Desirea Holton

Thanks for giving me some courage guys! Trees are in the ground now. I'm sore all over and my mom thinks I'm a tree murderer, but it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

I realize this may be just a hangup I'm having, but does anyone here have experience planting fruit trees in the mountains? I just got some bare root nectarines that are currently residing in my chilly basement. I want to either plant them now (but snow, frozen ground, wintery business, etc.) or possibly pot them up because I'm not sure heeling them in is the best option. I could really use some anecdotal advice. Halp, please?!

I second reviewing the watering schedule. Depending on where you are that could just be a natural reaction to chillier nights or over watering...or both?

Hi!
I've been playing with spinning, dyeing and fiber crafting for a bit now and just wanted to reassure you a bit if I could. I mostly work with protein fibers but flax and hemp make their way into my fiber stash, too. In my (limited) experience making plant fiber mordant like this is as simple as putting a couple handfuls of foraged acorns in a quart jar and topping it off with water. Give it a few days to a month and you will have tannin tea. I suppose crushing them would speed up the process but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Especially if you don't want to process them further into flour. Some of my favorite dye plants to forage for around here are rabbitbrush, cherry bark, walnuts, aspen leaves and sages.

It's like live action permaculture Oregon Trail! It makes me wish I could just drop everything for a year and drive up there.

I use it in pizza dough. Although, I also blend it with wheat flour and add vital wheat gluten. But you'd probably get a decent crackery type crust if you went with 100% buckwheat.

My husband grew up eating it in lots of the usual, pancakes and the like so I keep some on hand all the time and add a smidge to whatever calls for whole wheat flour. I just ran across this granola recipe on Pinterest that I'm going to test out on him. http://www.mynewroots.org/site/2014/03/chunky-chocolate-buckwheat-granola/

I recently finished reading "Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest", a big tease for me living in the snow capped mountains of Colorado. But the author of that book mentioned that kohlrabi can be used for its tops, which she said had a raab-like quality. It makes sense, what with them being related. Have any of you guys used them this way? Do they actually taste similar? I'd be interested to give it a whirl if they do. What else do folks do with it?

This chapter hurt my visually-oriented brain. Too many big words about pictures and not enough embedded YouTube videos. When he got to the parts I recognized, like herb spirals and edge, I was right there with him. But then he'd go off into the more complicated (yet probably no less important) things and I couldn't stop myself from skimming...a lot. I think a reread is in order.

Personally, I've come to view the "woo" as a critical thinking/ comprehension test. Am I really reading or just looking at the words in sequence? Is he talking about permaculture or waxing all hippie-philosophical? So far being able to parse what from what has helped keep me engaged. Books this info-rich tend to throw me off. If it wasn't for this set up online I never would have tried it. This foundational stuff is pretty widely applicable anyhow, so a little venture into the weeds is forgivable. That part about "beneficial authority" called out to me especially. I've been unschooling my kids for about a year now and creating the "self-managed system" is a big part of my personal rubric there. There are some other nice quote nuggets in the chapter, too. Like "the problem is the solution" or " when you throw nature out the window she comes back in the door with a pitchfork". And "everything gardens." I liked that one. Its practically tattoo worthy.

After a bit of sifting online I managed to find an ecopy on Scribd.com. Its ugly and I feel a wee case of moral hives at using it, but until I can score my own thriftstore copy it'll have to do because I really want to participate here.