David Nightingale

My mouth is hanging open reading this thread.  My son asks “Are you ok”?  “No”.  Foods perhaps few humans these days raise, create, and enjoy (I dream about making ‘Marm’).  
We make a marmalade with Valencia from California, a handful of Seville Oranges, and Calomonsi limes adds just enough sour I grow those indoors.  I keep all the juice, thin sliced, very little added sugar required (Valencia’s are pure sugar).  Slow low heat, a couple of secret herb stems (solemn oath, I was 5) from my Grandfather.   Left with pains for 2 years it’s spectacular.  An orange so deep you feel it all day.  I saw the 3 Woods Scotch which my Grandfather added to his Marmalade.  He kept that Scotch hidden from all, but me in a secret cupboard along with half of his ‘Marm’ batches, first press cider, honey gin, berry wines, and holiday ginger jar (always loaded).  He used to lament his mother’s ‘Marm’ she sat in a small oak barrel lined with herb stems for ‘A time’? until canning.  I’m curious how she did this, my guess is a Scotch lid?  Upon waking at my Grandparents I would run upstairs to his chair.  His wide mustache flipped upside down taking the wrinkles with it, and a star sized glint from his eye blinded to stop me.  Stone teethed pipe he cheerfully growled “Fetch the Marm, would you”, and I was off.  Love this, thank you all.  

Wow, wow, wow what a video!  Genius.  I’m always astounded at the ancient world.  All the answers have been discovered somewhere on the Earth just need to work it back, have patience, and show folks.  A wonderful thermal mass experiment done very well.  We’ve been toying with the idea of a smaller hypocaust/rocket mass heating system for a connected barn/sunken greenhouse design.  With a highly conductive central Trombe wall and two level floor heating.   Curious in the video they were mainly interested in the heating but noticed the beginning temps indoor were notably below outdoor temps:). Both edges of the sword heating and cooling in one simple design.   Modern geothermal design is not that environmentally friendly and complicated, but lime plaster and rock, my favorite.  Intrinsic to many ancient designs the more proficient they ran it the more efficient the system became.  Really incredible 4 dimensional thinking here.  Double Cheers and brilliant, thank you!  Nicole.  

Hello Jay.  I had one Goumi to start for several years and it did bloom fruitlessly.  After I added several more the first fruited and now I have two varieties.  I’ve noticed even hermaphroditic plants of same variety usually require pairs. Excellent bushes, full sun drought tolerant though water helps fruit early in June through July here in Puget Sound.   Scion roots well with hormone in many PNW soils and are 5$/per Burnt Ridge Nursery in Onalaska, Wa.  A bit of spring MgSO4 Epsom salt works wonders with a compost as water solvable chemicals leach totally out here West of the Cascades.  Lastly, this was where the snake tree tradition started on our farm as the birds love Goumi berries and may also be taking the few berries before ripe.  I have seen this, a real rarity as it’s just a pit to start with yet contains many truly magical bioflavonoids.  2-3 rubber snakes in the branches kept the birds from eating most of them before harvest otherwise, none.  Goumi berry, lingonberry, wild black berry jam is my favorite fruit preserve, absolute delicacy.  The bushes make excellent hedge row V shaped and thorns a cornerstone species of my food forest design.
Good  luck and Cheers.  

Wow, thanks for the kernza link.  While I’m moving the humans diet away from grain.  The sustainable farming models Ive worked out cannot get completely away from grain.  Eager to plant next to Einkorn and see which produces more… thank you, r ransom very much.

Hello Nick, and all.  I’m not an expert but 40 years of extreme enthusiasm with fruit trees.  Most of the apple rootstocks available were developed at fruit research stations such as East Malling, UK.  Designations such as EMLA 111 are sometimes shortened to M. 111 and are related to these research stations where they were developed.  TRECO, treco.nu online has a quick information guide as they are one of the largest rootstock suppliers.  You can see the original varieties of apples these rootstocks came from, EMLA 111 from Northern Spy/Doucin M2 in this case.  This helps in understanding rootstocks and a few attributes of each rootstock variety.  All rootstocks are designed for monoculture compaction planting, disease resistance, specific water absorption irrigation, vegetative-fruiting vigor, and shorter stature for ease and speed of picking at harvest.  I’m not a fan of any monoculture, anywhere, ever.  So as natural Apple trees can last over 100 years or longer planted on its native roots in a good location without irrigation I have chosen this model.  They can and should be pruned for lower branching and easier harvest filling in a specific vertical portion of the food forest.  I often just order scion, root it, and plan second year as it lessens orchard costs by 60-80%, and last 4 times longer.  Unpruned, these trees would grow 30’+ tall but pruning to a system keeps them under 20’, and you have to prune yearly anyway.  This is a tricky idea as its mid-low level harvest of an open food forest concept coupled with companion planting in 100+ species varieties in a 4-Dimensional model.  The more diverse, integrated, and complete the system the more resilient over time.  The majority of horticulture systems taught by universities use very limited time scales to grow food of any kind, 20 years or less for trees.  So silly, for a fruit that’s been grown everywhere on the planet for over 10,000 years.  ‘The Holistic Orchard’, by Michael Phillips is a cornerstone of ideas on any fruit tree growing, as well as food forests.  Cornell University Germplasm, Plant Genetic Resource Unit, in Geneva, NY has I believe genetic apple samples like scion available, at least they used too.  It’s one of the largest US genetic diversity crop repository’s and worth checking out, regardless.  Apples crossed the globe before antiquity by human hands, they are titans of human society.  Which foods since humans started growing their own food were closest to where they slept?  Cheers.  

Hello there Matt,  It’s said humans can really only do one task at a time.  Farming, agriculture, permaculture are all full time jobs.  I do two, with a career and farm as my parents did… It takes a lifetime to master just parts of them, thus the intense analysis here by the most wonderful folks and their brilliant intellects.   We all try to do multiple tasks simultaneously though and it makes life both harder and sweeter.  Yet, when starting out on a complex life long task, focus is your reality daily.  Go for a daily walk on the land, breathe deep, feel the place, dip yourself into that nature as it will speak to you.  Myself, I grew up doing many farming/permaculture activities, and have done these throughout my life in various places on other’s places.  Practice makes better, to get to a working system.  After all these years I still have to start my focus with walks around the place daily.  Example, these are the things I thought this morning.  What’s wrong with the pigs today, winter garden planting, compost in garden, picking some vegetables, hardening off/planting cuttings, sheering sheep, irrigating fields, crops for next year, soil quality check, and all this versus weather.  I can do a few tasks their near ends today (some never finish), and that’s what I’m doing.  Is there anyone local you can apprentice with a bit in things you wish to do?  Talk to them, read, ask questions can’t stress this enough.  It gets you going, and lets you practice with help.  It can take a bit to really know what to do and that’s good.  
The oldest farmers in my childhood valley used to have secret meetings weekly.  90+ year olds who lived next door for over 70 years.  What could they possibly talk about, I always thought?  ‘Weather’, most of the time one told me at 101.  He grabbed my arm hard, grinned wide with 5 teeth, gasping and laughing he hollered “I Limed my fields in 78’, he didn’t”.  I believe in the spirit of the people living a simpler life in an equal relationship with nature.  Hope you find your balance Matt, Cheers

Cheers for being a good human, Doug.  Walking along the road yesterday with my son we pass several old plum trees, loaded, just about deep purple, on a vacant lot.  They were perfect.  I took out my knife and cut two small branches 12”, then took the plums off.  We walked on to a coffee shop we were headed to.  My son asked, why we don’t get a whole bunch of plums.  I handed the few plums we had to the barista, she smiled.  I turn to my son and looked him in the eye,  I’m teaching you to fish for yourself, holding the two plum branches up.  “Ohhhh”, then he gave me his sheepish grin.  They made excellent cuttings, and are in the soil, hopefully rooting.  Life is just practice for more life, I breathe, I hope, then try, then wait.  Cheers,

Cookware, my most eclectic side.  It has come to me from everywhere I ever lived, and from anyone I’ve ever truly known.   Old, worn, and crafted for a lifetime lasting longer.  Held close for many years, loved then enshrined on the lazy susan.  My mother’s kitchen-aid mixer, beats anything like pure passion.   Cast iron pans pitted deep from both sides of the family came overland in sod huts.   Steam canner, made concord jelly every year until I was 13.  Obtuse large pink and blue ball jars full of cherries, peaches, hot beans in the basement pantry that was my room for a year.  A sauté pan my best friend’s mother gave me when I moved to Missoula.  A gift I accepted without a word.  Just a look from the most giving person I ever knew.   Friends, family, people that live deep within my soul re emerge each time to help me stew, baste, and boil.  I use the best pots, pans, cutlery from those who taught me how to craft ideas into food.  Cooking is still a pure art for those that savor time, truth, and a quiet love of real food.  Pass it on with the pans.

My son has been running a Shiitake culture, his first serious one. June 1st he started the culture.   He wants to time summer growth, harvest and re inoculation of wild substrate (log) before winter. We used smoker pellets mostly oak, autoclaved 1 kg with 1.5 kg water.  Cooled and then broken up pellets, inoculated with Shiitake spawn, closed up the bag and into the cooler.  We took top off double ice cooler and put plexiglass over the top under window A/C.  Cardboard over the top of the plexiglass cooler for darkness.  Digital temp probe to the cooler controls the  A/C and this is the key.  Mid 60’s slowed culture a bit so should be completed by end of July. We made it through some mid 90’s this week and have survived so, yeah!  2 more weeks to brown, 2 weeks to fruit then. Sep 1st into a wild culture.  Video games maybe, but “How’s the Shiitake doing”?  Never gets old, and caused a bit of reading on the subject.  And endless questions. cheers

My sister’s creation from her love of dwarf Nigerians.  Small but mighty milk producers of so much Cheve I grew and concerned.   Cheve/Ricotta sour cherry ice cream.  1/3 cheese, 2/3 fresh cream. 1lb cherries to the gallon of dairy.  Often she uses beet sugar, I prefer turbid sugar.  Lime leaf Bearss fine 1/2” julian and summer savory.  Spicier with some fine chopped mioga, Ahh summer. Cheers.