Nature and Gardening

With some warm weather in the Pacific Northwest, my garden finally picked up and started producing! I was able to get some good greens for a soup and salad, along with the first bunches of herbs! Pictured in the basket:

• Russian Kale
• Chard
• Oak fire mustard greens
• Red leaf lettuce
• Mesclun mix
• Little gem lettuce
• Wild Arugula
• Mizuna
• Parsley, Oregano, Sage, and Thyme

They were delicious! What sort of greens are you harvesting?

Our desire to preserve is strongly linked to a narrative of loss, both for biodiversity writ large and for rare heirloom seeds. But we recognize the need for biodiversity and destroy it in the same breath. What if we protected the Amazon instead of just the genetics within it? What if we supported small-scale diversified agriculture instead of industrialized monoculture?

Seed preservation has a place, but it’s not the thing that will save us. Heirloom seed keepers attempt to preserve the past, while plant breeders control genetic resources to commodify the seed. Neither camp is particularly focused on how to expand biodiversity into the future, as if biodiversity and seed varieties are fixed and finite things.

Compounding this problem is the climate crisis, which is dramatically affecting our ability to grow food. Diversity is a core component of resilience, so we need rapid, ongoing and diverse adaptation of our regional food systems – everywhere, all the time. If we’ve been preserving all these seeds for some imagined future need, then the need is now. Arguably, it’s already too late.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20601298

A seemingly-undocumented Artocarpus with unique leaves and somewhat sour fruits. Superior to Artocarpus elasticus. Fruits ripen at the same time as Artocarpus lanceifolius, which overlaps the end of the season for Artocarpus odoratissimus.

Photographed at Jim West's place in Guaycuyacu (Ecuador).

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20552909

The fruit is edible, but there's not much food on it, so probably not worth planting outside of its native range.

Frosty blanket of white this morning.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20514746

photos by Lumicon

This plant should not be thriving in this environment. It is growing on compacted oxisol in an area that gets over 4 metres of rain. Yet here it is, growing completely out of control. Nothing makes sense. Climate change?

If so, which fruits and other plants are you growing?

What is currently producing?

How do you manage the size of your trees?

Do you make compost, or do you only use mulch to build soil fertility?

Which climate are you in?

I'm interested to know how popular fruit forests are in this community and how others are doing it.

Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space edition

We've got thirty, maybe forty pots looking like this, with true leaves starting to appear on a bunch of the starts - only a few of the pots have any duplicate plantings. There's two pots of chamomile (pictured) and a few other herbs like sage and lavender.

We're also growing wheat for the first time, which is pretty exciting. I've done up a few dozen plugs for the bird yard, which will be fenced this first year to protect them til they go to seed, and have a row in the vegetable patch that I'm thinking of using for seed saving purposes. If anyone's grown grains before I'm interested to hear your wisdom.

What's growing on with you all?

I accidentally let some of the Anethum get way too leggy, whoops. They're still pretty freshly germinated, so a little breeze from a fan should fix things and they should straighten up some and get a little stronger. It wasn't a big dill.

What's growing on with you all?

Hey people! I'm located in western Slovakia (Central Europe) and would like to start a wildflower meadow sometime during the end of March or even the start of April. It is going to replace the lawn in the middle of our plot. It is in a sunny place and no chemicals have been used for ~3 years, although the ground is not super ideal for it (not nutrient-poor). My question is: will the seeds be able to germinate if I just go over the space with a verticutter? Should I try to remove the lawn fully (i. e. using a hoe)? Cover it with cardboard to let the lawn die? I have read the excellent Wild Your Garden book by The Butterfly Brothers, and they recommend rotovating. But that seems like a lot of work. What was your experience or what species would be suitable? I'm all ears!

[Image description: A picture of plants being hand watered with a caption that reads I make them planties wet. Mark this NSFWSP - Not safe for water sensitive plants

I just need to add one more layer of good soil, fix the last few stones, and it'll be ready for some lovely herbs. Any tips or feedback welcome!

[Image description: a photo of Lacinato kale seedlings germinating together in a pot]

I have more space to start plants this year, but it's still very worth it for us to conserve space where we can. To that end, we're starting several species in a "mob grow" style with many many seedlings in each pot rather than individual smaller cell trays. Once they're of a size for transplanting we'll be able to tease them all apart either for planting in the gardens or repotting for sales or donation.

h/t to Bobby over at Small Scale Permaculture (yt link) for convincing me to try this out with more species.

We live in a Northern Climate so we are just getting started in the unheated high tunnel for our first plant of the spring season. We use all no till methods and no motorized equipment aside from a quad and a truck to help us move heavy stuff in our gardens.

Since we load the pathways with lots of straw for mulch they make compost just from use. We also drop a lot of healthy plant trimmings and smaller weeds onto the straw. This helps them dry out in the sun and eventually compost down as well adding nutrients back to our soil. Every couple of years we broadfork the entire thing and shovel up the compost from between the rows to help feed the plants. This works so well we often have to remove soil from inside the greenhouse because it makes too much.

Another good use for your bigger and well rooted "weeds" is to use them in a Korean natural farming way and add them to water to slowly decompose and release their nutrients. These weeds all grow well in whatever type of soil you have, meaning they can extract nutrients easily.from that soil. Exactly what you are aiming to do with your garden plants. Therefore they have high nutrient content you can use that otherwise may be unavailable to your plants. They compost quickly when placed in water and leave behind all the nutrients they have used to grow from your soil. Strain out the solids for your compost pile and use the liquid as a fertilizer. Be careful to avoid invasive species and plants in seed.

Gardening has become a huge part of our lives. We love it. We provide a lot of our own veg for the entire year. Even though winter shuts us down from growing for 5 months or so.

It's been pretty warm the past few days, so patches of gardens and the lawn are finally starting to emerge from the snow. That said, it's still a little cool outside for anything but plants that require cold stratification so we've set up some folding tables in one of the sunnier rooms to get the more sensitive plants started.

It's bittersweet, starting so many plants in the open - our cat Maeko, who passed away last year, was an unapologetic seedling murderer so while I love getting to start more plants it's kind of reopened the wound. I'll probably end up killing a few seedlings in her name.

The other new wrinkle to our early season work is Juniper, our six month old who is very interested in everything I'm doing, so we're involving her with skills-appropriate tasks.

What's growing on with you all?

After many weeks of low key worry, the state finally got back to us and confirmed that we're licensed to sell plants for another year! This time around there are additional compliance agreements (and fees) that are required but I'm very hopeful about this season. Next step is getting accepted to some new markets we're looking to attend, maybe a festival or two. Now I just need to have the weather play nice so I can be on time for spring shipping and inspections.

Someone gave us a setup for doing puree storage for our almost six month old, so we're looking to add more veggies to the plots for making our own baby food - I would love some suggestions for some veg with interesting colors for her to experience. I've got a carrot medley waiting for the snow to melt, and some awesome purple potatoes, but would love some more ideas!

What's growing on with you all?

This is the entrance to the "wild" part of our garden. I'm lucky to have access to woodland close by that the council haven't maintained, so there were lots of branches from past storms this winter. The plan is to grow honeysuckle either side and hope it covers most of it, providing food and shelter along with the hedgerow I've planted on the left behind the ladder. The pond I posted earlier last year is made out of an old water tank someone was throwing out.

About a year ago I rescued a native Earina autimnalis orchid that had fallen on to the road. I placed it on a tree with some sphagnum moss behind and watered it occasionally.

I was worried it wasn't happy, but then new shoots started growing, and before I knew it, flower spikes emerged!

A conservation friend of mine, who has cared for native orchids, said she's never seen them flower in captivity. So I wasn't expecting much from the spikes.

Then today when I checked how the orchid was doing, It was flowering with some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen :).

Here's my current record for most ferns growing on top of each other!

A tree fern called a ponga (Alsophila tricolor) forms the base, growing on this tree ferns trunk is a hen and chicken fern (Asplenium bulbiferum).

Hen and chicken ferns grows little bulbils (baby ferns) on its fronds, when the bulbils are old enouph, they drop off to become a new hen and chicken fern.

These bulbils make up the final layer of ferns of my fern stack, making it a magnificent 3 layers of fern.

Dendrobium cunninghamii, in Puketi Forest, New Zealand. In full bloom :). Its indigenous Maori name is Winika and a Maori canoe (Waka) is named after it

"In the fork of the tree grew a type of orchid known as ‘te winika’ which blooms with masses of white and green star-shaped flowers, evoking the huia feathers worn by high ranking rangatira (chiefs). This led to the auspicious name being given to the waka taua, that served Maaori royalty for many purposes, from transport to ceremonial duties."

-50 years of majestic waka at Waikato Museum Source

Image by me