James Bradford

I sometimes use sheets of tin covered with wood-chips to snuff out obnoxious plants I don't like; poison ivy for example.    I just harvested this wild mulberry from an old sheet I buried at least 2 years ago.   Notice I have a really nice root system there.   It was effortless; just pick it up and put it in a pot or its new spot.   The tin keeps the roots from getting down into the packed soil underneath.

I usually cover the tin, or anything else, with 8 to 12 inches of unpacked wood chips.   Here in the Houston Food Forest, I already have mature pecan trees in place, and so plenty of birds sit up there pooping seeds down.  Now that I know this trick, I'm just gonna start throwing all kinds of tree seeds on there!

Mariya Bee wrote:

This is it. If it comes from a big store, it cannot be trusted.

I want to grow my own food in my own way, no machines, no plastic, no ridiculous hours or pressure to be out in the sun between 8 am and about an hour before sunset...

Moonlight is perfect for a lot of chores in July and August around here.   Kudos and great luck with your journey.  Garlic and onions are great low maintenance garden starters!

Is there still an offer for free Sepp Holzer seeds for reaching BB20?    I'm looking for the ones that are required for the HugelKulture gardening BB.

Gayle Storm wrote:My neighbor slaughtered my old Florida sand pear tree. He left all upright suckers, and cut all fruit bearing branches. they all have buds for next year on them, just picked first pears in 5 years last week. The tree will most likely die and if not won’t fruit again before I do (💔).
I retrieved the 1” plus branches. Is there any way to clone them so they continue as already mature?

If you have branches, maybe check for pieces that have diameter in the range from a pencil to a thumb, and cut them into 6" to 12" sized pieces ...usually the size that you can cut with a one handed snip tool ...1" might be a little large, but try some of that size too.   Find or buy some kind of rooting hormone, and pot up a bunch of them.   I usually stuff 20 or more twigs into each pot and let them root over winter ...usually get a few successes that way.   The instructions above look really good, i'll be trying things that way this winter!

Thanks for resurrecting this thread and good luck, the sooner you act the better!

oops, here's the strawberry plant

Fall update - Jarrell Food Forest project

The Hugel pile does seem to retain moisture deep inside.   Petunia's here are doing better than in the row garden.   Other summer survivors/thrivers include parsley, japanese 4'oclock (which grew thru 3 ft of added material), dove weed, and scarlet sage.

Hanging in there on the low side:  Okra, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes are looking great.   These get a little grey water.   I'm happy to see the sweet potatoes making inroads into the pile.   I won't ever harvest them here, and hope that they will inundate the hugel bed to the point that in 5 years its a big pile of fertile dirt and sweet tators!

About the only sweet snack around these days are turk's cap fruits.   Its still too dry for my figs to ripen the fruit.   We need a good gulley washer for that.

I'm super stoked about a few strawberry plants I set out in the row garden.   They get shade from noon on, but I only watered them a couple of times thru the whole summer.   Can't wait to see how they do come spring.

Ok, please ignore my submission above ...didn't quite document that one so well.   This one is my 3rd spoon, and it is a serving sized spoon made from black walnut

tools used:  bow saw, hand saw, vice grip, 2lb hammer, machete, channel locks, gardening trowel, and buck pocket knife.

here is probably a worst case scenario ...where you'll have to redo drywall and stuff inside as well:

Demo and install:

 

inside work:

I've been using both spoons, and for food utensil purposes, both work fine.   Mainly the burning saved me from having to buy a fancy curved chisel to carve out the bowl of the spoons.   Spoon making is kinda fun, and I'm working on a bigger, deeper, serving sized spoon now!

...but yeah, fire hardening wood has been practiced for thousands of years.

wooden spoon made with saw, pocket knife, and fire:

The spoon and the other half of the stick


Burning out the bowl of the spoon


Finished spoons
https://permies.com/t/273224/a/273409/thumb-twospoons.jpg