James Flour

There is a newer form of preservation called "Pascalization".
The idea is that you subject your materials (generally sealed in mylar or the like) to extremely high pressures that rupture the cell walls of the bacteria.
It is supposed to be good for sea food, eggs and such...I've only seen one article on it, and that was a fairly light one. I don't know if there is any way to do it at home, the pressures needed are immense.

Of course you can get fruit that has been "bleached", that is treated with Sulfur Dioxide, but that is extremely old tech.

Bob, I have a question.

I have what I think are apple root-stock coming up besides an old stump, and they could be apple or they could be seedling plums from the feral seedling plums since they look so similar. Is there any way to determine the difference between the seedlings of the two trees besides the glands at the base of the Plum leaves? Is there a plum that doesn't have glands at the base of the leaf?

Also, I have a question about camas lilly (Camassia Quamash) propagation from seed. I can't get them to sprout, and that is irritating since they do it on their own all the time. There is a local grower, but they claim that you have to sprout the seeds in neutral ph sand for around 100 days....and that seems insane since camas grows on clay. Do you have any suggestions? I believe the seeds are spread by birds.

The problem with goats is getting them aimed in the right direction.

Clearing blackberries is not hard, I've done it with machete and with electric hedge trimmers. Powered equipment is easier, of course, but not everyone has enough extension cords.
If you knock the brambles down you can keep them down by mowing twice a year, you shouldn't need to cut down any of the trees unless you want to.
Some orchardists like to do a shallow till on the lanes between the trees to keep brush down, I am not sure that is a good idea on an old orchard.

So, tell me about your orchard, apples? pears? quinces? What types and what conditions?

Basically Joseph, you are going to want to know what your "site index" is, that is a combination of soil type, rainfall patterns and hydrography for the site, what sun exposure you have (North slopes do better for some trees, south for others depending on the slope) and the type of trees you are planning to raise. There is also the question of soil nutrition, out here the hills have low Phosphorous, so P is (one) of the limiting factors.

You would probably want to look it over to see if you like it - no sense buying a tract of land if you just have bad vibes over it - and go talk to the small woodlands organization in your area, or one of the colleges with a silvaculture program. Take a notebook. If there are trees on it to start with you want to have someone cruise it to see what your stocking is, and what sort of work you will have to do to put it into production. If you aren't used to looking at seedlings you can miss the trees for the brush. Again, you may have trees that are diseased or have conk and you will need to clear them out. Around here, if you find you have firs with laminated root rot (for example), you pretty much have to plant something else for the next couple of 20 year rotations in that pocket.

What you get out of a site is a combination of the site index, which tells you what grows well, if anything, and what species you put in. Also the market is a big factor nowadays: there may be an oversupply of lumber and logs come time to harvest, they may shut the national forests down again and restrict overall supply, they might make cob and balehouses mandatory and you can only sell dimension lumber to the Koreans. I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it, I think it is a wonderful idea, but you may want to consider other benefits besides the money in -> money out, cause you may not be able to depend on the place to earn your mortgage payments, especially at first.

On the other hand, Mark Twain said, "Buy land, they've stopped making it", and our place is truly a balm to the soul, when I'm not clearing blackberries or plugging the holes the beavers dig in the dam...

Let me know what you decide to do, like buying a house, buying land is a fantastically wonderful spectator sport.

Cascara buckthorn or Chittem is native to the west side of Oregon, and I didn't realize it could be invasive elsewhere. It is generally suppressed by firs and maples and oaks, but it generally does not seem to get out of hand here. It is kind of like the service berry (saskatoon), it is more of an understory or edge tree for fairly open groves.

I do know there were a lot of kids who made side money in the last great depression by stripping bark and selling it to the pharmacists here. It was supposed to be a fairly mild, but effective laxative.

Sand and silt are things we always need here on this heavy clay. Since mom never had much trouble with cats when I had a sandbox as a little kid ( I think the entire neighborhood cat population used the sandbox), I think I'll get a double load this spring for the cats' convenience.

I don't like the cats using my beds for their latrine, but I can always declare it my neighbors fertilizing my beds for free, and it is waaaaay better than when they take a dump in the middle of the yard and I step in it and track it around.

there was an experimental plot with one of the universities where they planted 5 fir trees in a rosette around a single alder to see if the extra nitrogen fixing from the alder would increase the growth. The firs wowed out from the base, but that isn't a concern of yours, you aren't growing lumber.

Sounds like an interesting thing to do, though. You would have to match your trees in size so they don't get shaded out. Thank you for the idea.

Sorry, when you said Chaparral I was thinking of arid semi-desert which is why I asked. The limiting factor here in the maritime pacific NW is not so much water as sunlight (and some micronutrients...um and maybe some mycorhyza colonies if you are planting a fire burn that was too hot and sterilized the soil. Micronutrients and the fungi are long-term problems, but the competition for sunlight is something that will stunt or kill your trees from the start). Blackberries are not so much of a problem, the douglas firs will pop up eventually and shade out the brambles but they may be slowed down by the competition. Generally the berries just keep you from planting. There has been a lot of discussion about if the trees can shake off the stunting from competition, and the answer is always maybe, but do you want to risk it and maybe have to plant a second time?

That is not to say that the himalaya blackberry is not nature's own version of concertina wire and that a heavy growth of blackberries is not a feral, vicious brush patch that can eat a small tractor and whip you bloody in the process. The small woodlands association here suggests clearing lanes with a cat so you can get in and spray herbicide as the easiest method of clearing large areas. Lots of people don't like that and do it manually. There the best method seems to be a gas powered hedge trimmers and heavy gloves and clothing. My least favorite method was sending the kid out to clear it with a machete - since I used to be the kid with the machete sent out.

We don't have chaparral here, just blackberry, scotch broom and maple. The firs will grow through the blackberries but the broom and the maples will outcompete the firs in the first couple of years. And planting among blackberries will make you bloody. I'll take a look at your site.

Do you find that the brush competes for moisture or soil nutrients?