Taryn Hesse

Hi just wanted to update that I use lots of nice smelling herbs from the garden like artesimia and roman chamomile leaves or lemon peels and table sugar about a cup per three quarts water. This makes a great, clear, good smelling laundry vinegar that ends up at usually 4.0  ph and I add a juice glass full maybe that's a half a cup per load and that works great.

Hi we just finished installing our new camper and would like to visit another german permaculture family. My partner, myself and our 2 1/2 year old and our livestock friendly dog.  We would stay  2 nights and would love to swap some skills and some plants.

Here's some black salsify photos from the garden

You get more to harvest the more the host as are shaded

I see wild ramps growing under deciduous trees they need the spring sunshine and summer shade they also very often pair with ivy if there is some growing by you.  They don't grow under needle trees here. The European species is very similar I would think its true for the American type as well.

I grow a black satisfy plant in every bed. It grows anywhere. The leaves are a bit thicker than lettuce but are mild and sweet till May when they get thread like fibres along the leaves. My ducks ate them to the ground in spring but the chickens leave them alone. The roots are very deep one foot if you treat it as a biennial. You can leave it in the ground for years and the roots grow larger without getting woody. It has pretty but few yellow flowers.not too many though, you could do better for the bee's to grow carrots. They are very early I see the leaves before I see my tulip leaves and harvest when they are the length of my small finger.  Hostas are also tasty but have threads in the leaves. They sprout like a rosette but if you put an upturned flower pot over them they will produce a shoot more like asparagus and you get a substantial harvest before they get too stringy to chew. My favourite perennial green is linden because you can get different harvests the whole year and it is up off the ground and great for bee's.

Lastly the layed hedge is growing well even though the dead hedge collapsed. Though some wild hops started to grow and I'm concerned they will kill the  layed stems and saplings.

The blood hazel looks good but didn't grow much last year. In the front the rose grew a lot and the dog wood that survived thrived so I layer it down to strike roots and thicken out the hedge. Half of the red currents along the foot path lived and thrived but many of the cuttings died. Also half of the elderberry cuttings that I planted out that had already had rooted died and I blame the chickens digging around them.

The willow tunnel died so I replanted it with thicker whips about two feet deep where I could. I planted last spring a short fence which did extremely well of curly willow. The pretty woven fence died back to a quarter and looks pretty sad I think il replant it in the fall again.