Tag Archives: permaculture

Joyful Pruning!

“Nature is not a place to visit, it is home.” — Gary Snyder

To plant a tree is to be connected to a place with depth and longevity. When we were finally settled somewhere, “owners” of a place, it was a thrill to plant trees and bushes and other long lived perennials – anything beyond annual crops. We started with asparagus, rhubarb, berry bushes and trees. Fruit trees especially, plus a few for pollinators and medicine: peaches, pears, mulberries, linden, and unusual permaculture choices like persimmons and pawpaws.

This signified a level of stability and rootedness that I had been working towards for years. During all of that preparation I had studied how to plant and care for trees and other perennials. Now that it was time, though, having to do all of that and do it well was intimidating. I needed to sift through all the information I had garnered to figure out how best to keep them healthy and get a yield (permaculture principle 3).

Getting and preserving a yield

There are many pruning books, videos, and methods. Having read “The One-Straw Revolution” by Masanobu Fukuoka I knew that one could choose to be very hands off. Then again, permaculture orchardist Stefan Sobkowiak has an amazing organic orchard that he prunes and shapes intensively. There are also many variations in between. What should I do?

Feeling unsure of myself, and fearing hurting the trees, I started with minimal pruning. I saw the problems with that quickly with our peaches. We’d been warned that peaches could be difficult to grow in New England, especially organically. While I can confirm that it’s not easy to grow a perfect looking peach, our experience is that they grow fast, flower like crazy and make tons of delicious fruit! We still get hit by polar vortexes or super late frosts and lose a year like everyone else, but usually they thrive.

See the two big cuts we had to make after this overgrown peach broke?

The first peach we planted and barely managed ended up leaning sunwards, overloaded with fruit on long, high branches. Unsurprisingly, a main branch cracked and broke after just a few years. Luckily, it was above the graft so it has come back, but we lost a couple of harvests and I doubt it will live as long as it could have. So, I started pruning harder.

I also began to feel more confident in what I was doing and not second guess every single cut I made. I was able to visualize how the tree would respond to my cuts and what it would look like later on. The constant worry that I was doing it wrong faded. I could even enjoy spending time with the trees in the late winter cold, looking forward to their spring growth and summer fruit.

Pruning the Red Haven Peach in Winter

The Red Haven in Summer

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a new level of satisfaction in the process when I read “Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees” by William Bryant Logan a few years ago. In it, the author describes how most people lived in close, reciprocal relationship to the forests around them. They depended on and used their products for survival, intensively managing them with coppice and pollard techniques. Not only did these pruning techniques not

Pollarded Maple

kill the trees, but they made for longer lived individual trees, and healthier, more diverse woodlands. In Sproutlands he visits England, Spain, Japan, California and other places, finding the same story everywhere.

 

 

“I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.” -Andy Warhol

This is a narrative we recognize in permaculture. Rather than seeing humans and nature as two clashing entities, we recognize that humans are a part of the biosphere that evolved to have good, useful relationships with our fellow beings. That is how every species survives and thrives. So, I shouldn’t be surprised to once again have that reality shown to me, but given our species recent tendency to destroy things we depend on I find it hard sometimes to discern appropriate from destructive behavior.

When I first found permaculture this is part of what spoke to me. I was coming from both a farming and an activist perspective. As a farmer I appreciated permaculture’s practical improvements towards a sustainable, healthy food growing system. As an environmental and peace activist it was refreshing to find a way of looking at the world that did not assume that humans could only be problematic.

“The one who plants trees knowing that he or she will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” – Rabindranath Tagore

This story of connection continues to this day. A 2022 study found that “the world’s healthiest, most biodiverse, and most resilient forests are located on protected Indigenous lands.” Even the World Bank with it’s poor track record of protecting land or people, recognizes that “Indigenous communities safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity and forests on their land are better maintained, with a higher preserved biodiversity than those on non-Indigenous lands.”

Now that I have gained skills and practice, and a larger understanding of what is possible, interacting and working with the plants brings me great joy. So does the abundant harvest that the trees and our work with them bestow upon us. It is my wish that all people have access to this level of interdependent security and resilience.

Unpruned Grapevines

Pruned Grapevines

Grapes to Harvest

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Filed under Gardens, Interdependence, Permaculture principles, trees, Uncategorized, Weather

Wet, Weedy And Weird: Summer 2023

When it first started raining, I was thrilled. We were starting the growing season NOT in a drought! But, as you know, it just kept coming, enough to break records in June and July and cause terrible floods in some places (we did not have that here). While I continue to remind myself to be grateful there is water coming our way regularly, it’s also true that there is such a thing as too much. As Brene Brown said: the opposite of scarcity is not abundance, it is enough.

A Good Year For Lettuce

Early on in this rainy season most of our plants grew quickly and looked great. I thought we were being set up for an exceptional gardening year and harvest. Instead, the excessive ups and downs and weird weather patterns have hindered our production.

It really started last winter.

The spring bloom – or lack thereof – confirmed that the February polar vortex did wipe out this year’s peaches. Peaches are an important crop for me. You may have read about my August and September canning marathons putting up 50 plus quarts of peaches each year. So, I did mourn that loss… but I hoped that the berry season might make up for it, since fruit set on the bushes around here looked great. There was also a late frost in May, but, luckily, that barely touched us.

A Rhubarb Plant Almost As Tall As I Am!

It was also a chilly spring so the heat lovers stagnated, like our eggplant. But the kale, collards, broccoli and Brussels sprouts flourished. The lettuce was huge, tasted great, and lasted extra long before bolting. The rhubarb and asparagus were big and beautiful.

Looking Up At The Peas

Most of our plants looked fabulous, truly lush in the gardens, orchards, pasture and wild places. Many of our climbers – pole beans and peas especially – outgrew their normal trellising, we added more, and they continued to keep going. The leeks, root crops, corn, and flowers for pollinators were vibrant and big. It was such a contrast to last year’s meager greenery in the drought.

Brussels Sprouts & Broccoli, Well-Mulched

But along with the crops growing well, the weeds proliferated. We have a low-weed system, using lots of mulch and not tilling at all. Despite that, there has still been weeding to do, especially in our newer orchard areas where there is a strong seed bank and the trees are too small to shade out new growth. So, while we didn’t have to water at all, we have had more than enough unwanted plant removal to take up that time. At least the goats love most of the volunteer plants so it doesn’t seem like a such a waste.

As the season has been moving along, many of our yields are just not spectacular. The peas grew tall and tasted great – but died after just a few weeks. Our zucchini plants had a similar trajectory. Our rattlesnake pole bean vines are huge, but not that productive. My first plantings of cukes wilted quickly – I’m not entirely sure which disease it was, but in the wet conditions it hit them hard. My later plantings look ok, but since it continues to be so rainy I won’t be surprised if it gets to them, too. The eggplant and tomatoes are only trickling in. Blueberry picking was awesome – until the spotted wing drosphilia numbers rose. We used to have over a month of picking, but the past few years only get about 2 weeks until the berries get mushy because of the larvae

Tomatoes Ripening Very Slowly

Also, even though there have been some serious spikes in heat, we have not had the extended, less intense heat that many plants produce best in. It felt great to us humans when the heat broke… but with highs only in the 70s, lots of plants slowed way down.

 

Lush Pasture for the Goats

Not everything is doing badly. Some other crops look good: winter squash, root crops, dry beans, yellow summer squash, our unusual berries (clove currants and jostaberries especially). Our basil has been excellent and most of our garlic is big and beautiful (the red variety is smaller than usual). Our animals are thriving with such lush grass and greenery to nourish them.

However, overall, this is turning out to be our least productive growing season yet.

In these difficult conditions, we are once again glad that we discovered permacultural principles and growing methods. Having healthy soil filled with organic matter and humus can moderate the extremes of wet and dry. Keeping the soil covered with plants and mulches suppresses weeds, retains moisture when needed, and lowers soil temperature when it is hot and sunny. An emphasis on plant and animal diversity means we never have a year that is a total loss. Earthworks such as swales help our land slow and capture the bursts of heavy rain, stopping erosion and keeping the groundwater and well charged. I can’t imagine trying to live this way without all that in place.

Permaculture also encourages big picture thinking, beyond our own place and time.

A lot of work goes into growing good food

It is very likely that weather will continue to be volatile and hard to predict, probably more than we’re currently experiencing, and it is going to be challenging to grow food. People seemed to understand the importance of maintaining our food supply when shelves were emptying at the start of the pandemic and then with recent price spikes at grocery stores. I’m not sure if people grasp how much harder it is to grow food in these times of climate disruptions.

I don’t want to frighten anyone – I am not sure fear is a great motivator of real, intelligent change. I hope that we can become aware of these issues, even though they are scary, and deepen our appreciation for food and farmers and our planet’s life giving systems so much that we are inspired to act in support of all of them. There are many ways to do so. Here’s one:

Building Good Soil Is Possible

Right now the Farm Bill is being worked on in Congress (it comes around about every 5 years). It is a great opportunity to ask for change. The bill’s current priorities favor agribusiness and destructive technological and market schemes. Instead, these resources could support the small farmers who actually feed most humans and real solutions addressing environmental problems. How food is grown deeply matters – it’s why Steve and I have committed much of our lives to doing it well! Agricultural methods can destroy the earth or help to stabilize the water cycle, put carbon where it belongs, stop soil loss, reverse desertification and more. You can learn about how to advocate for change at NOFA-NH and AFSC.

Back at the homestead, it’s hard not to get discouraged in a year like this, but we will keep our own gardens going and hope you will, too, as another way to strengthen our resilience and food security and lessen the stress on the biosphere. We’ll also remember to take in the beauty all around us this season, such as the extraordinary vista of blooms in our front yard.

Our Herb & Pollinator Garden

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Filed under Gardens, Permaculture principles, Uncategorized, Weather

Recipes for Diversity

A few years ago I attended a panel about local food where a speaker asked the audience: “who here is trying to eat more vegetables?” I was one of the few people who did not raise their hand. I love vegetables, I’m great at growing them, and I eat lots of them. In fact, I just planted a garden full of them!

A Diverse Harvest

That said, I’m always happy to expand what I grow to add more variety, for my health as an eater and my resilience as a gardener. Permaculture principle #10 tells us to Use and Value Diversity and this is one place I can implement it.

In terms of health, there is always controversy over what an ideal diet is, but I am convinced that eating a wide range of foods is wise.

That has proven true for me. In my 20s I tried several restricted diets, for ethics and because of health problems. I eliminated processed white sugar with positive results, but all the other experiments failed: vegetarian, vegan, low-fat, candida, suspected food allergy elimination diets… In those cases, my health declined and I felt immediately better when I expanded my options again.

As humans evolved, we know that foraging hunter-gatherers (which we were for more than 90% of our existence as a species) ate a much wider range of foods than we have since we started settling and farming.  Then, over the last hundred years or so, the array of farmed foods has been shrinking dramatically.  There are even campaigns and programs now working to call attention to this issue. 

Sadly, no peaches this year

As a grower, I see how diversity is necessary for resilience. Most crops have good years and bad years. This winter’s temperature fluctuations killed all the peach blossoms in New England, however our berry crop looks great. In a hot, dry summer the tomatoes and eggplant often produce heavily, while the broccoli is not so big and healthy. When it’s cooler and wet the brassicas thrive while the tomato plants die of blight. Some years the squash borers kill most of our squash plants, while other years they barely make a dent. Every year is different (and the shifts are likely to become more extreme) and having lots going on means no year is ever a total loss.

At the same time – I do not want to grow food that I don’t want to eat. I see too many folks grow what is easy for them but then not want to eat it. That’s a good way to get turned off of gardening.

I’ve found the key is in getting good recipes or cooking directions. That can turn a food I didn’t think I liked into a favorite. Brussels sprouts are a great example. It wasn’t until someone roasted them in olive oil sprinkled in salt that I realized I don’t just not hate them but I absolutely loved them! Learning how to make a good salad dressing saved lettuce for me (along with the fun, fancy lettuce varieties). Mashed potatoes bore me, but roasted with garlic and onions in olive oil I rarely tire of. I started growing lots of snap beans after learning to roast them with onions then topping them with shredded cheese at the end of baking. I still didn’t like freezing them for the winter until I found a great three bean salad recipe.

Weird but Gorgeous – Beets

My latest discovery involves beets. I am an excellent beet grower and I enjoy growing them. I love how long lasting they are, and know they are really nutritious. But I just couldn’t find many ways I liked eating them. A few in a larger root veggies roast, ok, a bit of pickled beets in a salad, yes, but not much more. So, 10# a year was all I managed to eat when I could easily grow 50#. Then last summer, my neighbor & friend, Anna, brought a beet & kale salad to a potluck. It might not sound that special – but it is! I ended up buying beets this winter after we ran out so I could keep making it!

You can never have enough kale recipes!

Do you have any recipes or cooking tips that have made you appreciate a food that was previously unloved or unknown by you?  Any that you are looking for help bringing into your kitchen?

Here’s the Beet Kale Salad Recipe:

Roasted Beet Kale Salad with Goat Cheese and Walnuts

Ingredients

6 medium sized beets, any variety

2–3 T olive oil

6 c kale, chopped

4 oz fresh soft goat cheese, crumbled

1/2 c toasted walnuts or pecans

Balsamic Vinaigrette:

1/2 c olive oil

1/4 c balsamic vinegar

2 tsp maple syrup

2 tsp dijon mustard

Salt to taste

-Preheat oven to 400F

-Remove the tops and the roots of the beets. Cut the beets into 1-2 inch chunks. Arrange onto sheet pan, toss with olive oil and season well with salt. Roast for 35-45 minutes, tossing halfway, until beets are fork tender.

-Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette by combing all ingredients in a mixing bowl or mason jar. Shake or whisk; set aside.

-Place kale in a large bowl and drizzle with a few T oil. Using your hands, massage kale for 30-45 seconds; set aside.

-To assemble, top kale with roasted beets, nuts, and goat cheese. Add vinaigrette as desired.

Beets Growing in the Garden

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