Rosie Carducci

Judith Browning wrote:I hope to be able to share but am reluctant to count my pits before they're hatched...they look great so far and I know there will be some curculio damage.

Judith, would you please put me on your list for peach pits in case you have some to share this year?  I've been reading this thread about the peaches you've been growing, and I'm so intrigued!  I don't have any peaches yet in my tree "collection", and these sound as though they would be a wonderful addition to my food-forest-to-be.

I'll have to check out that Brave browser.  Right now I use Opera with Ghostery addon to eliminate (most) tracking.  I'm familiar with Duck Duck Go, and I use it as a secondary search engine, but my primary is StartPage.

Good for them for not giving up, and good for Florida for finally passing this.  It should NEVER have been allowed for entities (municipalities, HOAs, etc.) to outlaw growing food in one's front yard.

Laura VanAntwerp wrote:Rosie, we are in your boat.  Married for 16 years, a few kids, and now I'm begging to leave it all behind and live on our mountainside.  Like your spouse, my husband has different ideas...he wants to let his federal job play out, etc.  Me? I can't get out of dodge and away from the DC area fast enough.  It's a cut-throat rat race here.  As for my husband, he is onboard with homegrown, healthy living.  Heck, he exercises regularly and stays super fit for the job.  As for the property, it's near Asheville NC...and we're in the DC area.  His job is all-consuming...as in 80 hours a week sometimes.  Especially during campaign season...
As for kids, they are the reason I'm still here.  He and I have been through tough times, but 16 years and a few kids complicates the decision-making process!

Wow, we and our situations are a lot more alike than I realized!  We're just 20 years farther down the road than y'all are.  Sometimes I have felt as though I was going it alone, and that no one else in the family shared my dreams and vision.  Now I find they are more on board than I thought.

I totally get you on leaving DC (I refused to let my husband bid outside of Texas in the past ten years or so.)  Is your husband willing/able to bid out sometime in the near future? How many more years before he retires?  What sort of property are you in now (rental/owned, house/apartment, amount of yard/property, etc.)?  Can you take baby steps to get to where you want to end up?

Here's a recommendation for your consideration (what I would do in your shoes):  If Asheville is where y'all plan to retire, and he's on board with that, then start by spending a weekend each month down there on your property, doing a little bit at a time.  Your kids are probably old enough to help with some of it.  If your husband can get away to go with you, great, otherwise, take the kids and go.  In the mean time, start planting what you can where you are.  Maybe start plants in containers that you'll take with you to your property as soon as they can be transplanted.  Think long term.  Step by step, get your infrastructure built.  Maybe you hire some of it done.  If I were in the DC area, I would totally visit Joel Salatin's place to get more insipiration (take hubby and the kids if at all possible, and let them catch the vision).  Play the long game and stick this thing out.  I think it will be worth it in the end, when he retires and y'all can move there full-time.

My husband is decidedly a city boy.  I didn't realize what a country girl I am until long after we were married (like, 15 years in).  I think that we want a lot of the same things, but we have different ideas of how to get there.  For me, the best approach has been the gradual one, introducing him little by little to a slower-paced, more healthful lifestyle.  At the very least, he humors me and helps me out a little bit here and there.  I think his biggest concern is getting stuck with all of the work, but as I've become healthier, I'm able to do more, and his concern is diminishing.  I'm also working on convincing him that a food forest will be a lot less work to maintain after it's established, and that we won't be mowing acres and acres of grass.

Can you bring your partner along gradually?  Will he at least buy into the idea of more homegrown, healthy food?  Maybe he's willing to finance your efforts if you (perhaps with some hired help) do the actual projects?

Also, how far is this property from your current location?  Can you work your dream part-time for now?  Can/will he commute, or split his time between work during the week and the new property on the weekends?  If the answer to both of those is "no", then you're going to have to choose between him and the lifestyle you are proposing.  Choose wisely, if for no other reason than your children's sake.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Adding comfrey to small trees in small containers (5 gal for a tree is a small container) will ensure that the tree roots will not get the water or nutrients the tree needs for early life.

Is there anything I can plant in the pots with the trees that will benefit the trees (i.e. feed the soil they're in), or should I just wait until they're in the ground?

Scott Foster wrote:I do companion plant in my pots but I wouldn't use Comfrey as trace mentioned, it gets big really fast.  I like putting a tree out in a mini polyculture when I can.  I guess it depends on how long your trees will be in pots.

I'm hoping to be able to get them into the ground next spring, early summer at the latest.  So, a year, maybe.
 

You could do an annual herb garden, plant some perennial flowers like Echinacea purpurea or just use a pretty cover crop like clover.

You mean, in the same pots with the trees?  I do have some herbs growing in other pots, but on the back patio where I can get to them quickly and easily to snip a few leaves, etc.  The trees are in the corner, away from the house, because I simply don't have room for them closer to the house.

Just as a side note.  I'm planting my comfrey a little further from my trees than before.  I didn't realize how big it gets.  Some of my plants are five feet tall and almost as wide.

Wow!  I didn't realize they get that big, either!

Trace Oswald wrote:I would wait. Comfrey gets very big pretty fast. I like to give it plenty of room.

Good to know.  I've been having a difficult time getting it started, so thought it might be good to try to start it in the tree containers (5-gallon).