M Ljin

That is such a fun “rattlesnake” on the guitar! I wonder how to make one. I have attached a bell to weigh down the neck of a homemade instrument too however it never would seem to produce any recognizable rhythm.

I saw this today too—Sally in the Garden, a traditional tune, by Laurel Premo & Anna Gustavsson. They are playing gourd banjo and nyckelharpa respectively—two instruments I never expected to hear in a room together, and it sounds amazing.  

Edward Lye wrote: It is hardly a life sustaining basket.

I get that too!

One of the things I have noticed is that we often have more of certain plants than we need, but others may have more of ones we need but don’t have. I may not have peaches (yet) but my neighbor up the hill has too many. Some plants that grow bitter in other places, are sweet here because of the better soil and moisture, but some plants I need to go up into the hills to find (huckleberries for instance, or wintergreen). Currently I need to go elsewhere to get acorns, but my garden would likely support healthy happy oaks, and I have a number of seedlings well established. I’d also like to get the sunchokes growing better, maybe by transplanting further up the hill—they are currently a bit choked out by goutweed.

Bananas and papayas—can’t they be eaten unripe as a staple starch, too?

My thought is keep at building soil and over time maybe it’ll support more diversity and food than before. That seems to be what my experience has been. Along with giving plants enough space so they can sprawl and fruit without competing too much—making sure there’s a balance between life and death in the ecosystem (too much living matter -  nutrients are locked up; too much dead and there is no stability or life!)

J,

Your experience matches mine perfectly. Originally I had visions of beans, corn, oats, wheat, etc. growing in terraces to meet all my caloric needs, but mice, deer, rabbits would get to them even as they flowered. Over time I realized that whatever my intentions, whatever the books said, things would go in their own direction, especially since I was well versed in the philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka. Some good friends keep a very neat organic garden, well fenced, well weeded, and they work to kill or keep out any pests or predators. This works for them. But for me, I don’t feel like I could ever make nature my enemy even to that extent, so I work with the land and belong to it instead of trying to claim a piece of it for my own. It turned out that, with that grain I desperately wanted but could never get to ripen, I would later fall ill and find that I had to forsake all grains entirely as a way of coming back to my health.

These days I am willing to let anything go, no matter how precious it seems. I checked in the garden today and it seemed as if my one chinese yam had been eaten. Maybe some more will pop up from the bulblets, or maybe not. But for me, something is only precious if they will grow without being forced to, like all kinds of love—Paul Wheaton has the saying “obligation is poison” that I like.

Masanobu Fukuoka likens the human’s place in nature to a marriage. The beginner in “Hinayana” or lesser natural gardening is like a person proposing, not fully steady but humbly committed to learning the ways of nature, but the adept of “Mahayana” or greater natural gardening is to be comfortably married with nature. In human relationships, giving space seems to me to be paramount—both to oneself and to the other—so too with natural gardening. Nature needs the space to have its own agency just as we do, and when we give that space to both, there can be thriving. Trying to control everything can be exhausting and a dead end, like an unhappy marriage; allowing what happens to happen and working with that, is a relief and a blessing.

I’m thinking about garlic, a plant which turned out to be wonderful for my climate. I started by planting them everywhere, and where they did well, I planted more. Earlier today I replanted more garlic to different spots where I think they’ll thrive. Camass is spreading, too—my neighbor’s ordinary sort is doing much better than the kind I ordered, which, strangely enough, turned out variegated. Parsnips were already here in great abundance, and orpine too, a good survival food (starchy root vegetable that can be harvested all times, though bitter). Earthworks and humanure have been very helpful techniques in increasing the fertility and life-giving capacity of the land, along with adding woody debris either by burying or just by laying it on the ground. Black raspberries sprout up all on their own, and die out in old patches just as quickly as they started. I took cuttings of native black currants from a patch a ways away, which I never was there to see if they fruited or not, and when I brought them home they grew lots of delicious berries. You never quite know what will take or where—they decide for themselves where to grow!

It is nice to connect what you were talking about in the recent podcast with a real place. I am also realizing something about walking onions, or maybe not… my neighbor grows them in lovely garden soil over heavy clay. The first time I tried to grow them, I thought they would like my best garden soils, but they failed to thrive and died out to nothing by winter. Then last year I tried again, planted them, and nothing showed the first year. This year, a single walking onion is looking happy, like the one in your picture—this one is growing out of the side of my horrible two foot hugelkultur with its poor gravely-silty-loam soils. Now that I see it growing in pure dirt I think I understand!

You probably have some around already, as people plant them ornamentally, but Pachysandra terminalis has been researched for its activity against liver cancer, and I treat them as a liver and blood tonic, and have found them very beneficial. I suspect that because the research is in its infancy, many other uses will be found for them (though allopathic medicine has a different approach to things than the way I typically think of things and have found most useful). I find them to be safe, but they have no traditional uses known so it would be good to have some caution if trying for the first time.

They have edible berries too, if you can get two plants, a male and a female, to cross-pollinate. I have never tried, but heard that they’re good.

I give a second, emphatic vote for sea kale! (Crambe maritima) If you can get your hands on them, they taste pleasantly of the sea. More like sea cabbagey tasting than kaley. They are one of my favorite perennial vegetables I’ve found, and really easy to propagate too—just take a root and stick it in some more soil. They also seem non invasive. The roots are said to be edible too, if you have enough to warrant eating.

I usually take a basket everywhere, and if I’m well prepared it has three bags in it to keep the various foraged foods (or mysterious mushrooms to be identified later) separate. I also include any supplies like water and snacks. If the foraged foods are large and/or not too delicate, like apples or acorns, I will simply keep them in the basket. I rarely find it necessary to bring other tools, but when I am digging up parsnips I take a shovel. Parsnips are not very far, however, so I usually don’t bother with a basket, and take them directly inside. If I am going further afield to dig up roots, which is rarely, I take a digging stick, which is less conspicuous and (I would guess, though I haven’t much taken those risks) less likely to attract any negative attention.

Oftentimes, I have nothing around save my hands and my pockets, so I’ll be stuffing them with greens, ramp bulbs, and so on.

In summer and fall, fruit and berry season, I take rigid containers. No one wants a pocketful of squashed fruit or to have to scrub out their basket of the wasted food (as my main basket also holds supplies such as a water bottle).

Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, “Bloomin’ Rose”

What if you had the pipe go along and then all the way pack, where the exhaust was next to the heat source, and the air in the exhaust slightly heated? That would create a draft for you, I think, and you could probably do that for a rocket mass heater.

Finally tried some!

Unfortunately it was too mature, the leaves were too old, even with three changes of water. I’ve felt horrible all day. So do be mindful when you pick it!