greg mosser

my main ones are #8 felco’s. i think it would be really difficult to pinch yourself with them.

winter is great season to forage twigs for teas - sweet birch, spicebush, and sassafras are some of my favorites. and once the wood stove is going, it can be really nice to have a pot on, steeping/simmering, when you come back in from the cold.

my favorite crab apple has a yellow/orange fruit (inside and out) and would probably be a good cider apple. it’s sweet, and sour, and a bit tannic…probably not everyone’s preference, but a nice complex nibble.

have also been digging the first year roots of evening primrose when i find them.

there’s a possibility of some amount of juglone in shells hulls, wood, and leaves of any Carya species, including pecans. unless the bed/hugel is intended for growing only plants that are resistant to the effects of juglone, i would personally steer away from using them there. instead i would mulch juglone-tolerant plants with them.

for what it’s worth, i do cover all my pellet-feeders at night. i suspect that’s done a lot to keep the rodents less prevalent, even 8 years along.

yup, free choice on pellets here, too.

a friend of mine has one of those wonder mill junior’s. i’ve only used the stones to do acorn flour (acorns also very hard when dried) but he does corn with it and it seems to go well. i go very fine with the acorn with no issues. haven’t tried to dehull anything with it.

in general, i’d agree, get them in now. the only possible caveat involves where you get them from. if they were outdoors and facing similar weather to what they’ll see at your place, no problem, get them in, but if the supplier does all their propagation and growing out in a greenhouse, i’d want to harden off the plants more before subjecting them to repeated freezing.

can you talk about any processing that you did to get from fruits to seedlings? just separating out seeds and planting, or how much more to it is there?

if the seeds are still viable, it’s at least not an undesirable trait.

honestly, 1 or 2 ‘apples’ or ‘oranges’ ought to be enough. i just want a couple of young trees to graft che fruit onto. one of my references says storing the whole (or mashed) fruit outside over the winter should yield something like 60% germination. i’m relatively sure that if i try a few different tricks i’ll get enough success for my meager plans.