Collins Kids Food Forest - Phase 1

[George Collins]

Guy,

No worries. I'm not offended by opinions. Quite the contrary, I enthusiastically seek them out.

As for cutting ALL the pines, even if I were to do so, our property is bordered on all sides by pure stands.

Odds are, I will never find the time nor energy to get them all.

[pa_friendly_guy]

Cool, Problem solved, I do understand your thoughts, I have several variety of trees that I wish were not growing here on the hill, but I have come to accept their being here. Tulip poplar and white sassifras are 2 trees with little value to me, I have cut a number of them, but now that I am older I just let them go. They die out young as the maples and oaks get more mature. They are what started the transformation of my property from pasture to woods years befor I bought it, so I guess they are not all bad.

[George Collins]

Regardless of how many times I times I had drooled over all of the fruit selections offered by Willisorchards.com, I had never even bothered to check out their cherry selection until quite recently. After finally doing so for some unknown reason, I noticed something quite interesting: Low-Chill Cherries. After reading about them, I thought there is just no way I'll be happy without giving them a shot. Today, immediately after my neighbor placed his order which included all three low-chill cherries offered, I followed suit and ordered one each of all three selections also.

I also got a Perdue pear to go along with the three cherries as there is one spot left in my forest garden that would accommodate an additional pear perfectly.

[George Collins]

Last fall, the Collins Kids gathered a bunch of paw paws with the intent of saving the seeds for planting out this spring/summer. Per some instructions found on the Internet, the seeds were placed in zip loc plastic bags and put into the fridge.

Today, after returning from the walnut grove, I took the plastic baggies out of the fridge and found that there were 126 seeds. All 126 are now in Mel's mix filled black pots on the north side of the house being saturated by torrential rain.

Brushing up on my paw paw knowledge today revealed that germination should be expected in 2-3 weeks. We'll see if "the book" () on paw paw germination is more accurate than the information regarding the germination of black walnuts.

If any germinate, the forest garden will get first dibs. After that, as many as possible will go into the hog-food forest.

[matt walker]

You are seriously inspiring me George. I intend to try my hand at germinating plums next year, thanks to your posting here. I'm in awe of the progress you are making this year.

[George Collins]

Thank ye kindly sir.

The way I've heard Permaculture explained is that for a short period of present time, you go hard and fast then you nurse things along for a year or two and then you get an annual benefit, for all practical purposes, in perpetuity. I was already thinking along using tree crops for a long-term asset both for human and possible animal consumption. So when I learned about Permaculture, I was already a question in search of ananswer. I had a vision but lacked the tools to get there. Permaculture put a big ol tool box in my hands. So my seemingly fast start has been several years in the making.

[George Collins]

Did something today I've not yet successfully done - dug up a young tree and transplanted it as a bare rooted specimen. I've tried doing so a few times with paw paws but success has, as yet, eluded me. This time, it was a Chickasaw plum growing in Younblood's hay field. We transplanted two but one was with the root system held in place by an approximate 1' in diameter, half sphere of it's own soil in place. The bare rooted specimen was placed in a bucket of water, brought home and placed in the low tree layer of the forest garden. Emboldened by this step, we next drove to a lady's house that had said I could take some fig sprouts from her yard and we transplanted them as bare root specimens also. We got five of those and they too are now part of the low tree layer.

We also transplanted the rest of the citrus trees including a Kimbrough satsuma, a China 9 satsuma and a yuzu. Coupled with the work done in the nut forest and the walnut grove, my oldest daughter and I are completely exhausted. We started at daylight and didn't end until we started cooking supper at 6:30.

[George Collins]

Today the streak was almost broken.

For the 21 previous days I have planted at least one tree. However, every time one goes in the ground, there is one fewer that can be put in the ground. When I came home from work today, there were only a few walnuts that had germinated so, deciding to hold off, I thought the streak would come to an end. Then I remembered the neighbor whom I helped with his forest garden. He told me one day let week that our Warren pears were due to arrive today. He wasn't home but told me over the phone that I was welcome to go to his house and check for any Fed Ex packages that might have arrived.

I went.

It did.

Streak extended.

He already had the spot for his Warren flagged so I planted both his and my own.

Also, while digging around in the fridge, another zip loc of paw paw seeds turned up so now there is about 60 more of those outside in a pot awaiting germination.

Matt, those little plums and figs that I transplanted recently were looking a bit haggard as of late yesterday. I pruned them hard and today, they all looked much better. The figs especially looked downright grateful. For the figs, I left a leaf or two at the very top to "carry the sap" as Harry Dodson described it and clipped everything else back to a form a single stem. The plums lost all of their lateral branches and today, there was no visible signs of wilt even during the heat of the day (South Mississippi is currently experiencing some record daily highs).

Also, over the weekend, I constructed some shade cages for the paw paws. Lowes sells something called "shade cloth" that people use for outdoor sitting areas. Using concrete reinforcement wire cages for frames, the shade cloth was affixed in a few different configurations to reduce the amount of sunlight the sun-sensitive little plants receive. The method that seemed most user friendly was to only partially wrap the cage, leaving the northernmost 60 degrees or so open to allow access for watering. I've tried a few different methods for providing shade but this method seems to be the most promising method yet. Time will tell.

[matt walker]

Dang, that is one serious streak man. You are on a roll!

Interesting about the pruning, I guess I didn't quite grasp that you were moving them when they had leaves. Everything is still dormant here, although it's starting to show signs of waking up. I looked at mine yesterday while thinking of this conversation, and thought I should wait and see what survived and starts budding before I cut anything away. Sounds like I should knock 'em back a bit though.

[George Collins]

While at the co-op today purchasing the rest of the wire needed to complete the fencing for the walnut grove, I took the opportunity to pick up two mure Seckel pears. After taking the fence as far as we could, we ate a bite of lunch and next turned our attention to the forest garden. There were several trees that had to come down, most of which were obstructing sunlight to the loquat tree. The Stihl is in desperate need of a sharpening and the file for doing so has been playing hide-and-seek for awhile now so hatchets and hand saws were employed for the job. The last thing we did, before collapsing on the couch where I now recline to write this, was to place the two Seckels into the low-tree layer of the forest garden.

The more specimens placed in the low-tree and shrub layers, the more of a finished appearance the whole affair takes on and the more excited I get.