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permaculture

Planting for future generations

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 9815

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 year ago

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They say "plant pears for your heirs". Call me foolish if you like, but I have planted several trees that I don't expect I'll get the full benefit from. There are also the worries about weather patterns. I fully intend to stay here for as long as I physically can, but know that permanence is not necessarily possible for everyone. What stops you planting for the long term and contrary-wise what have you planted that you may never see to full production?

Monkey puzzles are unlikely to fruit at less than 30 years old, and even then you need a male and a femaie tree and won't know what you've got till it flowers. I gather you can graft on a known sex, so you could have a female branch grafted on a young tree I suppose, but don't know anyone that does that in the UK (could be a business opportunity for someone I suppose!)

It is however astounding how time flies however:

These pictures were all taken this year. The first trees did so well, I planted a whole lot more grown from seed (the first were presents as young trees). Only another 15 years to go now.
This year I hope to plant several gingko biloba. I hope they will do OK here, I'm not aware of any others in the area, but they are for the long term too.

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Timothy Norton

Steward of piddlers

Posts: 5252

Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 1 year ago

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I have never heard of these trees. They look almost like a cactus at a distance!

Have you tried the fruit? Is it like a pine nut?

I have a Ginko that was planted on my property when I was probably ten? It grows slow and steady but is a beautiful tree. I think the funniest thing about the tree is when the first cold snap happens it drops ALL the leaves within a day. One day its this shimmery yellow/green, the next day its bare.

I plant things with a variety of productive ages, and not necessarily for myself. I may never have children, but it is my dream that at least one person can appreciate the work and toil I contribute and I would call that a success in my book.

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Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 9815

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 year ago

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Timothy Norton wrote:I have never heard of these trees. They look almost like a cactus at a distance!

Have you tried the fruit? Is it like a pine nut?

They are the most extraordinary trees: Araucaria Araucana. I learnt after planting the first few to plant them well away from any paths, since the leaves are wickedly sharp! There are a few threads on Permies (here for example) but I think that they would only grow well in the Pacific North West since they are temperate cloud forest trees from the mountains of South America, now rare in their native range unfortunately.
Mine are several years away from fruiting, but I did eat one of the seeds i bought to grow and yes - sweet and starchy more like a chestnut perhaps than a pine nut. I'm hoping it could be a staple here in time as it does grow well unlike many more 'conventional' crops.

I have a Ginko that was planted on my property when I was probably ten? It grows slow and steady but is a beautiful tree. I think the funniest thing about the tree is when the first cold snap happens it drops ALL the leaves within a day. One day its this shimmery yellow/green, the next day its bare.

I gather there are several male forms for their autumn colour. I have bought a mixture - male and female, although I am aware that the fruit flesh is stinky (one of my varieties is named 'chunder plums'!).

I plant things with a variety of productive ages, and not necessarily for myself. I may never have children, but it is my dream that at least one person can appreciate the work and toil I contribute and I would call that a success in my book.

Indeed. We have no children and it is a bit late now to acquire any. Maybe my nephews and nieces will be interested in time, or maybe I will be an 'Otis' in time, looking for someone to harvest the pinons with me.

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Jeff Lindsey

Posts: 148

Location: Zone 9b, Coastal Southern Oregon, 700 ft elevation

posted 1 year ago

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Nancy,

That's neat. An amazing gift to the future.

Perhaps you might consider an archival paper log book of sorts, kept prominently in your house, or even a small sign placed near the trees. That way your knowledge of the trees, and their uses and requirements, might not be lost when something happens to you.

Local botanical and related knowledge is easily lost- this entire board seems mostly a rediscovery of older practices and techniques that have been forgotten, lost or purposefully obfuscated.

Take care,
Jeff

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 9815

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 year ago

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I hadn't thought of that Jeff. I did keep a 'blog and I write on permies quite a bit, but of course these aren't accessable when the power goes down. We've had threads on creating house manuals, I wonder whether anyone has done a garden manual....off to search.

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

John F Dean

master steward

Posts: 7362

Location: southern Illinois, USA

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posted 1 year ago

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I have been putting together a homestead guide. Mostly it describes and maps where buried power and water lines as. It also identifies special plants and bushes…especially those located deeper in the woods.

….give me coffee to do the things I can and bourbon to accept the things I can’t.

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 9815

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 year ago

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Found the thread on making a homestead log here: https://permies.com/t/139368/Owner-Manual-odd-lives. Thanks again for the suggestion/reminder Jeff

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Thom Bri

pollinator

Posts: 617

Location: Illinois

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posted 1 year ago

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Nancy Reading wrote:

Timothy Norton wrote:

I have a Ginko that was planted on my property when I was probably ten? It grows slow and steady but is a beautiful tree. I think the funniest thing about the tree is when the first cold snap happens it drops ALL the leaves within a day. One day its this shimmery yellow/green, the next day its bare.

I gather there are several male forms for their autumn colour. I have bought a mixture - male and female, although I am aware that the fruit flesh is stinky (one of my varieties is named 'chunder plums'!).

Love Ginkos. Used to see them a lot in Japan, and learned to love the nuts too. Beautiful in the fall. About the smell, my wife uses that as an excuse not to get any, but really it's not bad at all. I'd love to plant a few here, but need spousal buy-in!

Ara Murray

pollinator

Posts: 193

Location: Northern UK

posted 1 year ago

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Recently I planted 100 tree seeds and there are more in the fridge to be planted next year, on behalf of a local company who are wanting to grow forests. As some of the seeds were English oak, Quercus robur, there is no way I will be around when they are mature. My job is to nurture them for the next two years and then the company will take away any I manage to keep alive to be grown on further or planted in their final home.
I love your monkey puzzles, Nancy. We had two at our last house: one was already there and the other was one my husband bought at a flower show and planted out as we had plenty of land there. It was taller than me when we left even though it was only the size of yours in the first picture when he bought it. We thought they would be too spiky for the sheep to eat but the lambs still managed it so we had to fence them off. Mr Ara even decorated it with lights and called it his "Christmas tree".

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 9815

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 3 weeks ago

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I had the opportunity recently to go down the South end of the island and visited Armadale castle and gardens. There have been kitchen gardens there since the middle ages when there was a monastery on the site. In the Victorian times the local laird, as was common at the time, planted shrubs and trees from around the world some of which survive still.

Oh my....monkey puzzles!! There were both male and female trees of massive size. Also a few smaller ones planted more recently. I gather the estate is up for sale at present if you have a few million$.

large_monkey_puzzle.jpg

large_monkey_puzzle_girth.jpg

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Rad Anthony

Posts: 119

Location: PA

posted 3 weeks ago

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It's not in vain.

. I plant a lot of fruit trees in forests in places I don't regularly go to. I just hope the land or animals benefit and put my intentions into the seeds. They always say the best time to plant a tree was yesterday.

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 122

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posted 3 weeks ago

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Nancy Reading wrote:Found the thread on making a homestead log here: https://permies.com/t/139368/Owner-Manual-odd-lives

I was thinking about just this concept last week: a durable, accessible written record of the benefits & care of the main plantings and other design choices in a site.

A printable Wiki, perhaps?

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Cécile Stelzer Johnson

pollinator

Posts: 1456

Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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posted 2 weeks ago

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When I got married to my second hubby, I quickly realized that he was not the gardening type, and so, I knew I would have to plant every tree, do the garden, fell trees etc.
When I planted my first apple trees on this property [in 2005], he questioned my decision:
- "Why plant a tree like that? You'll never see the first fruit."
- "Huh? What? Apple trees can fruit in just a couple of years honey".
Well, it is now 20 years later and I have more than enough apple trees to feed the entire neighborhood, and elderberries, blueberries, mulberries [from seed, those]. Raspberries too. rhubarb, asparagus galore
So don't let anyone tell you that you won't see the fruit of your labors: the Earth is very generous. A better question, though is : So what if you don't pluck every fruit, harvest every grain, pick every nut?
Maybe your children will enjoy the shade you plant today. If not your children, someone else's children. I will have enjoyed them while they were mine, and that's not that bad. I don't mind passing them on to someone else.
Plan to live a long life. Enjoy these pleasures while you can.
Was it Yogi Berra who said:" Had I known I'd live that long I would have taken better care of my body"? I feel the same way about my property and everything in it. About my tools too.
More importantly, I'm happy...

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Michelle Gillian

Posts: 18

Location: Upstate South Carolina, USA

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posted 2 weeks ago

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I love all the tree talk in this post! This year trees have been my focus. I have been collecting a variety of native fruiting trees that we will share with the wildlife- rather, we hope the wildlife will share with us! They usually get off with everything!
So far I've put in 4 American Elder (s. canadensis), a mulberry (morus rubra), and I've sprouted 3 oaks, not sure the genus but they have big round acorns with a rough jacket.
My passion project in our home has been to heal the land from some previous owner spreading asphalt across 1/4 of the backyard. I grow that area as a meadow in the spring and summer, with lots of nitrogen fixers, the blacktop is almost broken down. At least we have nice space for pollinators and some bunny families nest in the tall grass.

Mary Cook

Posts: 326

Location: rural West Virginia

posted 2 weeks ago

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Almost fifty years ago, I went with other young people in a big old truck, up a back road to where four old standard apple trees were most inconveniently located a little below a ridge; we made huge amounts of cider and apple butter from those apples, and later when I married the last guy on that property, we'd go up there and I'd climb the trees and toss down apples to him--the ones he caught went into the root cellar for fresh eating. We never knew who planted those trees, or what variety they were. But I have long thought I owe it to that unknown person to pay them forward by planting at least one standard apple. I finally did this spring. It may not be my grandchildren who climb that tree--that really doesn't matter. I planted an orchard in 2009 with semi-dwarf apples, easier to tend and harvest, bear sooner and they don't need as much room so you can have more varieties, but they may not outlive me whereas this standard should be bearing in 100 years. I also have four pears now, on OHXF087 rootstock which gives trees 80% of standard--the 2009 one is nearly twenty feet tall, and peaches. Standard peaches are the size of semidwarf apples.

mary yett

Posts: 88

Location: Manitoulin Island - in the middle of Lake Huron .Mindemoya,Ontario- Canadian zone 5

posted 2 weeks ago

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I plant food forests for the future here on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. I want to be able to feed my local village, Tehkummah, Ontario, in the coming hard times when world large scale commercial food systems have failed.

I have planted over 110 nut trees,plus lots of fruit trees/ shrubs and support trees in windbreaks, nitrogen fixers and a varied herbaceous layer. The total number of trees and shrubs is now well over 1,000.

My farm is in zone 4b, but there are still many nuts that can grow here. I have hazels,heart nuts ( aka Japanese Walnuts), Black Walnuts, ultra northern pecans, bitternut hickory ( better named yellow bud hickory), shagbark hickory, Korean pine nuts, ginko ( including 1 female named variety, King of Dongting), Burr oaks, Low tanin oaks from a breeding program that are a mix of white oak,burr oak ,etc., and 1 experimental Javids Iranian Almond( which is budded out for the first time right now).

The hickory family ( pecan,shagbark, and yellow bud) , Korean pine nuts, oaks, and ginkos are very slow to come into bearing, and i may not live to see nuts from them( I am 69), but once they start, they will literally produce nuts in large quantities for hundreds of years. Enough to feed a village.

Linda Morrison

Posts: 7

Location: Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spain

posted 2 weeks ago

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I’m sharing from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Granada the south of Spain, Mediterranean continental climate at 1000 meters altitude, zone 8.

A friend gave me some pine nut seeds 8 years ago, I planted 7 seeds, got four plants and only one of them has survived to today… the little tree is about three feet tall now and looking healthy… no cones yet, but I was told it takes about 20 years to get any production.

I turned 80 this year, so I doubt I will taste any of the nuts this tree may one day produce, but hopefully someone will… I believe that pass it forward is a great long term strategy that has the potential to regenerate land, forests, critters and people - whether we pass forward our hard work, our understanding or wonderful trees - and make our life efforts meaningful again!

What we manifest in the world reflects the focus of our thoughts, so thinking about solutions will create more change than dwelling on the problems. Let us be the change we want to see in the world...

Ela La Salle

Posts: 324

posted 2 weeks ago

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beautiful idea and beautiful pictures.
However, I have opposite idea; unless there are people who are willing to carry on once we get too old, that's great.
But here's my story:
It took 8 years before I saw total benefit from our 7+ acres of land. Had 1 acre garden each; one for vegetables, the other for fruit bushes and fruit trees, and other trees for wild life.
It took a lot of work to make it happen.
Then we moved, bought smaller place, and finally moved again to retire.
In every situation the same thing happed; trees were cut (all of them), gardens planted with grass. Perennials ripped out and so on. It broke more than just my heart and made me just as angrier, when we went back for a ride just to see those places. I just cannot "see" why people love just grass!? All they want (it seems) is frigging grass!
So for me, no more. I became selfish. I grow what I can/will grow for me/my little family, here-and-now.

Kim Wills

Posts: 99

Location: Southern Tier NY; and NJ

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posted 2 weeks ago

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I tossed around the idea of dedicating a back field to black walnut grown for lumber, figuring it won't be at its peak until I am either reeeeeally old, or my heirs or another lucky person gets the property. I don't know that I'll actually do that, because I barely own the land yet and I have a lot of other priorities. Once I have everything I need for my lifetime, then I'd think about purposely planting things I'll never benefit from, unless it's practically free and doesn't take much space or labor, like if someone gave me valuable lumber trees for free I'd tuck them away in a far corner for future people.

But that doesn't mean the next generation won't benefit from things we are benefitting from now. Fruit trees, nut trees, improving the soil, swales or berms or a pond (not that I have done these yet). If permaculture practices are followed, then just about everything we do will benefit whoever lives on the land next!

In the process of buying rural land/house & repairing it, dreaming, and planning!

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Mary Cook

Posts: 326

Location: rural West Virginia

posted 2 weeks ago

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Oh Ela, what a horrible story! Well, there's another benefit of the land trust I live on. One member in his early 80s moved to be with his new love after his wife died, and the rest of us have been looking for new people for his leasehold. It's been frustrating--despite his willingness to sell the "improvements" for much less than they're worth (the land itself can't be sold--we get a lifetime lease on that), it's taken two years during which the place began deteriorating--but now a young family is about to move in. For a six month trial period--if it works out, we'll sign a lease and they'll have the place for life. I don't know what will happen when my husband and i move or die, but the younger people here will see to it that our place is taken by people who will value and extend the work we've done.

Chris has 3 apples and Monika has 4 apples. With this tiny ad they can finally make a pie!

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