Nathan Stephanson

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since Apr 30, 2019
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Recent posts by Nathan Stephanson

I'm not familiar with the root system of the Chokeberry, but many shrubs and trees have a very large root system at a very young age making growing them in a pot for very long without damaging them difficult.

Chokeberries also don't usually set on fruit for 3 or even 5 years when grown from seed, and sadly starting them early is unlikely to change that.

Personally I would wait until the frost is almost gone and start them in largish pots just to make sure they sprout without getting chewed on by mice and plant them out when they are only a couple inches tall. Also be sure to stratify the seeds if necessary, or they may not all come up.

Good luck!
2 years ago

Marianne West wrote:They look interesting. Only problem is Amazon lol. I refuse to give them my money if it can be avoided...



Great news! I found the manufacturer's website

https://pedagusa.com/116-keep-warm/
2 years ago
I found this wool felt and cork insole on amazon and thought of this thread.

https://a.co/d/3We2cYM
2 years ago
Paul told me to say

gimmie dammit!

2 years ago
I backed the Build a Better World in Your Back Yard kickstarter, and the email I used on kickstarter was nstephanson+kick@gmail.com, because I was going through a phase of trying to figure out who was selling my email to spammers by signing up to everything with a unique modifier on my email. So my other account that has those backer rewards associated with it is either using nstephanson+kick@gmail.com or nstephanson+permies@gmail.com, but logging in to permies it doesn't recognise the '+' character as valid. That account also has my full name 'Nathan Stephanson' on it so I had to go with an initial on this one.

Is there some way to merge the accounts? Or transfer the goodies to this one and delete the other one so I can use my full name? Any help is appreciated.
I'm pretty excited about Good King Henry. I have never had any yet but we did order a root and plant it this spring so you'll have to ask me again this fall how I liked it. They say it's the first thing up in the spring. It does get pretty sad and wilty in the heat of the summer, but it bounces back to be a cool fall weather green until late in the year.

Another plant that isn't really a perennial but only has to be planted once in the spring to make greens all summer is Swiss Chard. If you live in a milder climate and have a warmish area like a cold frame they will continue making greens in the winter too!
2 years ago
I suppose if everything on the lower shelves was shade loving it might work. When people grow microgreens on shelves they generally have a light hanging from the underside of each shelf.
2 years ago
We have about an acre in the corner of the hay field that gets too muddy to drive on frequently enough that we just haven't been using it. I would like to plant it in trees and coppice them, mostly for firewood but maybe the occasional pole or fence post. I don't really know where to start though so I have a lot of questions :)

We are in zone 5, midwest USA

1. What trees should I plant? To avoid a monoculture I've read that ideally you should avoid having more than 10% of any one plant, so I'm looking for a list of 10 ish trees.  My dad hates how many twigs etc willow trees drop and he owns the land, so that one is out. Trees that sucker aggressively like black locust are unfortunately out for a similar reason.

2. How many trees will I need and how far apart should they be planted? I heat our 2,500 square foot house with an old outdoor furnace and I would like to grow enough trees to supply all our own wood. Probably 4-5 cords per year at least, I'm not sure exactly.

3. How should we protect the saplings from deer?  We have very heavy deer activity in the area in question. Just walking around out there I can see deer droppings everywhere. I read that Beech and Birch are comparatively immune to deer browse, is that true and are there others that are as well?

4. Is there a nursery that sells large numbers of firewood trees for cheap? Most of the nurseries that I'm familiar with only sell fruit trees.

Most of our wood has been coming from a guy who owns a tree service, so I'm used to burning trash wood lol. It doesn't have to be beautiful firewood as long as it burns longer than pine and there is a lot of it. They also doesn't have to be a multifunction tree like Mulberry but if they are that would be neato.

Here is a list of some trees I've been looking at, any comments or anecdotes are welcome.

Poplar, Alder, Cottonwood, Box Elder, Mulberry, Paulownia, Black Cherry, Chestnut, Sycamore

Ash has been highly praised for coppiced firewood, but there is the ash borer beetle to worry about. I have heard that the beetle only goes after mature trunks, so if I coppice it on a short schedule will the beetles leave it alone?
2 years ago
I don't know why but I just find the idea of a feral chicken hilarious!
2 years ago

Dan Boone wrote:It's been almost a year since I started this thread.  Has anybody found any good sustainable software (by the cranky/personal definition of sustainable I outlined in the original post) since reading this?



https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted is a great repository of software that is largely designed to keep you in control of your own data. If you do a control-f search of that page for 'kanban' or 'trello' there are a lot of results. I looked at a few and there is a mix. Some of them install locally, and some install with Docker and are intended to run on a server for multiple users, but you can totally install them on your windows PC and access them through the browser. Several of them mention storing your data in text files and other universal/human readable formats.
2 years ago