Positive Gardening Thoughts
This morning I took a brief tour of Novella Carpenter's urban farm. She and her partner had transformed a vacant lot squat to a garden, mini-orchard and apiary. It was fun to hear the comments of the other visitors because I'm not really plugged-in to that community face-to-face, much as I'd like to be. I have no trouble finding permaculturalists and urban farmers online, but I haven't managed to find like-minded people to hang out with in meatspace. Despite all the plants, the real highlight of the tour for me was seeing Novella's goats. I overcame my usual skittishness around animals because her castrated male goat Bilbo is so nice and friendly. And the two newborn kids are ADORABLE.
I went out to my own garden today. I didn't feel up to planting things out (partly because most of what I have to plant is front yard stuff and my rude neighbors have been out front more than usual lately), so I decided to do as much tidying up as my hands could manage. As usual, I probably did *more* than I could manage but whatever.... Long story short, I've learned that despite my hippie leanings that tell me that nature knows what she's doing, there are times when you really do need to prune, deadhead and/or mow. I have a no-mow lawn (thank goddess), but it still needs some care. The wooly thyme that makes our living path grew way larger than I thought it would and the older bits got woody and defoliated. Which gave the weeds room to grow. So I've learned I would have been better off "mowing" the thyme. Now I'm going to have to do a LOT of work reconditioning the hard soil there and re-planting some form of ground cover.
The final bit today is that I've been shopping for a used chipper/mulcher. I kept hoping I'd find one I could "afford" (as I'm several thousand dollars in credit card debt at the moment, I can't truly afford anything...) I keep having situations where I need to be able to cut branches down and I just don't have the hand strength to do it. I've looked and the Berkeley Tool Library doesn't have a chipper available. So today I saw an electric chipper for $80. That's half what one would cost new. It only handled branches of 1 inch or less, which is smaller than I'd like but I'd have to pay significantly more and go to gas motors to get one that would handle larger branches. And eventually you still get to branches of a size where you need to use a saw or axe. So I wrote the poster and said I was interested. She said tonight was best for her.
So I drove out there and had a nice chat with her and her partner. While we were talking, I mentioned that I was getting it due to my RSI. They demo'd the chipper for me. I said I'd take it and took out 4 twenties. They had a nice orchard in back and we talked about the various fruit they grew. She took a twenty and gave it back to me. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes. I think 10 years ago I would have insisted she keep it but I'm more at ease now with saying "Thank you. That means a lot to me." and it does. We talked a bit more about CRFG and Master Gardeners and I went on my way with my new-to-me chipper.
Comments
Cane berries will tip-root VERY easily. They'll do it naturally, actually, which is why they can be a real invasive nightmare for some yards (I grow mine in a raised bed to limit this). To tip-root, you basically bury the very tip of a live cane under a bit of soil. After a while, it'll root and you can dig it out and cut it off from the parent plant. The problem with this if you're trying to get some to your uncle is that CA and other states with large agricultural economies are very strict about plant importation. There are some really serious diseases and pests that you can inadvertently introduce into an environment that would be devastated by them. I think you'd agree that that damage isn't worth being chintzy about spending $4 to buy an Olallieberry bareroot start.
However, since Olallieberry tends to be mostly in the Pacific NW, you might have trouble finding a place where it's still cold enough to find dormant bareroot plants (which are cheaper and easier to ship than non-dormant plants). Trees of Antiquity are already sold out. Raintree doesn't seem to carry them. I see this one may still have some: http://www.sweetmannursery.com
It might make more sense to hook your uncle up with someone local to him in AL that grows olallieberry. North American Fruit Explorers http://www.nafex.org/ might be able to help you with a referral.