Em Bracken wrote:

Vacuum sealing creates a lot of waste plastic that mostly gets thrown away after a single use

I should clarify, I was referring to vacuum-sealing half-gallon mason-jars, which works fantastically. Even the metal lids can be reused over and over when vacuum sealing.

Great reminders, though!

Anne Miller wrote:Probably the cooking method has a big impact on how they turn out.  Did the blog say if they pressure cooked them or how long they were soaked?  I am betting they used a pressure cooker.

The blog says they typically soak them overnight, but for the test they only soaked them for four hours using one tsp of baking soda.

To cook them they used five different methods, and all five worked and softened the beans, but pressure cooker softened them the most.

They tried:
Slow cooker ("most the day")
Thermal cooker (5 hours)
Instant pot
Pressure cooker (10 mins)
Dutch Oven on a propane stove

All worked well, but pressure cooker seemed to have worked best: "The greatest success in cooking old dry beans is found by using a pressure cooker.
In my experience, the best texture and flavor when cooking dry beans is achieved by using a pressure cooker and allowing the pressure to release naturally.

Wait to add salt, sugar, and acidic foods (i.e. tomatoes, vinegar, lemon juice) until after the beans are tender. They will harden uncooked beans, but add great flavor to tender beans."

A different blog shows the extreme difference warmth during storage makes the beans harder: a very visible color difference if they aren't stored someplace cool.

Two five gallon buckets of beans were stored in two different ways: 11 years in a warm garage vs 11 years in a cool crawlspace.

The beans that were stored in a warmer situation were more bitter.

Nick Kitchener wrote:Ideally you are storing bulk food as part of your lifestyle, not a doomsday scenario and so bulk storage goes hand in hand with managing the warehouse so to speak.

If you have 100lb of rice and you actually eat rice then instead of squirreling away 100lbs, you cycle it through your regular consumption so you are always eating the old stock and replenishing it with the fresh stock.

My family uses a moderately decent amount of rice and beans. I've been routinely cycling some through our pantry for about five years, though have stored and consumed some rice for as long as nine years in vacuum-sealed half gallon mason jars without any degradation in taste.

Most beans we store pressure-canned and ready to eat, but I'd like to store alot more than I have jars to hold them in, and have free supply of 5 gallon buckets and alot of PETE bottles.

My thinking was that in-addition to the usual cycling of vacuum-sealed rice and cooked beans, I'd like to store extra quantities of rice and beans long-term since rice especially stores well long-term.

Thanks for the heads-up about beans getting hard and nearly inedible when old. I wasn't aware of that!

This blog claims they ate 18 year old pinto beans that was sealed in a #10 can, and the beans softened well-enough, though they used some baking soda to ate the soaking process.

I wonder if this is the exception to the rule, or if other methods of storing beans will have equivalent results. Anyone know?

Also, if I'm storing in mylar with sufficient oxygen absorbers, I can skip the freezing, right?

Hi! I've put about a hundred pounds of rice and pinto beans through 48 hours of freezing in the freezer, then thawing 24 hours, then freezing 48 hours, then thaw then freeze - three cycles of 48 hours of freezing.

Then I packed them in five gallon buckets, but without using mylar or dry ice (I just used oxygen absorbers in the bucket).

Are these fine for decades of storage?

I bought some mylar bags (which are expensive!) and am about to do some more buckets, with mylar.

But I want to know if I have to redo my previous buckets. 5 gallon buckets aren't air-tight: oxygen gradually gets absorbed in through the sides.

Are you 80% confident my food is safe, or 80% confident my food will get bugs or defiled by air?

I'm willing to risk 20% but if people think it's *likely* my food will go bad, I'll endure the expense of repacking them.

Trees sometimes produce more fruit than they can bring to full-size, so you have to "thin" the fruit to get the fruit to reach full size. Thinning fruit simply means picking off some of the fruit on each branch early in the season, so the rest of the fruit can receive more resources from the tree and reach larger sizes.

Imagine this - if every six inches or so of a tree-branch can produce 1 large fruit, but four fruits are growing within that six inches of branch, then the nutrients the branch will provide will be divided between those four fruit and they'll be smaller.

There's a proper balance you want that'll vary from tree to tree, and sometimes trees will on their own "drop" half their crop early on, to thin themselves. Most of the time, you need to thin them. Trees don't always produce so much that they require thinning though - some years they'll produce the right amount on their own. Unfortunately, if they overproduce one year, and aren't thinned, they may produce too little the next year, or even produce nothing, to recover from the overproduction. So don't be shocked if you get zero mangoes next year - this is just because it overproduced this year, and wasn't thinned.

Here's more detailed information from USA's Oregon State University.

Jesse Glessner wrote:ALSO, I've worked with and around a lot of silicone and I would NEVER use silicone for anything that goes into an oven. I don't care what they say, it all out-gases and you can bet your life it goes into the food. Remember that the old TEFLON pans were also supposed to be SAFE and many people later found out that they were NOT safe at all?

I still remember what the Teflon pan manufacturers said, I think just two years ago, "There is absolutely no evidence Teflon causes any harm to humans, but we're no longer going to sell pans using teflon." Yea, sure mate. I bet a whole armada of lawyers reviewed that sentence before sending it out. =P

Melissa Bee wrote:I would try dumpster-diving behind the nearest nurseries, home centers, or anywhere else that sells plants. Granted, this isn't going to help you right now, but as the year progresses lots of 4" starter edibles and ornamentals that don't survive will get tossed out. I've acquired so many 4" pots that way, I had to Freecycle a big stack of them last year.

Fantastic idea!

Two years ago, I did the exact opposite: I had about 100 pots of various sizes (from quart pots all the way up to five gallon pots) to a local nursery that I'm on friendly terms with. They are too big for seed-starting though.

Jesse Glessner wrote:I saw this posting and just took a very few minutes to browse web sites and a couple of catalogs to obtain some info for comparisons. Don't be afraid to use your Browsers! I simply typed in the following:  4" square reusable seeding containers   to get most of these results.

The issue is, many of them *say* reusable, but are made out of cheap plastic that only lasts two or three years and cracks easily.

Some even say, "reusable and recyclable" - but if they are oh so reusable, why would I need to recycle them? =P

I ended up getting these ones, because they looked sturdy. They've since arrived, and flexing them with my hands make me happy with the purchase, but it remains to be seen how many years they last. I suspect I might get ten years out of them, unless they get brittle in the sun.

Stephen Leaf wrote:Ever thought about using a soil blocker?
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/seed-starting-supplies/soil-blocking/hand-held-1-soil-blocker-9016.html?cgid=soil-block-makers#start=1&sz=18
I have the 4 blocker but that only does a 2”x2” This one however only does 1 at a time, but it does a 4”x4” (out of stock but link provided for concept)

I've considered it, and I love the concept! I am a little concerned the dirt would dissolve, especially with bottom watering - but I have no experience with them, so perhaps my fear is unfounded.

You start them in the 2x2, and graduate them to a 4x4.

I don't bother starting things in small pots just to move it to a larger pot. It just seems like more work, potentially damaging plants in the process. I start things in 4" and keep it that way until I plant them 8 weeks later.

Michael Cox wrote:No disease, but I know that I have at least two varieties with different growth habits. A primocane and a floricane. It’s been a real pain pruning them because they are all mixed together.

Raspberries and blackberries are all about the root system. If pruning is a pain, just hack the entire patch down in late winter, and let new canes come up afresh. That'd be my normal suggestion, if yours weren't *also* rootbound. I intentionally just ran over my raspberry canes with a lawn mower a few days ago, since they needed pruning.
Primocane raspberries *also* produce on their floricanes. If the presence of fruiting floricanes is the only indicator, you might just have a single species there.

As the raspberries seem healthy, I'd keep some of the raspberries.

What I'd do is:
1) Whack everything down to about 4" from the ground, to get the canes out of the way.
2) Put the canes in a pile where they can dry and be used as smoking wood for your BBQ. =P
3) Dig up all the raspberries, hacking through entangled root systems with wild abandon.
4) Loosen the soil underneath the bed to a decent depth - a foot or deeper.
5) Put kitchen scraps (especially bananas), coffee grounds, aged manure, grass clippings, whatever you have available that can compost in-place. Might want to accumulate a week's worth of scraps leading up to the operation.
6) Supplement with good soil if you have any available, maybe several bags of store-bought stuff if you don't have anything for free.
7) Mix up the loosened old dirt, kitchen scraps, and new soil.
8) Replant the raspberries you want to keep, and any new species you are adding (I also like to put half a banana directly underneath each blackberry or raspberry plant).
9) Cover everything with two inches or more of woodchips, and water deeply.
10) Dig a small trench in the loose soil inbetween some of your newly replanted raspberries, and as you produce more kitchen scraps for maybe a month after planting, dump them in the trench and cover with dirt to let them compost in-place.

I'm not an expert, so this is advice from a complete amateur!

paul wheaton wrote:
I talked to one of the well guys a couple of days ago, and it sounds like there will be a lot more conversations over the next week.  The big question now is about the pump v "2 to 3 gallons per minute":

  - a small pump that will continuously pump 12 hours on a sunny day, but probably just pump a gallon and a half per minute.  So maybe 1000 gallons per day

  - a larger pump that will pump more like 5 gallons per minute, but shut off when all the water has been pumped, wait for some more water, and then pump more.  Maybe 1500 gallons per day

Another idea would be to add batteries and a full controller to the system so there can be pumping 24 hours a day, plus pumping for cloudy days.  So maybe something closer to 2500 gallons per day.

FWIW, I get about 1000 gallons per day from my rural water network (~6 pints a minute, 24/7 = 1080 gallons, more like 900), and what with five adults living here and frequent guests averaging roughly 4 people for 20% of the year, and irrigating the garden and orchard with drip irrigation during summer (90 gallons / day, for five months), our cistern is rarely full, and that's with us not showering as often as typical Americans do - more like once every three days or so, rather than every day (I live in a fairly dry part of the Midwest, though).

(I really need to install a greywater system, but that's a few years down the road)

I'd definitely suggest ensuring your cistern has a large capacity to make up for the extra use you'll have when visitors are present, which can recover when they're gone, and when summer irrigation is over (e.g. winter). I think I once estimated my cistern was 12000 gallons, though I can't remember for sure - Wolfram Alpha is telling me it's more like 7000 gallons, and who am I to question our robot overlords?

Good luck! I've planted a few pecans myself, nowhere near as many as you. I wish you luck on your orchard!

Where did you order your Elliots from?

I ordered mine from StarkBros, who'll ship to your area and replace any plants that die within the first year.

Unfortunately, StarkBros aronia berries are more expensive than when I ordered mine two years ago. StarkBros is a tad expensive, but has some great deals whenever they've got a sale going due to overstock or whatever.


I haven't tasted mine yet (the first bush of five produced this year, but I pulled them off to let the bush grow better). I'm hoping to jar some fruit juice and make wine out of them. As a kid two decades ago, we used to buy Aronia Berry Juice from Costco by the gallon, and my whole family loved it as a superior taste relative to cranberry-based juices or concord grape juice, but I'm not sure what species Costco used, or if they mixed them with other juices. That was before Aronia berries became a health fad.

B Georg wrote:Hi, I just wanted to ask, how it worked out. I'm thinking about citrus trees in Zone 7A...

What I ended up doing was sticking three T-posts around my fig trees, with chicken wire on the T-posts - basically a big cylinder around the fig trees. I filled the cylinder with fallen leaves, burying the fig trees in leaves. And then I covered the entire thing with some cheap clear-plastic painter's dropcloth available for like $3 bucks.

Unfortunately, despite doing all that, for the past two years, the figs still went through their annual winter die-back and regrowth in summer. This year I'm not going to bother to cover them, and hope they survive on their own, but still do the dieback and regrow.
It's possible that the area my orchard is planted, at the bottom of a small hill, might be a microclimate a few degrees colder than Zone 6A.


Eventually I hope to grow citrus myself, but I'll likely need a hoop-house with geothermal *and* a rocket-mass heater for citrus to survive. I'm in Zone 6A.

Hayley Stewart wrote:This will be my third year starting my own seeds (it's addictive), and I've come to realize that most of the information I can find about seed-starting (even from permaculturists) involve using shop lights to get their seedlings established. The question is, I can't seem to find out the why of doing things this way. Does anyone have any info/tips on getting good germination and happy plants without blasting them with fluorescent lights? Or can you tell me why that's the most popular way?

It's because not everyone has large south-facing windows that get plenty of sunlight that they can or want to dedicate to seed starting. And even if they did, that's still a limited amount of space to grow seeds.

If you had a sunroom, hoophouse, or greenhouse, that'd be a different matter.

For me, to produce tomatoes in my area, I have to start them *eight weeks* before the last frost. Which means they can't survive outside, so I have to grow them indoors. This is because of the growing season and weather in my area. Others only need to start them 4 weeks or 2 weeks or zero weeks before their local last frost. It depends on your area.

I don't yet have a hoop house, and the only available space I had to put them was a dimly lit pantry, so I have to use fluorescent lights. Seeds need alot of light to start germinating (you're trying to mimic sunlight), so even a brightly lit room isn't good enough - you need a bright bulb fairly close to the soil. People use fluorescent bulbs because they happen to be long - 4 feet or so. This is convenient for covering alot of seed pots with a close strong light.

I don't buy special bulbs or anything (I already had some generic ones on-hand - but would get a different light spectrum if I was buying new ones), but seeds do need alot of light, so I rigged up 4 fluorescent bulbs (that I already had) on a 36" wide 16" deep chrome wire shelving (that I already had), with 4 lightswitches and a timer to control the lights (like $20 total expenditure). I've been using that for three or four years now successfully, but I just a few days ago ordered a cheap incandescent rope light long enough to weave throughout the shelving, to provide additional warmth for the seeds, so they germinate and grow faster. It hasn't arrived yet, but the incandescent rope lighting was $22 for 50 ft, which will allow me to weave it through all four shelves of the entire shelving unit. This is far cheaper than $12 x 4 = $48 worth of seed warming mats that wouldn't even cover the shelves. It'd be more like $70 to cover the shelves entirely with seed warming mats - but again, seed warming mats aren't necessary for me, as the pantry is just-barely warm enough, but I think it'd likely be enough of a benefit to be worth investing $22.

How old are y'all's maple trees?

If planting a maple tree, do I really have to wait 30-40 years?

Can I at least get some production tapping a maple tree at, e.g. 10 years?

What species can I tap earliest?

John Suavecito wrote:Then I crush it and give it nutrition,

Just urine, or something else?

John Suavecito wrote:I burn my wood until the flame dies down to just above the height of the char.

Just so I understand correctly, burn the wood until the fire stops being above the height of the burning wood?

Konstantinos Karoubas wrote:Hello Jamin,
No need to crack and soak the almonds; if the ground is soft enough, just bury them 2 to 3 inches below ground...keep an eye out for field mice stealing them.

You need cold hardy variety almonds for your area. Plums apricots, apples, and other chestnuts, walnuts and pekans should do well.

If you have the time place a few hundred in good fertile soil and see what happens.

Keep us posted.

Some awesome Permies people sent me walnuts and pistachios and hazelnuts to plant, so I soaked and planted 8 walnuts, 8 hazelnuts, and 16 pistachio seeds. Two seeds per spot, in case one doesn't germinate. Hopefully they stratify themselves in my weather.
Additionally, I have 7 more walnuts, 8 hazelnuts and ~16 or so pistachios beginning to stratify in the refrigerator, as a backup plan, which I'll plant in pots and start growing with more care come spring. This will give me two shots using separate methods.

Pistachios almost certainly won't work in my area, but it cost nothing to plant them. I ordered some almond seeds from eBay but they never arrived, alas.

I don't have endless space to plant, so my end-goal is 3+ walnut trees, 4+ hazelnut trees, and 4+ almond trees. I already have 4 pecan trees, but probably need two more.

Every time we slaughter and pluck peking ducks,  we think it's such a hassle that why are we bothering?

Then every time we start eating them, we tell ourselves we need to do double the next year. =P

The taste is *absolutely* worth it, and raising them is super easy, but processing them is a bit of a pain, compared to chickens.

We do it on the mythical 7.5 week window, and pluck them with a wizbang plucker, and wax them, and they still have feathers. Oh well! Still worth it.

Don't skin them! It'll be much easier to skin instead of pluck, but the skin is critical to doing duck properly. The skin holds an immense amount of fat, which is one of the best tasting animal fats. You score the skin on the breast (cut a criss-cross in it), and cook the breast skin-side down first, before flipping it, so the fat can escape out of the skin through the criss-cross cut, and cook the breast.

Duck breast is one of the only poultries to be eaten medium rare, red meat. If it ain't red, you ruin the taste. Alot of people think they don't like duck because they over cook it. Duck is the steak of birds. Also, best paired with a fruity sauce - the French use Orange sauce (duck l'orange), the Chinese use plum sauce. I've tried both, and both are amazing.

While we don't get much meat off a duck (certainly not as much as a cornish cross), we get two medium-sized breasts (60% the size of cornish cross), the tenders (very small), and the legs. The wings are too small to bother with.

In addition, after pressure cooking the corpses, we get some fantastic jars of duck broth, and a staggering amount of duck fat we separate from the broth. This fat is one of the best tasting animal fats ever.
(And after pressure cooking into broth, the bones are soft enough to easily push a fork through, and safe for the dogs)

Finally, we use the livers and some of the fat to make Duck Pate. A kind of spread to spread on crackers that tastes **incredible**. Describing it as a liver spread sounds disgusting, but even people who don't like liver normally, turn ravenous over Duck Pate.

How much wax doth thou need? Start with buying six blocks 1lb blocks, if cheap enough. You'll recover about 80% of it.
Sometimes I've gotten good enough plucks out of the plucker and scalder and doing it on the mythical 7.5 week mark (or the later second window), that I don't always bother with the wax.

If you learn to not be too finicky over the pin feathers, processing goes easier. Especially when all you really care about is the breasts and legs being featherless, and you pressurecook the corpse, you don't need to bother getting the pin feathers off the entire corpse if it's just turning into broth and fat.

How many do you need if keeping a flock? At least 1 male and 4 females, preferably more like 1 male and 7 females.

William Bronson wrote:I'm considering  using sections of corrugated black drain pipe.

ROFL; we had the same idea!

For floor, I was thinking just a 4' by 4' sheet plastic, for $10, with two or so holes drilled in the bottom. 4'x4' would get me over 150 "floors" to the pots, which could just rest on flaps and easily be pushed upwards to remove plants when it's time to plant them outdoors.


I was thinking something like this:

Jay Angler wrote:I've noticed over the last 5 years that the quality of "disposable plastic" plant pots has deteriorated to the point that 1-3 uses is about it, compared to 10-20 uses from the old ones if cared for. The "square" part is the kicker. I can think of some ways you could make "round" easily, but square is tougher.

I have used some coir pots but I've only seen round and they're single use, but at least they build soil.

I love those coir pots! I use those as well, and am about to order some more, but I feel a tad guilty about using disposable material, rebuying it every year, and also worry about e.g. economic collapse or recession where I don't have materials I am dependent on. I loved 2020 for that reason - it was a good practice run!

The coir pots survive the eight weeks just fine before being buried.

Making permanent ones myself I assumed would be much more expensive, but putting a little more thought in it, I bet I could take a square downspout, cut it into 4" sections (netting 30 cups out of rust-proof aliminum!), smooth the edges to prevent cutting myself, and cut a plastic bottom (with water holes drilled through) for it.

Assuming $12.50 for a 120" downspout, and add $2.50 ($10 for plastic sheet material, divided between four downspouts), we're talking $0.50 per rust-free lifetime usable pot! That's very tempting, if I can cleanly grind the edges down so they aren't jagged.
That's $50 for 120 permanently reusable pots, that compactly (squarely) use up the space. That'd fit 15 pots per 1020 tray.

They also have 2.5x2.5 vinyl downspouts. I probably wouldn't mind 2.5" if I can make the pots substantially deeper than normal 2.5" pots. I could easily sand down the edges of vinyl.
Menards has even more sizes - 2x3, 3x4, etc... at even better prices - $10 per 120".

This is a real possibility. I'll probably end up just taking a gamble on pre-made storebought pots as I already have too many projects on my hands, but I like this downspout idea.

Jay Angler wrote:Do you guys see many of these plastic Juice bottles?

I started collecting those this year, and have been using them for storing rice! Using vacuum packets, they are perfect for storing rice, and ostensibly last for over a decade. They store nearly exactly 3.75 lbs of rice or beans each, and require only a single 100 cc oxygen absorber.
I used to store my rice in half-gallon mason jars, vacuum-sealed with a FoodSaver jar attachment, and can personally attest to vacuum-sealed mason jars of rice lasting 9 years before I opened them and they still tasting 100% normal (and I'm very finicky when stuff tastes "off").
I'm hoping these kind of #1 PETE/PET recycling bottles are supposed to last over a decade for food storage. Sadly, milk gallons and other #2 HDPE bottles cannot be used, as they aren't air-tight long enough to kill bugs. However, #1 PETE *is* airtight (for at least a year, which is far more than long enough to kill bugs), and usable for food storage.

R Scott wrote:There are people making silicone ones, but all I have seen are uber $$$

Bootstrap farmer seems to make the best flats, but I don't know if they make larger pots.

I will need some too.

Yea, I was looking for permanent flats too, but found Bootstrap and decided to use theirs. Now I'm just trying to decide if I want 1020's or 1010's. I wish they'd offer 1015's. =P

Bootstrap only provides 2.5" pots, not 3.5", as far as I can see.

For root bound, I don’t know how many plants you’re growing, or if this is doable: I have a neighbor that pots up his tomatoes to 1.5 and 2 gallons before transplanting. He does get nice plants, and it works well for his 20 tomatoes he’s growing. I cannot do that with my 100-120 plants every spring, so mine do get root bound sometimes. It’s not a big deal, and they do spring back quickly after getting in the ground.

I do about the same as you each year - somewhere around 100, give or take (tomatoes, peppers, etc...). 3.5" or higher doesn't give me root bound in the 8 weeks, but I assume the 2" pots would be too harsh on the tomatoes.

Liv Smith wrote:I’ve been using 4” and 3.5” for close to 7 years now. Seeing the condition they’re in, I think I will get at least 7 more out of them.

Who's 4" and 3.5" pots are you using?

Currently, I just use leftover ones from plants I've bought at stores, but I need more, and most online seem incredibly fragile.

Every year I start a bunch of seeds about 8 weeks before the last frost. I reuse whatever pots I have on hand. Anyway, do to space limitations and older pots wearing out, I'm looking for some 3.5" or 4" reusable square seed pots I can reuse year after year to fit in 1020 trays.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but tomatoes would likely get root bound in a 2" or 2.5" square pot after only four or five weeks - well before my eight week planting time. So I'm looking for 3.5" or 4" square pots.

The probably is, most companies sell reusable 2" square pots, and *disposable* 4" pots. And most 4" pots are round, not square. But even the square ones seem disposable and fragile.

Does anyone know where I can get sturdy and reusable 3.5"/4" square seed starting pots?

Johnny Seeds sells 3.5" square pots. Has anyone used these for multiple years now?

Why would you deliberately avoid getting the ash?

I was under the impression wood ash is good for soil, and even (when on the surface) reduces some harmful tree-harming insects.

Is there some reason why wood ash is harmful to making biochar?

Mathew Trotter wrote:Olives are an unfamiliar beast to me. While these are Ukrainian varieties which are developed to handle a bit more cold, I was totally expecting them to defoliate once the cold weather hit. Not by a long shot. They still look as green and healthy as the day I put them in the ground.

What USDA zone are you in?

Jordan Holland wrote:I tried some olives last year. Local store had them, and I thought it was odd. I looked it up and supposedly they should have done ok in my climate. Nope. They seemed to have made it almost through the winter, and died just before spring. Made me mad. I really wanted them to work, and they were not cheap. I don't recall the exact type, though. I'd keep a close eye on them.

That One Green World site mentioned that Olives are apparently extra vulnerable the first year, but become hardier by the second year, to the extent of nearly a whole USDA zone.

In the past I've assumed most trees get slightly hardier after their first year, but maybe with Olives it's more pronounced?

I'm interested in trying a pair of olive trees, but in USDA 6, I'll need to cover them for winter, and will probably need extra heavy protection the first year. If I do get any, I'd plant them in spring so they get a full year's growth before their first winter.

They'll need good mulching to keep their roots warm too, I suspect.

James Landreth wrote:I consider "close" to be anything closer than conventional spacing, which in my area is:


Standards: 20-30 feet
Semi-dwarves: 12-15 feet
Dwarves: 8-12 feet, sometimes listed as as close as 5

Shrubs: 5-10 feet

Ah, then I'm absolutely planting "close" by those standards. I plant my Standards, Semi-dwarves, and Dwarves at about 10 ft apart, average. Sometimes more like 15 for standards, sometimes more like 8 for dwarfs. But I prune mine so they stay below 7-8 ft tall (I rarely have to do any pruning work at all - one day's pruning work every other year, so far, but we'll see how things go as the orchard matures - mine is still young).

This probably explains why you've heard a lot of conflicting views on optimal spacing - it's at least partially dependent on how the trees are pruned. Some people let the trees grow naturally - 20 ft or more into the air. Others prune them, and keep them under 15 feet. Some prune them under 10 feet, some prune them human-reachable-height. Others prune them to be shrub-like bushes only three feet tall (popular in Japan).

I wouldn't want the trees planted close together and unpruned to the extent that they rub against each other and get diseased.

Lisa Sampson wrote:Most treated lumber is either treated with something nasty like creosote or arsenic

With the exception of railroad ties and telephone poles, most treated lumber doesn't used creosote anymore, thankfully. It's still something to be wary of when using reclaimed wood though.

or it has been treated with a copper solution that does not work as well and is a skin irritant, not really what you want in small area like a green house where you will be touching your planting beds a lot.

My personal experience with ACQ (a specific copper treated method) is no skin irritation for me or any of a half-dozen people who's interacted with my garden beds, and the beds have lasted for at least five years so far, and look like they'll go much longer. A few screws have come loose from softened or slightly warped wood, so now I'll use longer (3 1/2") screws and more of them. Essentially, from 40 rectangles of 2x10s or 2x12s, about five corners came undone over five years (5 corners out of 160 corners).
I'm excluding a garden bed that was hit by a tractor (-_-).

Mine aren't in a greenhouse where moisture is trapped, but they are filled with dirt on automated irrigation, and I get a decent amount of rain in spring and fall, and plenty of heat in summer.

Other copper treating methods vary in quality. For example, I've yet to see how well AC2 works (Menards) but bought a decent amount for an arbor. EL2 (Lowes) sounds scarily poor quality. I'm really happy with ACQ though. Different big box stores use different treatment methods (depending on the lumbermills they source from), and we have to watch out for the distinction between "ground contact" (good) and "above ground" (poor) treatments. They usually make that distinction on their websites, e.g. "intended for burial or direct ground contact" or "not intended for direct contact with ground".

I'm super not happy with Coronovirus literally more than doubling the cost of wood, though! Seriously it's lke 250% the regular price near me, so I'm putting off some projects to next year.

Stacie Kim wrote:I've seen people who planted two varieties of apple trees in the same hole, so they'd be extra sure of proper pollination. Then they let them grow and prune them as if they were one tree. As far as I could tell, both trees looked healthy, shaped well, and bore good quality fruit.

Some nurseries and big box stores even sell trees like that - the two trunks literally twisted together. I bought one about four years ago, and the two distinct trees planted together seems to be doing about as well as any of the other trees I planted solo.

James Landreth wrote:Over the years I've heard a lot of conflicting views on whether or not to space things close together or far apart, in a permaculture food forest/forest garden system. What is people's take on this? I've always opted for more space rather than less but have a lot of plants on hand that I'm trying to pack into a small-ish space this year. The site has good soil and plenty of sun

It depends on what you're trying to do. I'm pruning my trees to keep them small, and got dwarf varieties, so I have mine planted closer together than normal, with the intention that this also helps keep their growth constrained. I plant mine about ten feet apart, but sometimes as little as seven feet.

I want all my trees (except nut trees*) to basically be entirely within hand-picking range from the ground. I'm 6'2", so I can basically reach 8 ft high, so I don't want any of my trees taller than ten feet, max. I plant dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties, but I also plant standard varieties and just prune them to stay small. My orchard is still young (five years), so we'll see how it goes long-term.

*I've heard nut trees won't produce if kept small - so I let the nut trees grow naturally.

Crt Jakhel wrote:Could depend on the climate also... My experience has been that planting close together led to problems with moisture-related disease (on apple and quince trees) so I'm in favor of leaving plenty of space (as a rough measure, the expected height of the tree).

What do you mean by "close together"? What does James Landreth mean by "close together"? We're using vague terms. =P

My trees are ~8-10 ft apart, and even when older, they won't ever touch each other (except through their roots). I consider that to be close, because several neighbors have stopped by to say, "Well, I've never seen trees planted that close together", but that may not be what you or James considers 'close'. =)

Thanks for the tip, Carla! Now that you mention it, I do recall my first few batches of lard and tallow to have less smell than my more recent batches, and in those earlier batches I'd add more water. I haven't paid too much attention because it truly doesn't affect the taste, and the smell isn't all that strong, but I'll try it that way next time I get some fat; I think I'm supposed to get some in a week or so.

Everyone will have different opinions based on their personal preferences and local climates.

For my area, 30 days before the last frost is definitely not sufficient. We do it about 45 days, 50 if we remember.

Many seed companies recommend 6-8 weeks before the last frost, which is 42-56 days before the last frost.

I also certainly don't want to plant *on* the last frost, as even temperatures at 40`F degrees can permanently stunt your tomato's growth, despite not killing them. Some studies show too long of a time below 50'F can stunt growth. You can still plant outside (a week or two after the last frost) if you use some method of protecting the tomatoes (e.g. frost blankets). Also, being close to the ground when young, there will be a slight microclimate close to the ground (that's actually the point of frost blankets, to hold in the microclimate warmth). I just don't like running out every evening and morning taking off and putting on frost blankets, so this year I'll try milk jugs (I've already saved 25, but I probably need 80 or so total).

What's also nice about starting longer than 30 days before the last frost is that the tomatoes get nice and long ("leggy") indoors, but when you plant them, that allows you to plant the tomato deep, burying the stem six or seven inches, giving an instant 6" deep root system.

I also don't bother repotting seeds. I just plant them in the pot large enough to contain them until it's time for outdoor planting. Imagine this: if I only have enough indoor grow lights to grow e.g. 100 medium pots, why would I start 200 small pots and throw away half the seed starts for lack of room when it's time to repot them? Or if I'm only growing 100 small pots to eventually repot into 100 medium pots, why waste extra work (and stress the young seeds) by repotting them when I could've started them in their 100 medium pots to begin with? I just start 3 seeds in each pot, incase some don't germinate, and then pick the best seedling to leave in the pot and pluck out the rest. Much less work.

Flora Eerschay wrote:How do you render beef fat? I'm waiting for beef and I'm wondering now if I could ask for the fat too... I mostly used vegetable oils so far.

I always ask for the fat. Usually they forget, so when I go to pick up the order, I ask again, and they'll give me whatever fat they have around (even from a different animal).

They usually ask, "Want us to grind it for you?", the answer is always 'Yes' - it makes it render faster.

To render it, dump it all in a slowcooker and it'll melt. Or use a stockpot and your stovetop, and it'll melt quicker.

Rendering is just:
- Melt it (4 or 5 hours in a slowcooker, or 45 minutes or so on a stovetop).
- Boil off any water you might've added (some people do, to prevent the fat from burning when rendering it, I typically don't add any, unless rendering it on a stovetop).
- Scoop out the stuff that turns brown (scraps of meat that ain't fat), which you throw to the chickens (it's called "crackling", and some people put it on salads. No thanks!)
- Pour the clear liquid into sterilized mason jars, pop a lid on them, let them self-seal. They can be stored a moderately long time at room temp. If they turn rancid, you'll smell it when you open the jar. The clear liquid will turn white or very very pale yellow as it cools.

Sometimes, if not rendered perfectly, the tallow and lard has a "piggy" smell. This is still fine to use, and the piggy smell goes away almost instantly when cooking, and never affects the taste. A piggy smell is different than being rancid, though, and it's not necessarily a bad smell - just slightly off-putting the first time you encounter it if you never have before.

This works for pigs (lard), and cows and lambs (tallow). Tallow is harder than lard, at room temp, but lard and tallow both are easy enough to scoop into a pan instead of using vegetable oils, and melt almost instantly in pan, like butter.
I also save melted fats like bacon grease, chicken fat (scooped off broth), turkey fat, etc... but that's a different product and must be refrigerated or frozen. (bacon grease doesn't need to be - it's fine at room temperature for a few weeks, same as lard and tallow).

You can use lard and tallow interchangeably (think Crisco but slightly firmer. Crisco is an artificial lard-replacement made from vegetable oils). Both are suitable for pie crusts, as substitutes for cooking oils in a frying pan, and are great for deep-frying.

Tomato spoons are actually fairly helpful at coring tomatoes or removing bad spots from them.

Here's the grape varieties I planted this year. I have no idea if they are any good or not, as they won't fruit for another year, but I have their cold-hardiness listed.

Plant species	Supplier	Fruiting season	Hardiness
Somerset Seedless (Red, table)	Starkbros	August	Hardy -30°F
Somerset Seedless (Red, table)	Starkbros	August	Hardy -30°F
Lakemont Seedless (Green, table)	Starkbros	Late August	Hardy -15°F
Lakemont Seedless (Green, table)	Starkbros	Late August	Hardy -15°F
Saint Theresa Seedless (Purple, table)	Starkbros	Early September	Hardy -30°F
T210A Crimson Seedless (Red, table)	eBay	October	Not Hardy, only 0°F (USDA 7)
Golden Muscat (Green, wine or table, seeded)	Starkbros	Early September	Hardy -15°F

Steve Thorn showed me this site that lists the hardiness of many species.

I'm in USDA zone 6A, which means I get down to -10°F. You, in USDA 7A get down to 0°F.
(except in really abnormal extreme situations, where we might both go down an additional 5-10°F of our normal years).

I bought almost all of mine from Starkbros for about $12.50 each, waiting for their frequent sales. Their normal prices are $15-$20 each, unless buying multiples of the same species.

For anyone trying to pour milk in their eyes, what has worked best for me is a shotglass - you can hold the shotglass of milk against your eyes and open your eye.

For hands, a bowl works fine to soak them in.

Regardless, you'll still suffer some, albiet mildly, even hours later.

For my hands, in a real bad situation, it was irritated for nearly 48 hours. I had been processing a bunch of pepper seeds with zero gloves on for at least 45 minutes, and only once I stopped working did it start feeling painful and irritated. Odd how that happens.

Are you looking for what is now marketted as "Raw sugar" (Also known as "turbinado sugar")?

Janet Reed wrote:
Would you happen to know the botanical name?

Mine were marketted as "Chichiquelite Huckleberry" from Baker Creek.

I think their name is Solanum retroflexum. They are definitely a different species than yours, and are annuals.

I should plant some of your species in my yard, but alas my soil is way to alkaline, and your huckleberries love very acidic soil, being closely related to blueberries.

Yours is some variety of either Vaccinium or Gaylussacia probably Vaccinium deliciosum, or Gaylussacia baccata, but there's at least a dozen species of "Huckleberry" in the Vaccinium and Gaylussacia categories!

Definitely wish I could grow them here! I tried with blueberries, but it just takes too much work keeping the soil sufficiently acidic.

Janet Reed wrote:

There are alot of berries that taste fairly terrible until you heat the juice up during the juicing process, or until it ferments as wine. Aronia berry and choke cherry are just two. Huckleberry tastes like soggy spinach, but once you add sugar to huckleberry, it tastes like soggy spinach with sugar on it - still disgusting. But once you make wine from it, it tastes really good.
(Huckleberry is another berry with multiple berries sharing the same or very similar names, making people confused about which berry is which. There are probably half a dozen entirely different berries called Huckleberry in the USA, all unrelated).

Wow....huckleberries here are beautiful big, juicy and sweet right off the bush.  They are fabulous in baking.  Sometimes as big as my thumb they command a high price if you’re unable to pick them yourself.  

I have never heard of anyone referring to them as soggy spinach or disgusting.  Can’t imagine.

There are over a half-dozen entirely unrelated berries all called Huckleberries (probably because of the overwhelming popularity of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. =P)

The Huckleberries I grow are very small - about the size of peas, entirely black, and are an entirely different (and genetically unrelated) fruit. They are actually Nightshade plants, closer related to Tomatoes than your Huckleberries. Mine are good for wine, but not good for eating raw. I'd love to have your Huckberries around here, they sound delicious!

Can confirm, Aronia berries survive casual deer munching fairly well.

Note: The deer munch on them a little, but don't damage them much after the first year, as their growth outpaces deer munching, at least for my area.

I planted mine right before winter hit in 2018, and I placed milk jugs over them with no cap on the jug. This protected them from deer during winter (and gave them a few extra weeks growing in winter and spring), and once spring came, I put small cages over mine and removed them a year later, just for that first year. These were just spare hunks of hog wire I had lying around. After that, they can survive deer on their own, at least in my area.

Eon MacNeill wrote:I tasted wild Aronia berries last fall and they were terrible. Reading permies I thought they would be a dream plant because of their ability to grow in wet shade, fix nitrogen, and produce edible, nutritious fruit —- but the edible fruit part is extremely questionable to me now. Are the cultivated varieties insanely superior, or are these another berry kind of like sea buckthorn that is barely palatable at the best of times?

Aronia berries (at least the cultivated varieties) are extremely popular for juices and wines. Aronia berry wines are quite popular. As a kid, we used to get Aronia Berry juice by the gallon from Costco and was one of our favorite juices. Mine haven't produced fruit yet, but it's for the juice and the wine that I'm growing mine. I've never tasted them raw.

Wikipedia says: "The sour berries, or aronia berries, can be eaten raw off the bush, but are more frequently processed. They can be found in wine, jam, syrup, juice, soft spreads, tea, salsa, extracts, beer, ice cream, gummies, and tinctures. The name "chokeberry" comes from the astringency of the fruits, which create the sensation of making one's mouth pucker."

Presumably they were called "choke berries" for a reason. They were only recently (a few decades ago) renamed "Aronia berries" for marketing purposes, and they've really grown in popularity, due to their great juice and wine taste.

Also, people often mix up Choke Cherries and Choke Berries (Aronia Berries). If you accidentally ate Choke Cherries, you would've experienced very recognizable and intense "cotton mouth" for a few minutes. Choke Cherries are also great, and my family harvests two dozen or more gallons of wild Choke Cherries every suitable year (weather makes them only produce well about every third year), predominately for choke cherry jelly, but also for pancake syrup and wine.

There are alot of berries that taste fairly terrible until you heat the juice up during the juicing process, or until it ferments as wine. Aronia berry and choke cherry are just two. Huckleberry tastes like soggy spinach, but once you add sugar to huckleberry, it tastes like soggy spinach with sugar on it - still disgusting. But once you make wine from it, it tastes really good.
(Huckleberry is another berry with multiple berries sharing the same or very similar names, making people confused about which berry is which. There are probably half a dozen entirely different berries called Huckleberry in the USA, all unrelated).