Hugo Morvan

Hi Éric. I don't hardly ever water established bushes, so maybe that's why the ones in full sun died during mad hot dru summers we've had. It's a breeze for the ones in half shade though. They've grown wonderfully.
I mulch with hay and keep them reasonably weed free. Nothing crazy though.
The ones i've planted last year in full sun survived. We've had a normal to cool summer with rain every so often.
I'd say try to plant one in full shade and one in half shade if you have that available. See which one does better.

How are your Red Wine Caps doing?

TiMe to prune and to take cuttings. The rest of the leave buds can be used as medicine.
I look at the grown up cassis berry row and decide which older big branches can go. Some look damaged, hinder others, are horizontal too much... Many reasons to prune. I take out about a third. It stimulates new growth and i get to have cuttings on top.
It must be one of the easiest shrubs to propagate. Up there with willow.
Pencil thick new growth is what you're looking for.
Just stick them in the soil. Tadaaa. Well where i live it's that easy , zone 6.
You can wound thèm and harvest their leave buds on the bottom to make herbal tea or infuse them in some vodka.
Or just plonk em in buds and all.

I've noticed when moving year olds, most root growth is concentrated on the bottom of the cuttings.
Those i've planted here and there in half shade of trees and shrubs. Making like hedges blocking out grass and stuff.
It's nice. You can go from one shrub to a hundred in a few years time. I've not even taken a shot at growing them from seed or it would have been worse.
My collaborator harvested all the berries this year and i forgpt to ask.
I try to take cuttings whenever i see a blackcurrant in another's garden to broaden the génétic base.
Anybody expériences??

Is visiting a lake and collecting differing waterplants in a bucket an option? Bring thèm home and into the pondy they go. Most wont make it, but normally some variety of plant will stick around and collect the nutrients your algae eat in a more efficient way. They'll starve the algae and create oxygen by day which will enliven the algae eaters you've caught in the lakewater.

Thé apple reminded me. Forgot i'd posted these pictures.
Thé pic is a bit half assed from 2023 sorry.
But what happened. Topinambour failed.
Rosemary took long time.
Peach trees were the only trees that kept up. They're fast growers and need no watering what so ever. Their pits are good germinators too.
It's evolving more into a food forest bit there now.
With the peach trees providing shade and windblock for others, like plum.
I've done a whole other hedge. Faced north south with more apples.
Sée how that evolves. According to a farmer who has studied Google earth maps for local hedge rows. Those north south are prefailing. Mysterious to me why that is. Other than during the heat of the day the hedge is shading itself out...which helps establashing. I'll mulch and have planted 50 cm intervals. Robinia - fruit trèes, robinia - fruit trèe for chop and drop the robinia pseudo acacia will serve. Building soils up.
Damn that works excellent in zone 1 hedge. What a magnifient soil build up. Chopping and dropping away.
Forcing growth up and dropping the test.

Ponds are great! But you'll need shading windblocking trees. Mosquitos are inévitable but you can go out to other ponds and bring mosquito eaters over. And plants. Bats eat tons. It's always complicated to get a balanced system going.
When i came to this house i needed a mosquitonet. There was no pond. Now the system's balanced with all the biodiversity i could get for cheap and a smallish pond with liner(4000 litre) and i sleep with open window.
We have no poisonous snakes, so that's tricky to say something sensible about for me. They're nice snail eaters here that are afraid!
Frogs can be horribly noisy. I put fish in but fish that don't eat all the plants but female frogs just don't lay eggs. Just some older boys come in my pond to chill.
I never fed the fish, water's clear as can be. House gutter run off goed into 1000 litre tank, overflow into the pond. I feed the pond over dry period with the 1000 litre.
The bigger the pond, the bigger the problems, start small! Also not such a drama if it's just no good idea or possible where you are. But it is if you got a lot of money invested.

We have an online présence. It's a couple of hundred plantbreeders strong in USA. Everybody is bio, but not all permie minded. I try to get people to come here as well to learn about permaculture techniques.
But it really boosted my garden to have seeds that work, that grow healthy plants. And to give others seeds of m'y plants that do well. Just for the price of postage. Best investment ever.

Ben. Sorry to chime in, i feel inclined. Not speaking for topic starter. Where i live decideous forest gets replaced by Douglas fir. It's leafs keep evaporating during winter. Big monocultures kill the biidiversity leaving ''forests'' without birds and wildlife.
Scientists say the extra water take up these rapidly growing trees are cause for lowering watertables.
Disastrous for establishing leafy trees in hot summers.

Also i've obsrved the layer of needles does not compost well. It just sits there acidifying soils further and keeping seeds from sprouting.
No mycelia breaking it down, hardly soil build up.

If it's native and all you have , what's not to like? But given the choice...

As a permaculturist i'm looking to build up soils. Environ mentalists hate me for planting non native ''invasive'' robinia pseudo-acacia/black locust.

It's all a matter of perspective. I want soils with nitrogen fixed into the soil food web, they want poor soils to garantee endangered species survive.

Weird corn it is! I've been all over France on seed exchanges. I forgot what varieties they said they were.
I wish i had enough seed of runnerbeans to eat. I suck at it, i guess because i'm dryfarming mostly.
I am part of a group of people trying to adapt varieties slowly to the environment by mixing all landraces we can find. We exchange seeds amongst ourselves now.
I only grow varieties out i can save seeds from. Evert year it gets more varied and interesting.
I've made a lot of progeess last year and would advice every grower to look for landraces and save your own seed.

Long into hot summers morning dew collects on thé white clover i grow in the veggiegarden as a groundcover.
Alfalfa has a deep taproot, but preferss limey soil. I'm on granite but have one that does well on if. Some old variety.
In Spain i've seen they dig craterlike structures of a méter and plant in the middle. I guess they harvest most water like this in case of a rainevent.
I've planted quite some rootbits of black locust/ robinia pseudo acacia.
Incredible growth out of five cm bits of root. To two mèters easily.if given soil and water.
But some i planted next to apple trees for chop and drop in future. In sun, it was a cold to normal summers in France, with quite some rain. I've seen the mess it was in Greece, thought of you couple of times.
Hopefully people sée the importance of tree planting now

Harvest 2023. I'm wintergardening now.