Fred's photos from Wheaton Labs

June 28, pic 2(IMG_1351) looks like
m,'m,'m,'m,'m,'m,'m,'m,' millipede track, or maybe centipede

It's official, I'm a permaculturist! Thanks to Paul Wheaton for hosting the PDC and for making it free for gappers. Thanks to Howard Story for instructing us (along with Jeremy Watts, Jacquline Freeman, Dave Hunter, Zach Weiss, Morgan Bowen, and Josho Somine). Thanks to all my wonderful classmates. Thanks to Jocelyn Campbell, Stuart Hung, and Estar Holmes for all their support work. Thanks to Daniel Bender for the photos.

Congratulations!

Dog vomit slime mold (Fuligo septica). This slime mold looks like a fungus, but it can move around as it looks for bacteria to eat. It has resistance to extremely toxic levels of heavy metals and can chelate them and convert them to inactive forms. I have seen this most often on wood chip mulch.

Red-Belted Conk (Fomitopsis pinicola). This is a brown cubical rot fungus which leaves behind a stable structure in the wood that can act like a northern version of bio-char. It eats the cellulose and leaves behind the lignin. It can attack a weakened tree, but is often found on dead wood. It makes the heartwood soft, which is bad for timber value but results in hollow trees which are home to many animals.

Someone has been eating a lot of pine cones. This stump was about to be buried by a squirrel's discarded pine cone scales.

We went huckleberry picking! Richard told Evan how to get to a place they found last year. It was beautiful and FULL of huckleberries. We're going back soon!

Fred Tyler wrote:We went huckleberry picking! Richard told Evan how to get to a place they found last year. It was beautiful and FULL of huckleberries. We're going back soon!

I'm setting out tomorrow. If I promise to be good, can I come with you?

Yes, Burra, you can come berry picking with us! The season should run until the first hard frost, so, we'll not run out.

First photo is skyrocket (Ipomopsis aggregata). It is a great hummingbird plant. I'll have to collect some seed for our future humming bird garden. It also attracts long-tongued moths with a scent that gives it its other name: skunk flower.

Second is Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata). The leaves can be made into a tea. They are also used to flavor root beer and candy. It has some anti-microbial properties and is used to treat urinary tract infections.

The third photo is of a Bird's nest fungus. It is a great decomposer of wood and builder of soil. You can see that some of the eggs have just made it out of the nest. If a raindrop hits it just right, the eggs (which contain the spores) can be flung up to one meter.

I've been noticing a little bit of wet on my legs in the last few mornings. I don't know if we dropped below the dew point or not. This squash has droplets on the leaf margin. They may be dew or guttation droplets. (i did pour some dishwater around the squash the day before) Guess i could taste it and see if i notice any flavor or sweetness.

The second photo is the much vilified spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa). It still has a pretty flower and is great for bees, whether or not the rumors of its allelopathy are true.

Third is harebell (Campanula rotundifolia). Seems like this one just blooms forever. It is able to grow in the worst soils with a strong taproot. Some sources say hummingbirds like it, while others say it's for the bees.

First is a squash i planted on top of one of the hugle berms. It was kinda stunted with the missing June rains, but now that it got a little water, it is taking off.

Next is blue flax (Linum lewisii). This is recommended as a fire suppressing plant because its leaves stay green and lush all through the dry fire season. Like commercially available flax, it has edible seeds (but one source warns that they should be cooked prior to eating). The fibers in the plant are also useful for cordage and string.

Last photo i'm pretty sure is hairy evening-primrose (Oenothera villosa). It looks a little hairier than common evening primrose. The seeds are a good source of GLA. The leaves and root are also edible. It is a biennial, so the roots are probably best harvested the fall of the first year.

I'm so impressed with the range of native plants/flowers. Some I recognise as garden plants here, but most are unfamiliar to me. So very different from our flora.