Alder Burns

Multiple neighbors had trees taken down while I lived there as well....two or three dead ash due to emerald borers, and an overgrown silver maple.  The tree crews wanted to charge the neighbors extra to haul off the logs!  So I got them to leave the logs, and I would go and cut them up and roll them home (this was within 2 or 3 lots of mine).  One time the city was cutting an ash on the right of way, and a brief conversation led to the entire tree being dumped in my front yard for free!  The four years we lived there we only bought firewood one time, at the very beginning (and it was nasty green stuff....unlike the standing, dead, cured ash I started scrounging after that!

The last time I lived in town, on a small lot among many other small lots, I quickly became known as the one who wanted everyone's yard trash!  Especially firewood (we had a woodstove!), sticks and branches, and fallen leaves.  The sticks I would lay down in my trenched in garden paths, along with cardboard, leaves, grass, whatever, and then turn the bed over onto the adjacent path every few years, adding in compost if possible.  The leaves became a huge pile which would be dipped into whenever needed for mulching, and the oldest of them rubbed through a coarse screen to make soil amendment.

From long experience (20 plus years) on two different z8 sites in Georgia, some loose ideas:
1. I would not bother with the currant/gooseberry or the hazelnuts.  They prefer cooler climates.
2. There are particular blueberries (rabbiteyes) that thrive in the South.  Most of the others also prefer it cooler.  Ditto on blackberries and raspberries....be sure to seek out varieties that are assured to thrive in your climate.  Don't rely on what big-box stores sell!
3. Same with apples, pears, and other temperate fruits.  Only a relatively few varieties will thrive in the south, and they become fewer the further south you go.
4. If you are far enough south or have (or could create) some warmer niches, or are game to offer some protection of some kind on the very coldest snaps, you could attempt some marginal subtropicals.  Jelly palm, feijoa, loquat, the very hardiest citrus come first to mind.  Figs should definitely be in there!

What varieties of squash were you growing?  I've had good results in multiple situations with the Seminole pumpkins and their relatives.  They seem to keep on growing and producing in spite of bugs, borers, mildew and the rest.  The vines do like to climb, though, so you might have to discourage them from climbing the corn and sunflowers, since the squashes might break them down with their weight as they grow.  Many times I've had to get a long pole to fish them down out of the trees and bushes!

I know this is an old thread and possibly other solutions have been reached, but my default in both the Midwest and the Southeast USA has been Seminole pumpkins and their relatives. I also try not to plant them in the same place year after year, but they seem to resist the bugs, the borers, and the milder much better than other kinds...

My answer from 30 plus years in hot humid Georgia and hot dry California is wear as little as possible....cut-off shorts and sandals most of the summer, drink enough water to have to pee every hour or so (easily well over a gallon a day, and more overnight),(and yes that means water! not any other liquids like caffeinated or sweet or alcoholic beverages!) and get wet from time to time....at least wet hair, perhaps a wet hat, and whole body wet if available.  I am however blessed with good genes in this regard...I tan easily and darkly, and have never fainted or vomited.  My partner by contrast goes through the hot weather as a night owl and her outdoor chores are crepuscular.

I've been at it since 1985.  I was never able to get any kind of compost to really heat up, whether containing humanure or not. Eventually I gave up trying and went for long composting instead, and then eventually to simply trenching it in under garden beds or in planting holes for certain nutrient hungry things.  I rely on the burial at least six inches or more deep, plus not digging that area or growing salad crops or raw-use low growers there for a few years for disease control.  Never had an issue with this method for pushing 10 years now. Commonly now I use ashes to cover each deposit in the buckets....thus processing two wastes together and I figure to let the roots and soil microbes do the rest over time.  In warm weather, I've given fresh manure to black soldier flies as well, with excellent results, and then handle the BSF residues the same as I would the humanure.

The only way I've had success with peaches in the South is to grow them in a chicken yard. Or basically fence in the orchard and allow chickens in there a lot of the time.  Sometimes I would keep them out during the winter and grow a cover crop, but otherwise I would keep them in there and let them scratch up the ground.  Usually I'd  have to fence in the smallest trees to keep them from being dug up.  Pretty much any insects get eaten up.  They break the life cycle of things like curculio by eating any fruit that falls early, and also picking up the adults when the go to hibernate or when they hatch back out.  I had good control of curculio that way, especially on early peaches, and never saw any borers at all.

I tried to grow it multiple times once I found seed, both in Georgia (zone 8) and California (zone 9).  In both places it froze to the ground after any kind of hard frost.  After a mild winter in CA the last one got to maybe head tall, but was never very vigorous (no branch thicker than a pencil, so not much fuel use either), even with irrigation.  There were way more vigorous forage plants available in both places.

I've had good results in multiple situations with borax and/or boric acid for mold, both on wood and on drywall.  Simply dissolve either or both to near saturation in boiling water and paint on while hot.  I've put hot solution into a syringe and injected it into hard-to reach places and into holes through something like a shower surround (later to be filled with caulk).  Wood that was already wet I've treated by dusting the powder directly onto it.  In my most recent treatment (a moldy crawl space of a 100 year old house) I'd pulled a recipe advocating dissolving the borax into ethylene glycol antifreeze (a DIY version of a commercial wood treatment product called BoraCare, commonly used for log houses) which supposedly is even more effective.  The fumes are nasty to breathe as it's heating, though, and I found that this solution will actually cause a flush of mold at the outset, and only achieve positive results later as it slowly dries and crystallizes.  The simple borax in hot water solution crystallized quickly as it cools, and I think this action is what actually kills the mold.  Incidentally it will also stop wood rot (different fungi than common surface mold) and insects like ants and termites.  Once it's dry, you can wipe off the crystals with a dry rag and paint right over it.