Nynke Muller

Les Frijo wrote:...Coincidentally I was just reading about the eastern skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. It apparently creates it's own heat and melts snow in the spring along with the smell to attract pollinators...

Hi Les,

That is very interesting!
However I do wonder: What time of year will it generate heat and what time of year does it smell?

To be used for protecting plants against cold, like Milan needs, the heat is needed at the beginning of winter, otherwise the plants to protect, might suffer from the frost before the skunk cabage starts to generate its heat. Does anyone here on permies.com knows?

My second concern is the smell. I am worried about the neighbours surrounding my urban garden. I expect some trouble when my garden starts to produce a foul odor just when everybody starts to come out to enjoy the sun. Are the smell and the heat produced simultaneously, or is the heat first and followed by the smell later? How long does the smell last? Are we talking days, weeks or months? How far does it carry? Can I mask the smell with a better smelling plant? Is there anyone with experience on these matters?

I would love to use the thermal heat of this plant to protect some fruit trees, or add it to the protection, but before I start the hunt for this plant, I would like to know what I am getting myself into, because it seems hard to remove later.

Kind regards, Nynke

Yes, but the seeds need to be quite fresh, and they want the germination temperature to be between 75F and 85F which is my concern... sigh...
Is the top of your hot water tank accessible?

I am very lucky with my well insulated appartment, which remains at 21 degrees celsius (just below 75F)  through most of the year without heating. Summers can be warmer and cold winterdays are a few degrees lower. So I just need a few degrees more.  For germinating seeds, I use the wet paper towel method. The wet towel with seeds goes into a plastic container or glass jar, which acts like a little greenhouse. I place the container in the warmest spots I have. Depending on the wheather, it can be a window still.
I have never tried the top of the waterheater, but it is accessible, and I will give it a try. They will be out of my sight, so there is risk of forgetting... yesterday I placed some cuttings in such a way that they can profit from the heat generated at the back of the fridge.
You need to get creative here. Find all the heat sources in the house. During cooking, your kitchen is warm, when you sleep, your bed is warm... during the day, the window still? Carry them on your body in a ziplock bag, ask a neighbour or a friend who heat their house warmer, wether your seeds can stay over until germination.... You only need heat for germination. Bring them to work... A lot of people love this, even though they might not like the rest of what you do as much as you do. Retry in summer....
Good luck! I am sure you will succeed somehow. Let us know what worked for you!

r ranson wrote:Does this mean i can take the seeds out of my dragon fruit sitting in the fridge and grow them?  Got to look this up.

Yes you can!
I did it multiple times, once for a red, once for a yellow and once for a white fleshed fruit. Germination rate is high!
I just did not manage get it to flower yet.
Good luck!

Hi Carl,

Two different types of bushes are being referred to as autom olive:
- Eleagnus Umbellata, that has berries tasting like red currants, which ripen in the fall and
- Eleagnus Ebbingei that has bright red berries (similar to holly) which stay on the bush during winter. Some grow in my neighborhood. I definitly noticed the berries on my winterwalks (I never ate them yet, but they are supposed to taste more tart).
So therefore, it depends...

If you google the scientific names and look at the pictures, you will see some similarities, but sufficient clear difference to identify which one you have. If you can't figure it out, please share some pictures so we can assist with identification.

Hi Alex,
That is a nice mess you have there. Your own proposal, to clear the center and make a vase shaped stucture with 3 main branches is a good idea.
However, the devil is in the details:
What you dont want, is the kind of crowded branches all growing from the same point of the trunk. Water can now run into the bottom of your champagne glass and start rotting the trunk. So in selecting your 3 structural branches, I would look for options to get rid of standing water.
Your branches are pretty vertical. The most fruit will grow on horizontal branches. If it were my tree, I might cut the branches head heigth, to stimulate new branches that grow more horizontal.
Last but not least: don't cut more than one third from your tree at once. If possible, spread it over a couple of years to reduce the thick branches to 3. In summer, the tree will react to this kind of heavy pruning, with new growth. Remove some of the growth immediately with your thumbnail in order to create space between branches. Cut the remaing growth back to a few centimeters. This will stimulate fruiting. For heavily pruned trees, you should do this all summer long.

(By the way, it looks like someone once cut this trunk when it was already verry thick. If it was you, try to avoid that in the future. If you have to, than keep an eye on the tree's reaction and remove most of the branches before they become a problem like you have).

Good luck with your tree!

Well done spud-brothers! You can be proud of yourselvesand Rebekah you can we proud of your wonderful sons.

Anne Miller wrote:

Yes, permaculture is the easy way out and folks are so busy with what ever is in their own lives to realize this.

A really good example is that my daughter has listened to me talk about permaculture since I found this forum almost ten years ago.

She does not practice permaculture and if someone mention permaculture to her, I doubt she has any idea what it is ...

Oh Anne, I am so sorry to hear this. If our loved ones choose a different path, it can really hurt. Please don't take that personal, and don't let it get in the way of your relationship with your daughter. Don't be surprised when somewhere in the future, the seeds you have sown while raising her, will germinate, and she will adopt some of the principles you taught her.
I think permaculture truly is the easy way out, but it is not always easy to go against whatever is mainstream and stand up for what you believe in. Give her some time!

Anne Miller wrote: I know it would be good to help folks learn about permaculture I just have never found anyone open to the ideas.  They all want to take the easy way out.

Interesting description Ann. I recognize what you are saying, but actually, I think of permaculture as the easy way out. Let nature take care of things!

When people look at me (probably) thinking I am weird because I tell them about my worm bin, I usually ask them why it makes more sense to them to collect their kitchen scraps  in a garbage bag until they really stink, have them picked up by a truck burning fossil fuel, and than burn some more fossil fuel to drive to the store to buy compost for their plants? I ask them with a smile and I am truly interested in their answer. I never receive an answer, but I hope it gets them thinking. It always has some effect, but usually most effect on bystanders that overheard it.

So Arthur, when somebody of your hunting group finds out what you ar doing in your back yard, just ask them why it makes more sense to put in extra time and effort to drag this waste into the woods? Be truly interested. I am sure if they have an answer, it can start an interesting conversation.

Dear Graig,
Thank you for your view on this. I am trying such things myself. I love the picture of your rock mulch. I am trying something like that with bricks, because we have no rocks around here.
Can you share something about the red glass jars in the last picture please?
They make me very curious. Maybe I urgendly need to do something similar...
Kind regards, Nynke