Jay Angler

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: Excellent! Glad to see a cultural shift. We are always envious when we visit -- we can see that the amount of food that can be grown out there is simply insane. :-)

Don't be too envious - the deer and rabbits require Fort Knox to keep them out. Spring lasts forever and the cool summers make it hard to get tomatoes to even consider ripening.

That said, fruit trees grow well with minimal care. We have 4 kinds of apples, 3 kinds of plums, and if I could get them planted, figs and jujuba. For small fruit, we have raspberries, grapes, wild blackberries, and again, if I can figure out a spot where it will be happy, Hardy Kiwi.

Trouble is that I can't eat too much sugary fruit!

I haven't read exactly what the rules are, but I understand that the flowers and unripe seed pods of Maple trees are also edible?

Are Daylilies native or naturalized in your area? (flower pods and roots and maybe shoots are edible)

We have Fawn Lilies. I think they were considered a famine food here because Camas was the bulb of choice. There are different names and subspecies across North America, and I think the edibility may have differed also. I recall doing some research and there was at least one Native Tribe that considered it food.

Ours is Erythronium oregonum. Pictures here: https://ancientforestalliance.org/fawn-lily/
I believe I read that the leaves are also considered edible, but I haven't tried them.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: I've spent time over the last 30 years on long walks through Vancouver Island (Sidney and Victoria) every spring, and have observed a fair amount of "snootiness" about vegetable gardening. Sort of the echoes of old-school British class snobbery, where only the "lower classes" grow food. The upper crust grow flowers. Personally I find it hilarious, but it appears to be a genuine thing. I don't know if that applies on the mainland.

Certainly that's still around. However, there is a huge permaculture trend here as well, along with publicity about how poor Vancouver Island's food security is. A lot of our more recently arrived citizens hail from the Prairies to get away from the snow. They have much more respect for farmers - or often were farmers themselves. The presentation today was *very* food focused and the seniors in the room seemed perfectly happy with that focus. They are also a great number of people on a fixed income who will be watching it erode with inflation.

The number of attendees wasn't huge, but they did seem to be listening. There was a discussion about CSA's. If they go that route, at least it will support local farmers which will hopefully keep some pressure on the food security side of things.

I just attended the opening presentation of our local library's new free seed library. The presenter was the coordinator of a not-for-profit local regenerative farm. I kept feeling this is not what the audience needed - they were all people with small back yards or possibly only balconies.

The library manager (I'm on first name basis with her) was wondering at the end what this could be the start of. I suggested to her that considering we are the seniors capital of Canada, that a talk on container veggie gardening might go over well. It wouldn't meet their calorie requirements, but it would boost their nutrition if the focus was on nutrient dense foods like parsley, oregano, mini-tomatoes etc.  She thought that was an awesome suggestion.

Bump

Nancy Reading wrote:Apparently the latest thing to get kids interested in growing is to grow a mandrakegelwurzel. of Harry Potter! The colour ought to give more micronutrients too...
I think it is a long season plant though, so maybe not suitable as the only thing to grow.

Very cool. The greens would be edible and I like them better than spinach, so even if you don't get such an impressive root, it may not be a total loss either.

r ransom wrote:Bump

itty, bump, bump...

G Freden wrote:Thank you Jay, I would never have considered just crating that jerk drake overnight, but maybe that would be the best option.

No "trick" works every time. This just seems like an easy test to do. If it seems to help at night, you could try crating as a "time out" for 5-10 minutes if you catch the drake chasing the newbies during the day also.

Some ducks "mate for life". If your Drake has that tendency, he may just be doing what his hormones are telling him to do. Or if he also is an incubator bird, he may not know the subtleties of, "Hey, baby, I'd like to get to know you" behavior and be frightening the young girls.

Above all, I would try observing what seems to trigger the chase and how the birds are reacting on a day by day basis to see if things are moving in the right direction. I agree it would be wonderful to end up with a single, happy flock!  

Jack mentions cutting the lawn high. This is not as easy as it sounds... I bought larger wheels for my mower, which raises the deck so the blades are higher from the ground.

It wasn't enough. We actually drilled new holes in the deck as well. The blades are now 4 inches from the ground which is a number I've seen recommended over and over.

When I was in a city, I had one neighbor who wasn't impressed, but he watered his lawn every day and mowed it twice a week, and it looked like a golf course. My lawn looked like a neat, but very thick carpet, I only watered it every second week if it needed it, and mowed it somewhere between 1-2 weeks, just to keep it looking neat. I had no weed growth because most weed seeds need sunlight to germinate and the 4" grass shaded them out.

Now I'm living in the country and I'm thrilled that my lawn is a bee friendly polyculture. Believe it or not, that poor mower is still hanging in there, but now I can wait even longer before mowing.