Alan Burnett

Another year, new plantings, new growth, and new challenges! This spring brought another round of tree planting, this time focused on support trees rather than food production:

American Basswood x3

Black Locust x2

Juneberry x2

Basket Willow x2

Speckled alder (replacement)

I've planned out guilds for the Apple tree and the group of Blueberry bushes, and I've started planting toward those goals, but for now the existing grass and dandelions are still dominating.

My 3 pears and 3 plums from last year had quite a lot of grass intrusion on the mulch ring, so I re-mulched all of them with a cardboard layer underneath and a mulch/compost mix on top. Some have companion plants within the mulch ring that are doing well! One of the plums looks like it might put out fruit this year!

Some of the trees are not doing well.. one of the Pears seems to have some sort of disease, two of the original speckled alders have died (I've replaced one), I'm worried about just how late the Basswoods are putting out their leaves, and one of my black locusts seems completely dead, the other mostly dead.

Thank you for visiting!

Josh Hoffman wrote:
I think it is the modern city (for the most part) that is unsustainable, and not the population numbers. Not to mention the national and global economy, talk about exploitation.

I do not think cities are the problems. I think it is the suburbs that surround them. If you have 100 square miles of suburban sprawl, everyone gets their own house on a half acre, riding lawnmower, garage with a car, they drive for amenities and gatherings, they are massively dependent on food and goods being shipped in and garbage being shipped out. This population cannot manage themselves. They are highly dependent on outside support.

But take the same area, put 85% of the population in dense residential buildings (apartment buildings) in a walkable, livable city, and the other 15% of the population manages the farmland / wild land surrounding this area. This population can manage itself, nature gets to exist, and I bet quality of life even works out to be better. Most human space since ancient Egypt has followed this kind of model.

It's only with recent globalization that people have had the opportunity to convert the city's surrounding farmland into expensive suburban living area. Look 15 miles outside of any major metropolitan area in the US for examples of this. We have shipping vessels bringing goods across the ocean, and 18 wheelers bringing food from massive swaths of industrialized farmland to support this model.

I believe when you add up all the costs here, the water and sewage and other infrastructure to support the suburbs, the personal cost to live there and pay for all the shipping, people get a far worse deal in the suburbs than they do in the city/rural structure.

Thank you for the information...

I was gifted a gardening book that suggests different activities for each month, and February says to clean and maintain garden tools. So here we go!

Clean the dirt off, file any large dings, whetstone the blade, and give the whole blade a coat of oil. Handles sanded and rubbed with oil. This is my plan

Randy Bachman wrote:Last i put oil on the metal parts. Nothing fancy, even used motor oil.

This worries me. I'm using this shovel to transplant raspberry crowns and divide hostas and sunchokes which I will soon eat. Trace amounts of my tools and their oil coatings are going to wind up in my food and in my body. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing, but putting this used motor oil in my body does not bring joy.

I have a good supply of food grade mineral oil, so this is what I plan to use.

Walt Chase wrote:.  I've found a good way to keep shovels clean and oiled is a bucket of sand with some type oil in it.  When you finish using the shovel, hose it off and stick it in the bucket of sand a time or two.  The sand scours the blade and the oil protects the metal.

So this feels like a very silly question, but why do I want to scour the shovel head? Scouring is going to dig grooves in the metal, increase surface area. This shovel is going to be shoved into the dirt 10,000 times, I want it to act as close to a surgical blade as possible so it requires the least amount of force to split things in half.

Timothy Norton wrote:Blades get sharpened and everything gets touched up. I will take the time to go through my kitchen knives as well and inspect each one.

Could you share more about what you do? I have a lot of metal tools I'm bringing inside for the first time this winter to give them some maintenance, and I could use some practical advice

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Personally I would put a kettle on the wood stove and let it rip. That's the cheap and sustainable solution. If it's completely dry on the bottom when you set it down, it shouldn't mess up the finish on the stove. My 2c.

Thank you, I think you are exactly right. I've gotten rid of the humidifier and put a pot of water on the stove. It works through water about 4 times faster, and it doesn't have a loud irritating fan. And it doesn't take up space.

I was worried about the rust spots, but I'm also perfectly capable of scrubbing off rust and applying high heat paint, so I'll try to keep the pot dry and not worry about it too much.

Wow, fifty plus is mind blowing... I've got 2 mature apples, 1 mature crabapple for the birds, and three of each pears and plums I just planted last spring. Hoping to get those high numbers soon! This year is more about support trees than fruit production, but I'll get fifty someday

My communication ideal includes being able to listen to somebody and respond to what they are trying to say. Like most ideals, my practice falls somewhere between perfection and total apathy. It makes for a good exercise to apply to the shoulds of the world.

If my neighbor saw me pruning my hedges, and in complete ignorance over what hedges they were, why they are planted here, and why I am pruning them this way, told me that I should prune them in a particular way, it feels like someone walking up and blowing sand in your eyes. But what might she be trying to say? Maybe it's something like "I am proud of my standards for styling hedges, and I would love to share them with you." Still a little arrogant, but I think a well-meaning person could find a friendly response to that.

I think most well-meaning shoulds leave the problem solving to the listener. "You should include this information when you make a decision, and I hope the information is useful. "

The shoulds that include the message that your mind is already made up, that you are the expert and the listners are waiting to be educated by you, those are the shoulds nobody likes. If you haven't listened to anything I have to say and you're explaining how you came to the correct conclusion, you are here for a TED talk or lecture where my role is to listen and applaud. However if you try to hear what they're trying to say, it's probably that they want some sort of connection with you, or they want recognition and appreciation for their knowledge. Something we all experience.

Problem solving is closely tied into this. I myself have a strong problem solving nature and have to suppress it at times. My problem solving nature is great while I'm at my job, but if I keep the same behavior during family life, I won't be able to give my attention to the people in front of me. Staying in problem solving mode, I'm sure I would should everyone I meet because every inconvenience and discomfort and worry is just a problem that can be solved, and I'm pretty good at finding solutions to those kinds of problems. It was a big step in maturity to learn that sometimes I need to exist in a space without solving problems.

Being a guest in someone's house is a perfect example, they're inviting you over to enjoy your company and help you feel accommodated. They're not hiring you as a consultant to solve all the little problems in an inefficiencies of their house, so if I'm invited as a house guest and I start dropping shoulds on everything I see that I would have done differently, I probably won't be invited back, as others have expressed.

In fact, it is plausible that the word "should" might be used for one's one personal gobbledy-gook exclusively.   Maybe I could say "I really should eat more cookies"  or "I think I should take more naps."

I was suggested by a professional looking out for my mental health to reduce or remove the word "should" from my internal vocabulary. "I should go tend to the sunflowers before breakfast" becomes "I COULD go tend.." big difference internally. Especially if you're like me and you could end every day with a long list of Todo items that you didnt make time for. It's not possible to do it all, so be careful with the authority you give to certain tasks by using the word "should".

Anne Miller wrote:Tell me more about the $2500 year paper wick as I do not understand what this is...

Not that much! $25

This piece sits in the water and gets saturated, and in my experience it doesn't last a year

https://www.discountfilters.com/humidifier-wicks-pads/airx-axppfcb43/p190151//?utm_medium=cpc&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyc67BhDSARIsAM95QzudNxr8QdhJVluMYpIBw6fxuL59M2HWu1Z3wM0quJC089hdaWOiQKcaAlR2EALw_wcB