Catie George

A friend, at my request, gave me a blackberry plant a few years ago.

He just bought a house, so I showed up with raspberry plants, rhubarb, chives... And some of the same blackberries he gave me.  The raspberries were a gift from me to my mom, years ago, which have now migrated to my house, the rhubarb came from my grandmother's, and the chives I started from seeds a few years ago.

Perennials are pretty amazing.

Mike Haasl wrote:Nice set-up Catie! That's how I got started.  A couple ideas to help that cook faster if you're interested:

- Raise the warming pan up so it isn't blocking off the chimney airflow as much
- Add a couple more cinder blocks to the chimney.  More height really helps the fire roar
- If ash/coal build up is limiting the amount of firewood you can fit, add another course of cinder blocks and put a grate under the fire. Getting air under the wood really helps

Good idea on the grate! (And the taller burn area).  I don't have a pic, but I eventually raised the warming pan on a couple bricks which did help.

This was pared down from last year due to a bunch of my cinder blocks breaking, and me being too cheap to buy more with how short the season ended up (I boil on electricity in my garage if my trees produce less than 15L/day).  Last year it was more of a j tube rocket design and definitely boiled faster.

 I'll either need to buy more bricks next year, or invest in a barrel stove kit, I think. And maybe, gulp, split my wood finer.

William Bagwell wrote:

Catie George wrote:
My experience is that the general trend is native plants do better with juglone than European/Asian species.

Likely true, however two exceptions I have noticed are privet and bamboo. Both seem to thrive under black walnut.  

I believe it! It's a very general trend I've seen, certainly not universal.

Any particular bamboo species you have had success with?

I had a very sad year for maple syrup this year. Made maybe 5 L ?

Last year was 20L so this was a huge swing in production.

Probably for the best - I still have maple syrup left over from last year I need to use up, even after very generous gifting!

I'd like to add to the list of non-tolerant:

- Apples, pears - I had two rows of them at my mom's, and you could literally see the difference in size and vigor based on proximity to the the black walnut trees.  A neighbour planted trees from the same bareroot company the same year I planted mine, in a yard with no nearby walnuts, and theirs were bigger yet!  Probably double the size of mine after 3 years. Theirs were producing fruit, mine were not despite plentiful blossoms.  The furthest of my of my affected trees were over 20 ft from the walnut drip edge.

-Willows - I planted a Salix triandra, Salix purperea, and Salix viminalis (basketry willows) within 20 ft of my black walnut in spring. They all died by September.  There was an interspecific hybrid with north American willows that at least lived, but didn't thrive. They were grown from small pots, thrived their first month or so, then their roots seemed to exceed the reaches of their good soil, they hit native soil, and died.  My curly willow, planted the same day on the other side of the yard, has done well.

-Grapes - cultivated grapes die, and I think it's notable that around the stupid walnut is the only place I am not fighting wild grapevines off my fenceline.

Brassicas fare poorly in my experience. Buckwheat planted in two patches, one on each side of the garden on the same day, the patch further from the black walnut was twice as tall, and probably 4x as much biomass.


White cedar (thuja occidentalis) appears juglone tolerant. My two cedar bushes planted next to my  walnut look healthy but have not grown. I'll try to report back how they do since they are only a year old.  I am also testing Mac Black Raspberries. I may tape some cuttings from my mulberry and add those, or perhaps currant cuttings.

My experience is that the general trend is native plants do better with juglone than European/Asian species. This year I plan to plant my corn and squash in the part of my garden nearest the walnut (although I think pepo squash may also be juglone intolerant).

I really want a windbreak beside my black walnut and am rather dejected trying to grow one. Don't want to sacrifice more plants to the walnut tree. I may eventually hire someone to cut it down, as it also impacts my garden and if I wanted walnuts, they are easy enough to forage. A pity, since it's a very pretty tree!

I'm focusing in more on my annual garden this year, rather than my wish which is more fruit/nut trees. Fingers crossed, but I think I MIGHT get a few apples/pears off my existing trees this year. I'd also love a peach or two. If any fruit form, I may bag them. I don't feel like I have enough to share with coddling moths!

For my annual garden it's infrastructure.

More t posts for supporting trellises for beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. Probably some insect netting so I can actually grow brassicas. More heavy duty seed starting trays to replace the flimsy cheap ones that insist on breaking. Hopefully more bags of leaves from the local town.

I'm continuing my experiments with gluten free grains this year, and likely trying a new flour corn variety. I am hoping blocks of grain also serve as a cover crop to push back weeds. Sorghum was my most successful by far.

I also want to try growing some oilseed crops . If I can manage trellising, I plan to increase my dry bean crop again this year.

I am theoretically growing fewer nightshades this year, after discovering they disagree with me, which has resulted in an explosion of my brassica starting. I will enjoy brussel sprouts or die trying!. I'll probably also increase beets. I'm trying celeriac again, and looking forward to pea shoots again.

Sigh, and I've promised myself to do better at freezing veggies for myself! I saw someone online prefreeze portioned veggies for soup, which seems clever.

I probably will grow fewer squash. I love the colours and shapes of the fruit, and the size of the vines, but found myself giving it away en-masse last year. I mostly like it as puree in various dishes. Best way I have found is to cook it whole in the oven, then scoop seeds and flesh after it has cooled, then puree. Honestly, my dog eats more squash than I do.

Before current events, I had begun a ton of native plant seeds. I guess I need to figure out where I am planting those, too.

I'm also planting stuff with an eye to my donations to the food bank this year - more cherry tomatoes, and smaller squash, and more bell peppers, and more baby cucumbers, focusing on what I'd like to receive, that's expensive in stores and lasts the few days between when they accept and distribute the food.  I was disappointed with the quality of some of the produce I saw some people donated last year - 2 ft hardening zucchini, really?!

My final resolution is to be more proactive with watering this year.

I went to university in a town known for bike thieves.

I had a probably 30 year old department store 6 speed (well, 5 speed, as 1 speed didn't work) bike with pitted chrome fenders.

Loved that bike.

Anyway, rode it 3 years in university, left it parked outside in my rough area of town all season, used a shitty bike lock. I had lights stolen,but never the bike, including the 2 or 3 times I left it on campus for half a day and didn't lock it!

I am a big advocate of shitty bikes for short distance commuting and errands.

I saw other people paint their bikes in multiple ugly colours to make them distinguishable and hard to resell (and disguise things like the brand name that made the bikes more valuable)

About a decade ago, I bought a cheap pine bedframe from IKEA.

I thought the pine looked cheap but wasn't fond of the idea of stinky paint in my tiny apartment, offgassing from my bed.

I painted the wood with coats of black tea, let it dry, then with a solution of iron soaked in vinegar (iron acetate), to paint on top and react with the tannins in the wood and the tea. Basically you make rust embedded in the wood. Over a couple of days it became a warm rich brown.

Then I coated it in a mix of beeswax and oil.

I still have the headboard and am pleased with the colour, though I sold the matching dresser in a move.

If you do it, outside would be better than in a plastic tote like I used! It permanently staines the tote. Definitely not an acrylic bathtub.

There are pictures online showing how the iron acetate interacts with different wood species.

I have really been enjoying the answers to this thread.

As I suspected, the answers are far more interesting than the many  generic checklists for you can find online (probably because most permies already aim for resilience in their personal lives).

For me :

Given $200, I’d buy an IBC tote for rainwater collection (and some parts to make it an easy to use system)
- My generator isn’t big enough to run my pump + all my water treatment systems, and my water quality is from a surface well and is atrocious. My pump failed last summer and I ended up driving to town to refill water jugs. I realized how dependent I am on my pump!
- I worry about a long term power outage (or another failure in my system).


Given $1000 – I’d buy the IBC tote, plus a battery backup for my sump pump, and do some sump pit upgrades
-  My sump pump really struggled with the recent melt (running almost continuously as the pit filled within 30 seconds of the pump kicking off).  I realized if I ever lost power during spring melt, or if it had also been raining, even if I was home, I would have flooded the basement by the time I got a generator set up! Normally my sump pump rarely runs.  
- It also left a few wet spots on the floor, as the pump isn’t set in a deep enough hole to adequately pull down the water table, which means I’m going to have to rip up more of the not-water-resistent flooring the previous occupants put in the basement.
- This one is on my to-do list more than my wish list!