Jarrell, TX Food Forest project

Whew, its getting dry out there.   We've had more rain over summer this year than usual, but its dry as ever now.   I'm on a siphon system.   It's very complicated and consists of a water hose dipped into my cistern.   The cistern is partially buried, and when it gets low, I have to draw the water from low ...even to the point of digging a hole for my water buckets.    This is the last of my "easy" water.   Once the level gets too low to pre-fill this tote, I'll have to fill each bucket with the siphon hose.   Its a natural way for me to know that its "dry-time" and to shift from "keep 'em growing" to "keep alive" only.

In other news:  

Sweet potatoes do grow well under a huge layer of wood chips and are easy to harvest.   This is the first year that they've done well after 2 previous failure years.

The wood chips in the middle of my driveway are still moist down under, so doing their job.

Macali (one of the resident felines) knows to keep an eye on El Chapo ...who is just hanging out hoping for a belly rub.  Still he's not to be trusted.

Yay, food!   ...in the form of fresh pecans

The paper shell tree is actually outside of the area that I've been caring for, and it almost set a bumper crop this year.   September and October have been very dry though, and it caused the tree to partially abort about 1/10 of its crop last month.   Those pecans ripened early and the meat in them was only 1/3 ish of normal.   It was interesting how the tree handled the lack of water.   Of the current harvest, another 1/4 of the pecans are dried out inside ...still good for me to eat, but not marketable.    If I had that tree wood chipped in like the rest, I would have gotten a much better crop, so the next loads I get are for sure going there.

On harvesting, this is the 1st year I used a pole and tarp.   I highly recommend it.    I don't have squirrels in Jarrell, but there is a wood pecker that punches a hole in the pecans and eats about two bites before the pecan falls and she goes to another.   The ants end up eating the rest.   So, I left a few for the wood pecker, and knocked the rest out of the tree with a long bamboo pole down onto a tarp.  Its definitely worth the extra effort on tarp and pole vs. waiting for the pecans to fall.   I think probably this method is more efficient than those fancy tractors with a trunk thumpers when you consider the cost of a tractor vs. a pole.

Pecan cracking ergonomics 101:

1.  Standing is a little faster, but make sure cracker is waist high as well as the tray of pecans and jars
2.  Sitting is a little slower, but I can take longer shelling shifts from my chair.
3.  On sitting, its worth the effort to get everything just "so" ... pads, foot rest, location of pecans to be cracked, jars for marketable nuts, and jars for "for me" nuts.

Jarrell check in:

I sometimes complain about lackluster sales at my plant stand, but I'm pretty much sold out for 2025.  If I wanna make more $$ next year, I gotta stuff more sticks into pots now.  

I currently have Silverado sage, yellow esperanza, rose of sharon, and apricot branches (hopefully) rooting.   Now is the time to collect the plant material for rooting.

I spent most of today "forever mowing".  Coastal Bermuda eradication is no joke.   It's all good cob grass here tho ...3 chores in one:  harvesting cob grass, decomposed mulch, and snuffing out the Bermuda so better stuff can grow here.

I wanted to get some more practice with cob recipes before I start the RMH in the greenhouse, so I'm building a chiminea outside first.   Its 3 sections, and the middle and top need to be light enough for me to assemble on top of the base.   I used bio-char chunks as aggregate in my cob mix to lighten it up ...it seems to work ok so far, but I've only done 1 test burn.

I did a couple pots too.   Making the cob is so similar to mixing my compost ... the cob just has a lot more clay and sand vs. organic matter.  Still, its the same ingredients:  clay, sand, bio-char, and organic matter.   So, I'm using a four inch pot to form the inside cavity of a 1 gallon sized ball of cob, and simply using leftover cob-lets from the chiminea build to make pots for my plants.   I'm thinking to make a chia-pet kind of cob pot next, where the pot is sort of a giant seed  ball.

Digging is complete for the RMH ... except for the exhaust tubes .... I'm gonna run those thru the ground too, and out under the wall of my green-house ... so no roof penetration needed.   The dirt floor of my green-house will be like the heated cob bench, but I won't have to cob it all up, the ground is dry cob already under the greenhouse.

I cooked breakfast on the base of my chiminea this morning.   I can't wait to put it all together.   All the pieces got plastered with my clay, Brazos river sand, and ash, all screened thru a window screen (fine stuff).   I'm gonna let everything dry tomorrow.

I also made a bigger plant pot with a cavity to receive a 1 gallon plant (used a 1 gal pot full of rocks as the form).

Cob is sooo forgiving .. I love working with it so much better than cement.   I had idea for a skillet offset after my top section was already drying ... no prob, just squirt it with water and add some more globs of cob!

When I set the top piece, I'm planning to have an air gap between it and the middle piece so it can suck in more oxygen and have a little secondary burning if needed.

1st breakfast on the new chiminea:  Sweet potato sauteed with salt and pepper in coconut oil, Lions mane added next, Then broccoli, garlic chives, pumpkin sprouts, and a duck egg.

...and while the cob dries, its been time to start planting the hugel bed.   I've got the Sepp-Holzer seeds on the ready, and I already got Fava beans started.   Onions and spinach planted there too.   I sprouted the Calendula and Hissop in my seed starter trays ... will move them over later with other things.

Status update:  Jarrell food forest.

Here is the 1st thing I planted here about 4 years ago.  It's 3 sisters all died the 1st year, before I moved out here.  This one has a pup now, and so I'll take the pup with me to Houston.   There's lots of "mama" plants doing well here, and I'll be using them to establish many of the same species in the Houston food forest project.

60+ loads of wood chips ...not too many.  I can do no till gardens here.  Food output still depends on rain, and I still need more nitrogen fixers, but fertility is mostly restored here

My 3 years old parsley has been requisitioned to make Black Swallowtails, but that's ok since I have unlimited greens available here:  lambsquarter, purslane, beet greens, chives, curry leaf, sweet potato vines, and cilantro.

The fig trees are still teasing me.  It's been a wet spring so hopefully I will get some sweet ripe figs this year.   Blackberries are finally spreading and popping out new vines.

I tried "3 sisters" planting this year and it's working good.  My beans failed to sprout so I let wild vetch fill that role.  Now vetch is gone, and I got free squash and sweet corn in da yard.

This is the "baby" I'm most excited to take back to Houston.  It's a rooted branch from an apricot that blooms in January.   The mama tree lost her fruits this year because of a dry winter and late frost.  This guy should do great in Houston because it doesn't seem to need many chill days to set fruit.  Stonefruit doesn't usually do well in Houston because it's too warm.  I hope it's just right there for this early bloomer.