James Landreth

Thank you!! It's good to see everyone's setup.  I'll be sure to look at Daron's as well

Because of COVID, planting community food forests has undergone a lot of changes for me. I can no longer show congregations in person what a finished food forest looks like (both young and mature). If you have a food forest (young or mature) and are in the Pacific Northwest, please post pictures of it here so I can show the muggles what magic looks like. Better yet are pictures over time.

Thank you!


Here are some links to other threads as a reference for what I'm talking about:

https://permies.com/t/140905/Working-Churches-Mosques-Synagogues-Taught

https://permies.com/t/108709/Churches-Involved

This looks interesting for our (usually) dry summers. Has anyone seen it yet?

Mike Haasl wrote:Thanks Mike!  Any need to put it on the opening or can they sniff it out from inside?

I put a dab on the outside and a dab on the inside. Swarm commander from woods bee co is even better. It's lemongrass oil and queen pheromones.  It's usually $30 but lasts for a long time

I would water but not prune, personally. If you could only manage a little watering I'd prune and give it a very deep watering, but ideally you won't do that. Top growth is precious in zone 4 and I wouldn't cut it back. I've grown in zone 4 Wisconsin. The summers are short and the growing season precious

A thread exists somewhere on here that talks at length about elderberry,  and someone said that yes indeed they will cross. Ill try to find it at some point. Bloom time would be my concern as well though

Dustin Rhodes wrote:Many folks in urban/suburban neighborhoods may have a conception of a "Community Garden" and what that looks like, rather than a "food Forest."  Have you had better success in convincing folks to start at the community garden level, and work their way up to a food forest, rather than just starting immediately with the forest? Or am I overthinking this?

I've done one of two things at each site:

1.Started from scratch. In this case I plant a food forest/forest garden that includes annual gardening in between the trees, so that they get production right away

2. Started at an existing community garden and put in a section of food forest/orchard in an area not currently being used

Either way I would plant at least some perennials ASAP, so they can get established. The most conventional I'd be willing to go to ease people would be planting an orchard to start, instead of a food forest, if that makes sense

I bought these lilies at a hardware store a few years ago.  They said "asian lilies" on the package. Are they likely edible?

I agree that black elderberry works well. I also grow blue elderberry, which is native and does well on drier sites. Black is good for wet areas

I believe it survived in China. Here's a page on it from Burnt Ridge. They have a few in stock that you might consider ordering. It talks a little about their history

https://www.burntridgenursery.com/Ginkgo-Trees/products/64/