Other Peoples Trash

Conetainers Planted full of tree seeds.

I made friends with a guy from down under, a fellow permie and an aficionado of all things nitrogen-fixer.  We’ve made a couple trades and this go round I ended up with some varieties that are going to be questionable at best for the climate here on the farm.  What the hell though, I’ve got to give them a shot.  He sent some Black Wattle and Tagasaste both of which are fine examples of stickery legumes that should be of a real benefit to us and our future food forest.  My thought on the matter is since they are questionable for our climate maybe they will not thrive so well as to become a nuisance but well enough to be of benefit. In this group of Conetainers I also have Mimosa and Leuceana which will also fit the bill as nurse trees for our production varieties.  As well as those already mentioned there are a several varieties of apple from fruit that we ate over the winter and my first ever run of paw paw seeds from fruit that we foraged last year.

The Raintree Nursery order is in.

 

Speaking of trees our order from Raintree Nursery came in today. In that big triangular box we’ve got 1 – Pakistan Mulberry, 1 – 4 in 1 Asian Pear, 1 – Akane Apple, 1 – Williams Pride Apple, 1 – Liberty Apple, 1 – Chehalis Apple, 1 – King Edward VII Apple, and a few Antonovka Apple Rootstock specimens.  I’m so excited to think that one day we will be literally overloaded with fresh naturally grown fruit.  Everything we have ordered from Raintree has been top quality and has been delivered in great shape.  If you have a need to order fruit trees of any kind don’t hesitate to use Raintree they are great people to work with.

People do the work and we reap the benefits.

We got two huge loads of leaves from a home in town the other day.  It’s funny the looks you get when you ask if you can have what people consider trash.  They don’t realize just how beneficial all that leaf litter is.  Well, I’m about to show them, our chickens love them, the garden loves them, our trees love them, not to mention the fungi and soil organisms that live for the stuff.  We simply bring them home, dump them in the chicken pen, the birds shred them up real nice and then I scoop them up and use them in compost or mulch and I’m only out the little bit of sweat and fuel it takes to load them up and haul them home.  You just can’t beat a deal like that.

First spear of the year.

Just Peachy.

Mexican Plum Blossoms.

Things are really coming right along but with the threat of a possible freeze tonight I’m bummed.  That little Harvester Peach has never bloomed like it has this year. The picture above was taken two days ago and today it looks like a Hawaiian Lei.  I saw bees working it hard and wouldn’t ya know Ol’ Man Winter is going to rear his ugly head.  Booooooo!

Image credit goes to Wadulisi Gold LLC.         Wadulisi – Cherokee Indian for Honey and Bee.

Speaking of the bees working our peach trees we had visitors today, Mr. and Mrs, Wadulisi showed up today to survey Off Kilter Acres for the placement of a couple of their hives.  Ma and I sure want to have bees but we have so many irons in the fire with projects and design work to be done that learning about and actually being successful with a hive of our own is but a dream at this point. The Wadulisi’s, on the other hand, are already seasoned veterans on the bee keeping front and they are hoping to have a couple of splits to put out here in the next couple weeks. Ma and I will get to learn from them when they work the hives and we also get to reap the benefits in the fact that we will have thousands of the little ladies to pollinate our trees.  That my friends is a win win!

Well, that’s about all I got, take it easy.

Pa

Advertisement