Regina Popp

Julie Pastore wrote:What meadow plants will grow from seed and penetrate compacted soils? Burdock? Yes/no?

I had read SO much about daikon and was looking forward to it breaking up my clay soil but alas, as someone stated, it only grew a couple of inches down. 1 to 3 inches so no, it did NOT work on my hardpan either.

As to clay busting plants yes burdock. Its growing prolifically through my weeping bed which isn't good considering the length of the roots! I was chopping and dropping it there all season but its going into the garden this year! I've come to learn since how good the leaves are for your soil too. I'll have to lay that patch fallow for the season constantly chopping and dropping but that's ok. In the fall I'm planting winter rye.
Going through all this for one season should facilitate a tremendous improvement....one can only hope.

I will allow some burdock to go to seed so I can plant it in a different patch the next Spring, and on it goes.

I have comfrey on the grow too both varieties. One goes to seed the other doesn't. I wanted the 'invasive' seeding variety so I can save those seeds and move it around the property as well. I'm sure you know how great comfrey is for permaculture as a nitrogen soil feeding maniac. :)

I know this is an old thread but perhaps we can help someone.

Good morning! Here's the short version of my story. I bought an old dilapidated farm in 2020. Been working on the house (still not liveable) but I started the food forest last summer. No sense waiting, I want my plants to fruit in a coupla years not 2 years after I move in, I'm old!
Mowed down the 6' high weeds/grass in what used to be a very large (front yard?) field beside the house and planted apples, pears, cherries, plums and an apricot, a hardy peach and oh, I am even trying my hand at a hardy Fig!
In between all these gorgeous baby trees are my berries. 5 colours of currants. Coupla blueberries, red and black goji berries, red and black raspberries  and red and white strawberries....I also started black goji berry seeds inside and they're sprouting!

Right now I'm most interested in when or if I should prune the baby berry bushes. The fruit trees will get their first 'drastic' hair cut in a coupla weeks but the berries well, that's a lot of research and not all sources know what they're talking about.
Should I just leave the berries alone? The ones who survived their first east coast Canadian winter. Or do I need to tend them somehow?

Gail Gardner wrote:

Dan Boone wrote:"They say" that tick disease is most likely to be caught from a tick that latches on and goes undetected for multiple hours, or especially 24 hours or more.  

I feel them moving and drop them into little screw-top jars with some water in the bottom that I keep handy during tick season. I've never had any illnesses from them.

One thing I have noticed is that my older horses seem to first get some that get engorged, but then pretty quickly any ticks that get on them dry out and die instead of getting engorged and dropping off. My theory is that a healthy horse defeats the ticks, which limits their reproduction.

Over time, the two younger horses which originally had a ton of ticks started killing off any that got on them in the same manner. But a sickly horse (or dog, puppy, kitten, etc.) gets some benefit from the ticks and until they don't need them anymore, they drop off and multiply. I doubt there is any research showing why this would be so, but think about it.

If you're a believer, why would Our Creator create something with no beneficial purpose? When I was younger, I thought the first question I wanted to ask was why mosquitoes. But most people realize that they will eat some people alive, but not touch other people in the same vicinity. There must be a good reason for that.

So eat better. Feed your animals better. Learn to avoid the worst exposures (think chiggers and ants, for example). And as you (and they) get healthier, you'll have less issues with annoying insects. That, and get ducks, chickens, or guineas to keep their numbers down. Diatomaceous earth can also help.  

Cowboys in Texas would duct tape the bottom of their pants legs and powder them with sulphur. So if they really bother you, try that. Be careful what you try, though. I read that tea tree oil would repel them. When i tried that, it was like nectar to them and they crawled on me 10x worse than normal. So test before assuming something will work.

Gail Gardner. Mosquitoes feed frogs and bats, ' all creatures great and small' and all that.
Also proven fact, mosquitoes prefer people with 0+ blood, they don't prefer people who are less healthy and lyme disease is bad for everyone.

I too have heard guineafowl.

My Rhubarb patch is peaking up at me.

Hi Justin. I'm new to 'Permies' as well. This is my first post! I'm trying to take all this in at once. 😆
I bought an old neglected farm with lots of land for my retirement and want to be as self-sufficient as possible.
So far I've collected the most amazing pile of heirloom seeds (I hope they're still viable when I'm ready to plant!) so it would seem your book is right up my alley. Looking forward to checking it out.