Oscar Domstede

Winn Sawyer wrote:
Do you have specific examples? I've pulled the daily temperature data from here for my area and it agrees perfectly with the new zone:

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/cdo-web/search?datasetid=GHCND

Couldn't make that work.  Using the numbers from local stations on the charts at https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate it was only ~1 degree different from the average of my own numbers for the 11 years since the map change.  Closer than I expected, averages work that way I guess.  I thought they used to have all their data recorded somewhere, anyone know?

But that still puts it a full zone off from the changed direction of the updated map.

If anyone wants to have another source, look up your local airport.  There is often a phone number for ASOS or AWOS and it will give you the conditions at the moment at the field.  Temp, wind, barometric pressure, dew point, etc.

I've questioned the USDA maps because they are only averages of minimums, so I assume more applicable to short-lived perennials and sheltered locations, and because they just aren't correct where I have lived.  I've been paying attention to lows since I was old enough to be responsible for chores, especially keeping water available for livestock.  Not accurate, but still close enough for most things.

But this new version really gripes my ass.  The numbers from local weather stations and airports are not even remotely what they are showing.  It shows me as a zone where I have never seen a winter that warm, no less an average.  It's outright bullshit.

Anyone else find the 1948 Arnold Arboretum more accurate in the last decade?  Even the colored pencil version

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/0*Fnlq8_-ju6suRGq-

Rebecca Norman wrote:...root storage method was to dig a hole in the garden every year, deep enough so the sacks of roots could be kept below the frost line...

Aaugh!  I've been hand-digging to make a root cellar but I didn't even think of just doing the same thing for food storage that I already do to overwinter some corms and tubers.  A few minutes with a shovel in my dry garden, bury a bucket with wire mesh on top for varmints, ignore until next year.  It's not like I have apples or anything.

Are those gunny sacks or the woven poly kind?

Sandhill has them listed this year.  I'll be starting from year and a half old roots, myself.  Last year was rough.  Sorry I didn't reply to people, my computer died as well.

Before your last comment, I was going to suggest asking someone from the plains.  If you're not worried, go for it.

I live west of where you are, and don't know if I lost apple trees in the past due to my haphazard pruning or spray from farmers.   I have some complete rat's nest trees that I leave alone because they are all I have.  The last thing I would worry about is the wind.  It has already survived that.

Cutting on trees is nerve-wracking when trees are so hard to establish.  But that might just be me.

The native mulberry here is Morus rubra.  I have attempted to use it for live stakes and cuttings and only a few have survived but never grown any larger.

I really hope the term didn't exist at the time, but I experimented with a hugelswale years ago; if I recall it was built in late winter.  The wood in it was almost all fresh mulberry.  I ended up with a mulberry hedge that I've been butchering ever since.

Perhaps you could completely bury all your trimmings, branches, trunks, whatever, in a little hugel that you can keep watered?  I have never even seen M. nigra or M. alba  so maybe they're different.

I have some that came from Sandhill; I'd be happy to share what I can if people remind me in May or so.   I don't have a huge amount but I can set out all I have for slips.


I've been randomly reading permies off and on and listening to Paul's podcasts since they were in the double digits at least, but I haven't got the hang of navigating the site. Is https://permies.com/forums/forums/show/90/19 the best place to beg/trade for seed?  I'll find out how to format links and what not later.