Ed Waters

I have just begun with alders and willows.  I was going to put something about it in the aging homesteader section.  70 years old and worried about our energy resource future.  Felling and working with larger trees becomes difficult at this age.  We have been letting both the alders and willows grow for the last 5 years and they are getting to the point where some are large enough to use for firewood.  There is a story in the town where I live (Washington county, Maine) of a family that harvested these two types of wood as their only source of firewood.  They had a little over 5 acres.  We currently burn around 2-3 full cords of hardwood, and around 1/2 cord of soft slab wood.  We have 3 gas stihl chainsaws of different sizes, but we are going to switch over to a battery operated chainsaw and a Bahco bow saw.

We buy leg quarters from Walmart at 80 cents a pounds and they come in a 10 pound bag.  When I seperate the drum sticks from the thighs and weigh them it comes out to around a dollar a pound which is around 50% less than thighs or drumsticks cost by themselves.  Just thighs in Walmart are around $1.55 a pound and moving up.  There is what looks like a part of the spine on the leg quarter which we remove, and use those pieces for crab bait.  Living on the coast of Maine its pretty easy to catch a bucket of green crabs which are a lot of work to pick but delicious.  

Ulla would you mind sharing the type of nursery bags you have been using?  In a previous life I was in the hotel supply business in the Caribbean and we were trying to sell
degradable, biodegradable etc type products.   It can get very confusing.  Some of the products are not really good for the soil why others are pretty good.

Thanks

You might also try Smithereen Farm up Washington County.  If they cannot help out then they may know someone that can.

We had a chef we worked with back in Watkins Glen.  Sold him 20 pounds a week while they were in season.  He make salad dressing and kept used it for the entire summer season.  The bonus was he would save the tips with the roots on them for us and we would plant them back in the woods.  They grew back the next spring.  Here in Maine we are getting a new patch established.  Currently some good prices on ebay for plants.  We process them like the chef used to and plant what's left in our woods.  

Don't know why you aren't seeing a shoot.  Kind of hard to miss.  If you do get them don't let them get very big as they get tough.
We have recently moved to Maine and left the GKH behind in upstate NY but ordered plants from Richters for this Spring.  I don't know how to post a picture or a link here.
I am not very good with any kind of tech stuff.  

Good King Henry aka Lincolnshire Asparagus is a keeper.  Greens in the early spring, then eating it like asparagus and then a grain in the Fall.  When we sold it at market there were folks that liked it more than traditional asparagus.  Never tried to harvest it as grain but I have read it was done way back when.  It is easy to propogate by splitting in Spring.

Another would be sorrel.  If you are in England you may not be able to get the profusion variety which is only available from Richters in Canada.  Never bolts even in the hottest summer and once again very easy to propogate.  

Ramps are only available in Spring but another one that spreads easily and reliable.  Here in Maine they are ready in early April.  Nature knows you are ready for a cleanse.  Tough to grow from seeds.  The plants will become available on ebay in March.  A pound of plants will get you a nice bed started.

Cheers

Blake the simple answer is yes.  We used flurescents for years to grow micro greens in our living room for sale to restaurants.  We don't farm for money any more and are trying to come up with a system where we can at the very least grow leafy greens inside from November to Februrary.  We are on the 45 parallel here in Maine, and nothing much grows for 4 months.  We live on the coast and the winds are horrible.  We had greenhouses back in NY but I cannot imagine them lasting long here.  Organic mixed greens at the store are in the 12-15 dollars per pound range.  Old style flurescents are a pain and the LED grow lights are really expensive.  Recently started using a brand called Barrina T5 LED's.  6 at 4'-0" for $45 on Amazon.  They appear to be working really well.  Whether than can keep us supplied with greens remains to be seen.  

For those of you in apartments might want to try Barrina T5 lights.  On sale right now on Amazon 6 at 4' for 45 dollars.  A far far cry from florescents and a heck of a lot cheaper than leds specific for growing.  Working really well with lettuce and spinach as well as tomato starts.  Micros are doing well, and they seem to be working for the chestnut trees we started from seed.  

It is my understanding that if you shave the bark off before putting the sapling in the ground that it will not grow.  I saw this on a video about coppicing and pollarding.  Will try it this Spring.  They were using it for hoops for row covers.  They also sanded all the rough edges so that it would not tear the row cover.  Seems like a lot of work but we better get used to it based on the price of pvc and metal pipe.