Geoff Colpitts

I've seen many people advise/note the use of horsetail fibres because they're rich in silica, though I've not used them myself.  Useful for those who find that horsetail is coming up everywhere and they can't be eaten because of the sketchy soil.

I find that long handled brushes beat out dishcloths by a large factor.  Lever/place to stand/move the world etc.  

I use a "bottle cleaning brush" made with tampico fibre (agave I think).  The top portion flattens out and looks like it's going to fall apart after a few days, but it's been fine for 6 months now.  Might be a little precious as a solution, but honestly I wonder if the skills required to make them are that unreasonable.  Wood carving, source of hard fibre, glue....  we do far less practical things.  10$ and it'll last me a year, and it's very easy on the wrists.

Read James C Scott's book "Against the Grain".  Or at least the portion on wetlands.  It's very accessible.

More than just being the lungs of the planet, wetlands outproduce every other ecosystem for materials and food.  The whole reason that nations hate them is historically simply because the wetlanders didn't need the roman road, the roman patrol, or the roman administration, so every single nation gets rid of wetlands because ultimately they are deemed "untaxable".

And now we preserve them... except that we don't, because city planners think that you can just put a hard line around them.  If you build houses around a wetland, it compacts the soil around the edge, and the wetland shrinks.  The only downside to "owning" a functioning (crucial word there of course) wetland should really be the envy of your neighbors.

Geoff Colpitts wrote:
You're not, I assume, creating a time capsule or a bomb shelter, I assume.

I'm never going to live down my shameful treatment of the I assume twins.

I liked this video, and for me that's saying a lot.



Time:  Depends on the length of stratification you need.  Depending on where you are, you probably have time for artificial strat. if you only need 30-45 days.  Some need 60-90, some need alternating heat and cold.

I wouldn't recommend it though - plant an annual mix this year, or just keep one in arrears in case seeds don't sprout, and plan stratification more carefully for next year.  Or stratify a few in soil mixtures in various ways, see what works with this very limited study, and transplant next year.  Depending on how young the orchard is, you may not really want too much fruit anyways, and could perhaps just protect some few fruits individually.

You can also transplant nettle roots fairly easily.  There are plenty of other plants that are deer resistant - https://satinflower.ca/ can search for 'deer' if you're in the PNW.  For repelling deer, lavender aren't going to grow enough this year anyways.

Cook your young hostas btw.

Seeds keep better in paper than in plastic.  This according to Territorial Seeds founder Steve Solomon.  You're not, I assume, creating a time capsule or a bomb shelter, I assume.

If you need seeds to last longer than they will in paper, that's a skill issue about your gardening, not a need to save seeds forever.

As for larger seeds, if you really have no place in your home that has the ability to dry large seeds when they're still in the pods, just keep them away from the kitchen and near the floor, since humidity rises.

If you really can't save large seeds even after all that, you've likely got the wrong plant or variety for your area in the first place.

According to Pascal Badaur, their position in the ecology is "meal".
Though I believe his book and others disagree about which variety - pill, or non pill - are edible.  One variety is a millipede, which is inedible... you'll look it up anyways.

As for eating seedlings, the contest seems silly to me:  if they prefer leaf litter, then likely it's just our all too natural tendency to clean up our gardens - cleanliness is only next to godliness in medicine and... something witty.  Give them leaf litter to eat and they may not bother with your seedlings to any large degree.  If the population explodes, you probably just killed all your centipedes and ground beetles etc. etc.

The problem is more one of philosophy. Part of my critter care ideals is to not have any animal I am not willing or able to eat. While I might not dash right out to slaughter a hen, especially a favorite one, I *could*. I just wouldn't like it. Because I have managed to give my husband food poisoning with the two ducks I have tried to cook, he refuses to try to eat any more duck. I don't blame him at all, after all food poisoning two out of two times is a bit much. I don't care for the flavor of duck meat, myself. So, based on our "rules", no ducks.
quab.  :p

Allergies to various poultry do, apparently, exist.

Alternatively, perhaps he likes leg meat?  Duck legs are notoriously slow to cook and are often cooked separately.  Also, if you didn't drain the fat from the skin properly you can/will under OR overcook it.  Also, though duck is far less likely when store-bought to have salmonella, it's not a guarantee, since large companies are developing ways to tortu... sorry, I meant "developing ways to get around that issue", so assuming you bought them....  

Ducks vs chickens, seriously???   I think it's a bit macabre as a question, but I'd say that although the chicken has a sharper beak and talons, the duck is probably more lithe and muscled from all the swimming, so I'd say that as long as the duck gets in close, the chicken won't stand a chance.  It would be like a trained martial artist vs an out of shape person with a spear and a knife.

Chickens DESTROY. I can let ducks free range in the garden, and they don't really kill anything, and they eat the spiders and rollipollies that eat my plants. I'll fence them out if I'm sprouting peas or beans, but other than that, I really don't worry about them. If a chicken gets in a garden, that garden is tilled and destroyed in like 30 minutes. 1 chicken in garden bed = mass destruction.

This is what I've read from Permaculture books for what it's worth - ducks don't tend to rip out seedlings, while chickens do.  Chickens are like cows - they developed in rare areas of the planet where it was ok if they ripped stuff up.  Living in the PNW, I have no idea what that's like, if it's even true.

While it's tangential, ducks at present are less likely to be kept in chicken-like conditions, if you know what I mean, so in terms of culinary culture, there are probably more people per capita who are comfortable cooking ducks, even if there are more overall who cook chickens.  Salmonella is a terrifying ever-present spectre in chicken, so when I was working as a home care nurse, I took pleasure in cooking duck instead, just because it was more relaxing.

More like grubs, beetles, and seeds than worms for birds I think.  Berry bushes, rotting logs, and sunflowers for those, respectively.  Worms in my area (PNW Vancouver) are an invasive pest that actually prevent forest tree seeds from germinating, and the effects of that change are completely unknown and generally disturbing.

As for worms themselves, if you really want more and have... whatever also eats worms (moles??), leaf mulch most likely.  Stable temperature, even moisture, soaks up rain so it won't drown them.

Worms aren't the only soil enricher, they just have a lot of press from european writers who think european methods work everywhere because everywhere is europe... although if you're IN europe.... (Brexit notwithstanding...)