry. When it get gooey I dry it and throw it in the laundry. I do plant grow more luffas, but will have to buy more seed--my own didn't germinate, probably because the gourds weren't fully mature. Come to think of it, the oven roasting might not have helped either...

On heat: firewood makes so much sense, if you have a good cast iron wood stove, or a rocket mass heater. Someone brought up the gas and oil a chain saw needs. My husband told me he needs about a gallon of gas a year to get in our one to two cords of firewood. Compared to what a car uses--that ain't much. But some day we will have to get by without this convenience (and the woodsplitter we share with two other families), just as people got by without chainsaws for centuries in this country, and as someone pointed out, the natives managed it without even having metal tools for cutting trees. Then there's insulation, and modern energy-efficient windows. Fiberglass and foam insulation have environmental issues in their production and disposal, but it seems mycelium is a promising alternative, which one of the permies staff has been experimenting with.
Also, people used to let houses get very cold at night and sleep under a lot of blankets, then first one up would light the woodstove in the kitchen downstairs. I remember half a century ago when I spent a couple of falls living on a schoolbus, being given a buffalo skin, with the hair still on it, as a blanket on really cold nights. That thing was HEAVY--but boy did it hold in warmth.

Carla--yes, the notion we all have that it would be offensive to jump in a stranger's face to admire their garden or ask how they do it so well, is wrong 90% of the time. Most people love to teach what they know. And we need to overcome the distrust of strangers that has so weakened our culture.
And- Tim--your neighbor's peach tree that's loaded while squirrels have made off with all yours--could it be that your neighbor's beautiful peaches spring from a vigorous spray program, and that the squirrels can smell the toxins and prefer your organic fruit? Or else they have dogs who are sometimes loose in the yard.
And finally, Carla--I bought 200 of those organza bags last year, hoping they'd protect my fruit from the squirrels, and I think it was PARTIALLY successful. Those bags are marketed especially for protecting the fruit from insects, are made by multiple companies mostly in China, and all I have seen are green. Once the squirrels--or bugs--are honed in on your tree, they'll find the fruit regardless of color camouflage, but it slows them down. I used the bags that weren't damaged again this year--not on peaches, which didn't set fruit, people say because of a frost, but my pear didn't even flower, only one of my four  blueberries did--I think last year's prolonged drought, in a year when everything set fruit heavily, took so much out of the trees and blueberry bushes, that they took this year off to recharge. But I did get some apples (early apples, and there are still apples on Goldrush and Enterprise).

j, you're describing hugelkultur, which is supposed to be particularly good for drought.

My main garden is composed of raised beds that cost little or nothing but that's because by "raised bed" I mean a permanent bed that's higher than the pathways between the beds, but doesn't have wooden sides, and is anywhere from 3" to 8" higher than the pathways. The main source of dirt is just what's robbed from the pathways--I don't want them to have good growing ground. But it's necessary with my clay soil to add compost of some sort and sand. I wish someone would give me too much wood chips! Not for soil building but for mulch (which does eventually feed the soil).

I did not fertilize--I never do--but I try to keep my already fertile clay soil healthy with compost, manure, leafmold and sand, and cover crops--I don't always have enough of those things.

Dee dee--ha! Welcome to West Virginia. No flat ground here, no straight roads. Gardens and homesteads are usually either on the ridges or the bottoms, because that's where the only semi-level ground is. 95% of every farm I know is steep wooded hillside, which needs to remain wooded because it's steep. That's why WV is not a farm state. Although Cabell County is more flat... as for raccoons, you need a fence but maybe they climb those? I have not had a problem with them. Unless they're who got my sunflowers, when that patch had a crap fence...

I've been trying for years to grow wheat and rye, in small plots. Threshing is the hardest part. This year it occurred to me that the problem might be the seed--I buy cover crop wheat or rye seed, then let some of it go to maturity. But maybe seed sold for cover crop use is not the best for grain? Mine were much closer together and full sun, neutral pH, so those are not issues--but while they were all about the same height, I do have some bending over, and I thought it might be harvesting by mice or birds, so maybe I need to get it out of the field before it's fully mature. So I did that this year. I think it did dry adequately on my greenhouse shelves--fairly shady in midsummer. But it still didn't pop out readily when whacked against a board in handfuls...I suspect a lot of seed went into the stalky stuff I used for mulch.