Nynke Muller

Maybe some fungi? I have no particular suggestion.

Nancy Reading wrote: ...I wonder if in my cool summer climate the ferns may do better in a drier area. I do have some shady without much competition. It may also be that I just don't have enough organic material in the soil for them, only time (and mulch) will fix that.

Hi Nancy, I would certainly give it a try. Your climate must be wetter than mine. I think organic matter definitely matters, but once your ferns start growing you will have plenty!

When I bought my property, there were 5 Ostrich Ferns, I guess. I appreciated their appearance and let them grow taller. For years it remained 5.
Then I learned about permaculture practices. I stopped weeding; stopped tilling; let everything just be, until I had an alternative plan for an area; I started mulching. The ferns seemed to like that and their rhizomes started to spread slowely. The patch expanded slowely into areas that I had intended for something else. I dug them up and replanted them in the dark dry spot near the fence, where nothing else will grow. They thrive!

Then I started to use their biomass as mulch all over the garden. This mulch probably contained ripe fronts. The next spring ferns started to grow everywhere that I mulched with it. I still love them, but i started pulling some little ones out, to give other vegetation a chance. Under every fruittree, one or three ferns are left to grow. I keep the original patch reduced to 5 specimen. At the fence line where few other plants will grow, they can do whatever they want. I still use them for mulch, but I make sure to cut the fronts in a green stage.

Imagine my surprise when I heard about fiddle heads being edible! When I first sampled them, I tasted them raw, upon which I decided that I had to be very hungry before i would ever eat it again. Than I learned about the proper way to prepare them (cook, toss the water and rinse thourougly!). I tried it only once, when my husband was traveling for work. I ate them just cooked. I really liked them. This is definitely something that could be turned into a delicious meal. This spring, i will cook a nice dish and feed the fiddleheads to my husband. If he likes them too, we are surely blessed with the abundance in our garden!

About four years before I ever heard about permaculture, I started my allotment. I remember vividly how I imagined a place with a hammock between two fruittrees. Me in it, stretching my hand to the ground, to pick a strawberry, and reaching up to pick a grape from a vine growing in the fruittrees... In my imagination I called it "Luilekkerland", a Dutch word that would translate into "lazy-delicious-country". I think my original goal was to experience the abundance of nature.

Can you imagine how happy I was to discover permaculture and permies.com. A community of people who don't think my dream is stupid. Who not only believe, but know and experience everyday that this is possible. THANK YOU ALL for your inspiration, examples and encouragement! I could not have done it without you. I still come back fore more.

Over 20 years into this journey, I have shifted my goals and changed my decision making principles many times. I am still learning, experimenting, observing and trying to make it better (more food for us and for wildlife; stranger fruits because I already have the normal stuff; utilize more niches, recognize and eat the weeds). I still fail sometimes.  I have not reached the "lazy" part of "luilekkerland" yet, and I dont think I ever will, because there is always something new to try, something more to want as well as an increasing amount of harvest to be processed. And that is what I love about it. My allotment is my favorite place to go. It helps me connect with nature, feel peacefull and happy. The abundance of food makes me feel so rich, much richer than any number on my bank account ever could.

At this moment, I decide what to grow based on:
- What is not growing here yet (diversity of species);
- What food could grow in a particular niche that is still empty (heavy shade) or filled with grass or non- edible weeds;
- What part of the 7 layers of the food forrest have not been utilized completely (mushrooms, still trying, herbacious layer is not fully edible yet);
- What can I grow and harvest during winter (time niche);
- What am I still buying at the store and how can I grow that, or a replacement;
- WHAT SPARKS JOY?

Les Frijo wrote:...Coincidentally I was just reading about the eastern skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. It apparently creates it's own heat and melts snow in the spring along with the smell to attract pollinators...

Hi Les,

That is very interesting!
However I do wonder: What time of year will it generate heat and what time of year does it smell?

To be used for protecting plants against cold, like Milan needs, the heat is needed at the beginning of winter, otherwise the plants to protect, might suffer from the frost before the skunk cabage starts to generate its heat. Does anyone here on permies.com knows?

My second concern is the smell. I am worried about the neighbours surrounding my urban garden. I expect some trouble when my garden starts to produce a foul odor just when everybody starts to come out to enjoy the sun. Are the smell and the heat produced simultaneously, or is the heat first and followed by the smell later? How long does the smell last? Are we talking days, weeks or months? How far does it carry? Can I mask the smell with a better smelling plant? Is there anyone with experience on these matters?

I would love to use the thermal heat of this plant to protect some fruit trees, or add it to the protection, but before I start the hunt for this plant, I would like to know what I am getting myself into, because it seems hard to remove later.

Kind regards, Nynke

Yes, but the seeds need to be quite fresh, and they want the germination temperature to be between 75F and 85F which is my concern... sigh...
Is the top of your hot water tank accessible?

I am very lucky with my well insulated appartment, which remains at 21 degrees celsius (just below 75F)  through most of the year without heating. Summers can be warmer and cold winterdays are a few degrees lower. So I just need a few degrees more.  For germinating seeds, I use the wet paper towel method. The wet towel with seeds goes into a plastic container or glass jar, which acts like a little greenhouse. I place the container in the warmest spots I have. Depending on the wheather, it can be a window still.
I have never tried the top of the waterheater, but it is accessible, and I will give it a try. They will be out of my sight, so there is risk of forgetting... yesterday I placed some cuttings in such a way that they can profit from the heat generated at the back of the fridge.
You need to get creative here. Find all the heat sources in the house. During cooking, your kitchen is warm, when you sleep, your bed is warm... during the day, the window still? Carry them on your body in a ziplock bag, ask a neighbour or a friend who heat their house warmer, wether your seeds can stay over until germination.... You only need heat for germination. Bring them to work... A lot of people love this, even though they might not like the rest of what you do as much as you do. Retry in summer....
Good luck! I am sure you will succeed somehow. Let us know what worked for you!

r ranson wrote:Does this mean i can take the seeds out of my dragon fruit sitting in the fridge and grow them?  Got to look this up.

Yes you can!
I did it multiple times, once for a red, once for a yellow and once for a white fleshed fruit. Germination rate is high!
I just did not manage get it to flower yet.
Good luck!

Hi Carl,

Two different types of bushes are being referred to as autom olive:
- Eleagnus Umbellata, that has berries tasting like red currants, which ripen in the fall and
- Eleagnus Ebbingei that has bright red berries (similar to holly) which stay on the bush during winter. Some grow in my neighborhood. I definitly noticed the berries on my winterwalks (I never ate them yet, but they are supposed to taste more tart).
So therefore, it depends...

If you google the scientific names and look at the pictures, you will see some similarities, but sufficient clear difference to identify which one you have. If you can't figure it out, please share some pictures so we can assist with identification.

Hi Alex,
That is a nice mess you have there. Your own proposal, to clear the center and make a vase shaped stucture with 3 main branches is a good idea.
However, the devil is in the details:
What you dont want, is the kind of crowded branches all growing from the same point of the trunk. Water can now run into the bottom of your champagne glass and start rotting the trunk. So in selecting your 3 structural branches, I would look for options to get rid of standing water.
Your branches are pretty vertical. The most fruit will grow on horizontal branches. If it were my tree, I might cut the branches head heigth, to stimulate new branches that grow more horizontal.
Last but not least: don't cut more than one third from your tree at once. If possible, spread it over a couple of years to reduce the thick branches to 3. In summer, the tree will react to this kind of heavy pruning, with new growth. Remove some of the growth immediately with your thumbnail in order to create space between branches. Cut the remaing growth back to a few centimeters. This will stimulate fruiting. For heavily pruned trees, you should do this all summer long.

(By the way, it looks like someone once cut this trunk when it was already verry thick. If it was you, try to avoid that in the future. If you have to, than keep an eye on the tree's reaction and remove most of the branches before they become a problem like you have).

Good luck with your tree!