Mitchell Johnson

Sher Miller wrote:

Aurora House wrote:I saw a video about feeding chickens with just bamboo and brown rice. I don't know if you'd count bamboo as "tree hay" and I think the video showed fresh cut but it seems worth a try especially with how fast bamboo can grow.

This is part of a Korean Natural Farming technique but is not used to feed chickens. Rather it's used for the first 3 days of a chicks life (while they are still supported by the energy from their egg) to stimulate full development of the gut. (I didn't know this when I started KNF and had chick loss!)

The KNF approach for storing feed for winter is to make fodder into silage using LAB (Lactic Acid Bacterial serum) which increases protein content.

Using fodder trees to store as hay is also a good practice as these trees tend to be higher in protein and fast growing. A fellow named Nick Ferguson has a website about fodder trees (also a nursery) but I don't know the url.

I just wanted to jump in and clarify the rice and bamboo bit. I have no personal experience with tree hay.

Nick Ferguson's site is:  https://rareplantstore.com/

He's a regular contributor to The Survival Podcast and answers many questions about fodder tree systems on Expert Council segments.  Jack, the host, is also a big proponent of these systems and frequently does permaculture topics on his show.  You can find his podcast or use the website:  https://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/

Alternatively, the Regenerative Agroforestry Podcast is mostly dedicated to conventional or organic cropping with tree systems.  It has many interviews with farmers who actually do silvopasture, alley cropping, coppicing, etc

I've tried using red mulberry as fodder for my chickens, but they don't seem to care too much for the live or dead leaves.  I bet they would eat dried leaves as part of a nutrient pellet, though.  As many others have mentioned, the chickens do love looking for bugs underneath the leaf piles.

I got these bricks from a neighbor, so I do not know the exact name.  The closest I found online were "curved edge interlocking bricks," but sites seem to have different names for them.  

Ronaldo Montoya wrote:Hi, excuse me. I know it's not related with the threat but i cannot find info  about this. Whats The name of that brick that allow to create curved shapes?

Thanks

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Tom's wild cherry tomato keeps producing all summer in the misdsouth. Oddly, it is also somewhat frost tolerant. The outer leaves will get frostbit in a short light frost. If it gets below 36F* I expect it to die like all the other tomatoes.

Arkansas Traveler tomato slows down a bit, but keeps setting fruit for my full summer.

Cowpeas are grown by farmers with only rain. It is usually planted about the same time as our seasonal drought begins. Cowpeas at Southern Seedsavers Exchange.

I bought a farm-sized bag of cowpeas this year and am blown away by the growth!  Mine are at 6+ inches in less than two weeks after sowing

The dog days of summer are upon us, and as surely as the sun bakes bare ground, half the garden will surrender to the heat and wither.  While that's expected of cold weather crops like lettuce and broccoli, many varieties of tomato, pepper, and other normal garden plants also fail as the temperature climbs.  When reading the back of the seed packets, it isn't always clear which varieties are actually adapted to the sticky hot American South, the arid Southwest, etc.  I'd like to hear about your experiences growing in a hot and/or humid climate and what plants do well (or horribly) for you.  I'll give some examples to start:

Tomato: Purple Cherokee - gloriously productive if the temp stays between about 70-85F, but goes dormant or dies above that
              Roma - sad, only produces until the weather is in the 80's then dies
              Cherry (hybrids) - I bought a few packs of assorted cherry tomato seeds a few years ago and try to cross pollinate them.  I now get constant production from about a third of my starts while the other 2/3 die by 90F
Okra (Hill Country Red) - consistent, productive, and resilient.  I usually get one harvestable pod per plant every other day
Amaranth (Hopi Red) - almost becomes a weed with how quickly it grows and how many seeds it produces.  Provides a pretty purple color on the green and brown garden background
True Indigo - one of my favorite shrub layer plants.  Produces countless blossoms (bees love it) and is a N-fixer.  I trim the limbs regularly to use as compost/mulch
Vitex - lavender-like scent and crazy drought tolerance.  Blooms are gorgeous and attract pollinators all day long

My Wonderful pomegranate trees are only 2-3 years old but are producing!  I got three at Houston Garden Center in November for $10-15 each a year and a half ago, and all three survived the winter with no problems

The Fuyu persimmon does especially well down here.  I get tons of fruit every year... or at least, the birds get it

I haven't successfully taken a cutting from it yet, sadly.  If anyone has advice, I'm all ears

Hi James, another Houston homesteader checking in.  Some quick tips I've learned about Houston over the years:

-Chill hour maps are unreliable for the whole city, and some maps use different calculations for the values.  Based on a range of temps 32-45F, Cypress had 300 last year, League City had 350, Spring had 430, Katy had 460, and Conroe had 570.  It was a really warm winter
-We get a soft freeze usually once a year which kills everything tropical, but the plants come back if they're capable of growing from roots.  My Cavendish bananas set fruit and would have ripened if we didn't get that February frost
-Afternoon shade is a MUST for any normal garden vegetable that isn't okra
-Seems that many SE Asia/India plants do well in the summers here, like malabar spinach/ginger/asian persimmons