Eric Thompson

Steve Thorn wrote:I've heard Satsuma is really sweet and not tart, is that true?

Satsuma is sweet and also has a strong flavor profile.  You an tell they are ripe when you have to eat them over the sink

I like Santa Rosa.  I like Satsuma a little better on the flavor side.

For the Pacific Northwest which can befinicky for pollination of Japanese plums, I have best success with Shiro plums, and I'm never disappointed with those big sweet white plums.

Among my favorites are karmijn de sonnaville, northern spy, and winesap.  These are all great fresh.

Hi Dee, as long as you can protect them from weeds and critters, go ahead and plant them in the ground.  Elderberry are pretty tolerant of conditions and you can plant fairly deep (below the soil line they were grouw out in) to make them more drought resistant.  They will tolerate a range from sun to shade.  It does take a lot of berries for a pound dried, but you can propagate more by just sticking fresh cane cuttings in the ground in Jan/Feb.  Even a 6" cutting you can pot and grow out...

My farm is also very prone to an accidental abundance of blackberry.  But I will tell you that you're overthinking it!  Blackberries are pretty hard to propagate from seed, and just air drying the roots (even with soil) will typically kill the whole plant.  It's not even "easy" to dig a blackberry root and transplant it!
I would recommend digging roots and then pulling the whole long vine into a pile - you can also plant trees inside a 3' high pile for natural mulching.
Spend your effort being vigilant to take out every plant each year if you want successful clearing.  The biggest failure I see is people who put in the effort one year and then don't follow-up the next two years...

We accept Paypal for online store transactions -- the fees are fairly steep, but this is true for any credit card transaction too.

One nice thing about Paypal as opposed to a bank account is that we can keep multiple currencies on hand and then spend in tat currency without exchange fees back and forth.  

One downside like most online payment services - they see CBD oil sales as a policy violation and will pull your account if they find it.

Dave Burton wrote:I might have to repost this in a separate thread, but we'll see how this goes.


How does someone share what resonates with them (their little fire, their dreams, desires, and hopes) with people that care about them, when they differ from what their loved ones hope for them?

I do know what you mean here Dave and in my experience it's just a matter of finding the areas where someone can relate as a positive.  I don't have to be the crazy guy who grafted 1200 apple trees in his backyard -- I can be the guy who came and planted 2 dwarf heirloom apple trees in someone's yard - for free!  Not a builder of earthworks, but the guy who bought an excavator and taught his teenage daughter how to operate it.  I don't talk through the detailed benefit of the black locust tree, but certainly can share that those trees I planted 4 years ago already have a 5 inch trunk!
Whether you try or not, people will find something to relate to and kind of latch onto that - you don't have to explain the whole theory and rationale for it to people who aren't quite ready for it.

I think also for parents, they want something exceptional for their children, and sometimes you know what that is for you better than they do and they will catch up later.  You will always do better at something when you have a true passion and interest in it, so exactly what that thing is has less to do with it all.  I didn't picture my wife turning a little Facebook interest group into a career in writing and selling digestive supplements, but as she followed her passion for educating, the business just took off!  It certainly wan't a plan up front - just where passion crossed into making business sense...

As soon as we get a few dry days, cut the lower two trunks close to the main trunk.  Getting one solid shoot above the graft up over the 6-7 ft browse line for deer will be the best long term for the tree.

I make soup quite often, and almost anything can fit into a soup, but it's really the same issue: if you have tidbit but aren't making a soup, what do you do?
My solution is to keep a container for soup in the freezer -- if there are leftovers, surplus that will go bad, etc, it just goes into the container until soup day: a half cup of spaghetti sauce, half a tomato that would spoil otherwise, some leftover vegetables from dinner, and a little takeout fried rice, some corn cut off a drying lftover cob --- all just hanging out until the basic of a soup are ready to welcome them in...
This has worked so well that I have a second container now for soup stock: a few steak bones and chicken leg bones, a raw chicken back and some skin taken off for a previous meal, the drippings from a roast pan....  also waiting to be added to a nice stock when the time comes...

I think this can work for your normal leftovers and many of your misc garden items too!

Brian Rodgers wrote:
Oh my it's a little early in the morning to get my mouth watering like this, lol.
Is this all local  pick up and delivery?

Yes, this is mostly for the Portland-Seattle corridor.
But if someone want to source some purebred Wagyu calves, good stock can be hard to locate and may be worth more of a drive.