Philip Perlman

Interesting info, Dave. We do not use fertilizers, only use our compost which currently is around 50+ cu yds. Everything here tends to be organically grown. Guano is theoretically organic but we have no need for it. The information is quite good and appreciated.
/* Philip */

Blayne Sukut wrote:

musa sani wrote:These are my problems to building hugoculture in Northern Nigeria (bordering Sahara).
Finding woods will be difficult and expensive.
Is there any tree or plants substitute to wood I could find here and use?
The. Soil here is sandy and not fertile.
Using this method does it yield?which crops will be best in with this method?

How about using millets and corn sticks (stems)after harvest instead of wood?

Please help with solutions.thanks.

PM me or tunnello85@yahoo.com

That should work except they may compost faster then wood... So may not last as long but go ahead and give it a try...

I believe you will end up with good soil but as stated above, millets and corn stems et al, will compost much faster than logs and depending on your equipment you will have a large compost pile that will break down in a short while into fairly good soil whereas the hugelkultur logs take a long while to breakdown and therefore provide a structure and the material (resultant soil) for agriculture during the long breakdown period.

/* Philip */

Andrew Ray wrote:Here where I live in Slovakia we have a climate that is similar, I think, to Pennsylvania (some American friends from PA living in a nearby city remarked to me that everytime they call their parents that the weather conditions here and there are nearly identical). High this week will be about 80°F and the low last week 4°F (there is always a cold spell at the beginning of May, and now it should be past).

I made a mistake last year in that I ordered Paw-Paw (Asimina Triloba) seeds around this time, but had them delivered to my mother's house (Atlanta) and I don't know when exactly I planted them into a bed up in the field, but perhaps it was late June or early July even, and then there was hardly any rain all summer, so no seedlings at all.

I'm thinking now to order directly shipping from US to Slovakia, so probably two weeks to get here, and to plant out into the field directly where I want the trees to go. We have a 8 acre field with a gentle slope down to the east which I'll be fencing in this summer and want to do (on a small scale obviously) something like what Mark Shepherd does in restoration agriculture of the belts of trees/bushes alternating with belts of pasture.

So also then I would dig a shallow trench (either by hand (ugh) or get someone to plow with a single blade) following the contour lines as he describes and plant next to that.

But my fear is that I'm already too late to plant this spring, or at least it would be in two weeks when the seeds would get here.

We tend to plant seeds in the fall as they take until the following July-August to begin to create a small stalk. You can order the seeds now, keep them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator with a moist paper towel and plant in the fall.

/* Philip */

Tree shelters for starting trees from seed. I was looking over what we use here which is a cone shaped shelter that has 3 metal legs. They are quite easy to utilize and I believe they are called the Tree Sentry which has a web site:

http://treesentry.net/

I am attaching a photo I just took of the item. The cone is 18" long, the diameter at the bottom is 6.25" and at the top is is 4" and the 3 metal legs are 4" long.

I have received several inquiries re: certain types of nuts, persimmons, pawpaws etc. Ernie Grimo who is a contemporary and lives in Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario along with his daughter have a nice web site where they sell fruit and nut trees and I would like to recommend them. I have known Ernie over the years as both a member of the NY Nutgrowers club and as a friend of an old, deceased friend, John Gordon. So here is the web site:

http://www.grimonut.com/index.php

all my best,

/* Philip */

S Haze wrote:Hi Phillip!

You've given us lots of great information about paw paws already but I have one more question maybe you could address. I'm right on the edge of the USDA hardiness zone 4 and 5 and I was wondering if you have any advice for growing them in this climate. (probably pushing the limits of their natural range) Protection from the coldest winter wind seems like an obvious precaution but what about sunlight? Would it be better to plant them where they get full winter sun and shelter like the south side of a building or a 'U' shaped suntrap or should they instead be somewhere where there is some shade in the winter and a little more sun in the summer like the north side of a low building or hedgerow?

I've tried to grow a couple paw paw that survived for a couple years before dying but unfortunately I haven't learned enough from that one experience to make a good judgement about what went wrong.

We are Zone 5 here and this winter was like zone 4 lol and all of our trees are doing fine. Theoretically pawpaws are an understory tree and I have them planted 2 ways. The way I first described in my earlier email to Dan Boone and in rows where I have 4 rows of about 18 trees per row, 12 feet apart. If you email me, culann@earthlink.net, I can send you more specific info.

best,

/* Philip */

Jay Hayes wrote:Philip,

I am interested in Hicans. I only recently learned of their existence and have yet to find a good seed source. Do you have any suggestions? Could you share any advice on starting to growing them?

I recently ordered several varieties of American persimmons from Hidden Springs nursery with plans to graft onto many non-producing persimmons on my farm. I have only found a bit of info on grafting persimmons. Do you have any experience?

Thanks

J

Greetings Jay,

I have read a lot about grafting and am familiar with it but I have only grafted a few things years ago, so I am not a good resource in this regard. We have around 7 hicans growing here, all about 30 feet tall. I believe one had a couple of nuts last year but I am sure it takes a while for them to become prolific. Since they a hickory cross they likely have an enormous tap root so my gut feeling would be to plant the nuts if one can located some. Regarding the persimmons, they are quite delicious. Commercially they are too much trouble to package properly when harvesting. We sold a bunch a couple of years ago but it really was not worth the work. They are a soft, rather small fruit - 1 to 2" max in diameter-- so they have to be packaged with some care. We eat what we want right off the trees and leave the rest on the tree, they dry out during the late fall and are still good to eat when they get somewhat dry, a persimmon flavoured raisin lol. An old friend of mine wrote a wonderful book on nuttrees including persimmons and pawpaws. I shall talk to his daughter as to whether it is permissible to send copies to friends and associates.

best,
/* Philip */

Ivan Weiss wrote:

Philip Perlman wrote:

If anyone needs info on nut growing, pawpaws, or American persimmons I will try to respond coherently.

Hi Philip:

Do you sell and ship pawpaw seeds? Thanks.

Email me Ivan culann@earthlink.net

Dan Boone wrote:Awesome! I've seen some advice before on planting pawpaws, but that's the most/best in one place that I've seen. If I can get some good seed, I'm going to try this.

As for shade, I think I've got some places to plant where the young trees will be shaded by trash trees (ash and osage orange) that I can just cut down when the pawpaws are ready for full sun.

Thanks for the pointers.

Dan email me: culann@earthlink.net

Dan Boone wrote:I have one young black walnut growing on the property here so I was interested in the mention of a blight on them. Google turned up this link for anyone else who may be curious:

http://greatlakesecho.org/2011/11/30/disease-that-attacks-black-walnut-trees-sweeps-across-us/


I am just starting to build brush piles from clearing out the undergrowth that has grown up through the branches of about a dozen ancient wild pecan trees on this property. We also have dozens of American Persimmon trees, although just a few are clear enough (yet) for the fruit to be readily harvestable. If I don't get a tractor, a brush hog, and a much bigger chainsaw, it will be my life's work rehabilitating these trees with hand tools.

As far as I know, though (there's still some chunks of ravine I haven't checked) we don't have any paw paws. I'll remedy that, one of these years.

The article you cited is a good summary of the 1000 canker disease. It mentioned that the disease has been found in Pennsylvania which is not that far from where we are. Hopefully the colder temperatures here might stall things for a while. One can inject and spray but it is an enormous task and with the many large black walnuts I have it would be costly. Also I tend to avoid all pesticides as I believe they are responsible for many other health problems we humans are experiencing. So we grow much of our own food, don't use poisons, try to avoid a lot of plastic etc:).

Regarding pawpaws, they are best done by seeding rather than be transplanting trees. The trees develop a very long tap root, a lot like hickories do but since they are understory trees the tap root will not be nearly as large but it can be 3 feet long by the time the tree is 3 years old, which is about 2 years before they begin to fruit. Depending on whether you grow them in rows basically the way I advise beginners to grow them is in groups of 3 as they need to cross pollinate. I would plant 3 groups of 2-3 seeds in an equilateral triangular pattern where each side of the triangle is about 12 feet in length. Pawpaws also spread through underground rhizomes and one has to be careful otherwise one can end up with an enormous quantity of upstarts that have to be mowed or cut down. The seeds should be planted in the fall as they will start to grow during the winter. Up here which is much further north we see the beginnings of young trees around the following July or August. In about 5 years from seed planting trees begin to fruit. I often use tree tubes for growing but one must shade the young trees from the sun. We grow them in open fields but we use tree guards, white plastic cones with metal legs when we seed them and when they start to get around 8-10" high we cage them and use black screening to protect the young trees from the sun. The black screening for us faces east as we get lots of sun in our fields. Once the trees are 5-8 feet tall they need little protection. They are pretty much insect and deer proof because they put out a substance in the twigs, which presumably is an anti-carcinogen, which repels insects and deer do not seem interested as well.