Henry Jabel

Black Mold is Aspergillus Niger so yes kicking out of it preferred Ph range isn't going to make it happy. There are also signs it can be inhibited with lactic acid bacteria might have to give that a go:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26597145/

Christopher Weeks wrote:It looks like there might be a valid claim to accumulating and distributing potassium and silicon, and boron to a lesser extent. And it does produce just an awful lot of foliage, so the gross physical reasons that chop-n-dropping anything is good, apply especially to comfrey even if dynamic accumulation isn't a legit reason.

Finally found the spreadsheet on the desktop:

K: Lambs quarter is 87100 vs Comfrey's 1870
Si: Horsetail 97000 vs Comfrey's 1
B: Dandelion 125 though there doesn't seem to much info on B

Cant seem to find a link to where I got this all in a handy spreadsheet and I cant seem to attach .xls sadly

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Henry Jabel wrote:Do not plant it with the intention of it dynamic accumulating minerals, because sadly it doesn't really do any of that.

Oooh, provocative! How do you know that? It certainly has long roots and builds a lot of biomass up top. Is it only pulling water up from the depths?

ETA: I went searching. There's not a lot, but the report over here says:

It is also possible that the widely reported benefits of mulching with Russian comfrey are not so much caused by its high nutrient content, but by other benefits resulting from mulching with plant tissue: increased organic matter, conservation of soil moisture, reduction in soil temperature, etc.

It does some minerals like all plants but its not particularly good at it. From the top of my head its average in calcium and that's about it. Dr Duke's Phytochemical database is the place to look.

That's minerals though if you are mulching with it you might also be spreading some useful biology around along with all the normal benefits of mulching.

Do not plant it with the intention of it dynamic accumulating minerals, because sadly it doesn't really do any of that.

If it's a painted surface once you can repaint it with paint mixed with borax. Not completely non toxic but better than the mold. See if you can get a dehumidifier too.

Mike Guye wrote:

Henry Jabel wrote:I picked up 11 bacon avocados the other day . Can barter/share some of these with U.K peeps. If you are interested PM me.

Hi Henry, around 11 months ago you posted the above message, which was indeed great news !  I've only ever seen 'Bacon' fruit on sale here (St Leonards-on-Sea)  on one occasion.  I'm just wondering how your 'Bacons' are doing now.  Mine are now ~2 years old and appear to be doing well (planted in the ground outdoors) ...

Last winter we had some snow around Christmas then it was mild and then very dry for winter and then wallop the cold that wasn't actually that cold came along and killed everything including the stuff that was undercover. Wasn't just the avocados I had loads of things die on me, all my Chilean guava are dead (these had  established for around 7 years here surviving as cold as -7C here before), lots of hebes and quite of bit of newly planted English lavender died elsewhere too.    Lack of moisture in the air and snow cover probably didn't help but also we had a dry summer and after learning more about soil science this year and how arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can help with cold for some of these plants, perhaps some of that fungi might of senesced and didn't recover to help the plants in time. So from now on everything is getting amf, biochar and bokashi to prevent that sort of thing happening again!

I have couple of new plants left but I lost track of what they are after all that I think one is a Bacon and Fuerte though. The worst was losing those very cold hardy imported Lilas they were looking pretty good before that.

Jenny Wright wrote:I think the fact that each damaged leaf has a web or string to it suggests spider mites. If they get out of control, they will kill your tree. A couple of years ago I had spider mites kill two pears and three plums before I figured out what was wrong. These were 1" trees about 6' tall. My well established 10' pear tree suffered damage but was strong enough to survive and recovered in the spring after the winter killed off the mites. I noticed some signs of infestation on different trees this past spring and after the blossoms were done, I used some soap and essential oils to help my trees fight the teeny tiny attackers.

I think your both right spider mites never had them kill an entire tree before, though we have crazy amounts of lacewings wasps etc from the various umbellifer flowers. Was it a particularly hot summer or stressful year for the trees?

Pear juniper rust I wouldn't even worry about it. It deforms the leaves a bit and occasionally the fruit but its not a big deal. The leaves could be tent caterpillar I wouldn't be concerned if only a few leaves are eaten. If you didn't inoculate it with some mycorrhizal fungi go water some in and mulch the tree with some woody material and it will probably do a lot better.

Neeki Armani wrote:Hi Henry, I'd be shocked if you still have these to give away but if you do I'd love one please!

My pitch:
- I'm a STEM teacher who's working on integrating permaculture into the science & tech curriculum and want to show my students what a diversity of useful skills they can build.
- I'm also working with the community on my estate to build an edible garden network in all the overgrown bits the council has ignored for years.
- I revived a thread over a year old (excellent trawling skills haha)
- I'm mainland UK so postage should be easy.
- I have good manners... pretty please with a cherry on top!

If you've given them all away already then I still appreciate the sentiment of sharing ❤️ Hope you've used your copy well!

Hello Neeki

Your in luck I still have one left, PM your address and I will post it to you as soon as I can. I have a rough outline for a community project that you might find interesting too.