November 2012 – Nu Trac

a pleasurable Fall task -fruit trees

“task” and “pleasure” seem opposed but not when it comes to fruit trees. I enjoy planting fruit tree saplings. Fruit trees are a long term investment and some of the best advice I received was to plant the trees first and then focus on the vegetables and berries. While in Portland last September I visited the Powell bookstore, which is a landmark. In the growing section I found the Lee Reich book “Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden” marked down to $9. I snapped it up, read it and then joined the Atlanta Fruits internet group where a member mentioned “Hidden Springs Nursery”. After coursing their website and cross referencing to Reich’s book, I ordered 11 fruit trees in mid-September. Yesterday, 11/28, the shipment arrived and today I planted out the saplings. The reason for the delay, they explained, was to ensure the fruit tree saplings had entered dormancy, which makes sense. The small fruit trees were carefully packed and arrived in good condition.

The fruit trees I ordered are somewhat unusual – pawpaw, medlar, juneberry, aronia, goumi, kiwi and sour cherry. The two pawpaw (Mango and Overleese) and the sour cherry I planted on a new terrace which I dug out of the hillside a few months ago. The sour cherry is located close to a sour cherry gifted by my neighbor and I hope the two will cheer each other along. The pawpaw in their early years are sensitive to summer sun and in spring I will build a sun shelter for each.

The instructions suggested that the juneberry and medlar fruit trees should be planted with the graft covered by soil to encourage rooting of the scion, which Reich confirmed.

I had earlier decided to plant the kiwi (2 females and 1 male of the Hardy variety) in a well exposed site. But the instructions said they should be planted on a north-facing slope or north of tree cover in order to delay their habit of early spring blossoming. So the site I selected is to the north of tall pine trees – the kiwi likes forest conditions and I hope they will be happy there.

I selected the medlar in part because of its history – it reached its peak popularity in the Middle Ages and Wiki says it was grown by the ancient Greeks and Romans beginning in the 2nd century BCE. Apparently its appearance is unappetizing, but not its taste – I hope I get to savor it in a few years.

tasks for Fall

I am preparing for winter.

cover crops – I cleared the tomatoes and weeds, added compost and sowed winter rye and crimson clover. A few years ago I used hairy vetch, which worked well and next year I will order more since the local supplier, who originally sold me the seed, no longer carries it.

winter cover crop — a vegetable growing area seeded with winter rye and crimson clover cover crops

firewood – during the year I cut a new 5 foot wide route through the woods and I steered the path to avoid the larger trees. I had to uproot and remove smaller trees and I cut their trunks into 5 foot lengths and stored under cover for fuel for winter. I am now chain sawing the wood into 2 foot lengths to fit the grate. Last Sunday was cold and the wood burnt well.

firewood and mini posts — firewood stored under cover drying for winter use. I have used some of the oak trunks as mini posts for structural jobs

mushrooms – I built a mushroom house, which I filled with logs impregnated with sawdust spawn, and then neglected to water. A few weeks ago I watered the logs and some oyster mushrooms have surfaced. Encouraged, I shall water more regularly. Also I must affix a gutter to the roof of the shelter and direct the rainwater onto the logs – this is obvious and I should have done it at the outset.

growing mushrooms — mushroom shelter with solid sheeting or barrier cloth on north and west sides for sun protection, and chicken wiring and door protecting remaining access points

some oyster mushrooms — mushrooms have begun to grow

winter growing shelters – last year I was able to purchase a number of wooden windows for a $1 each and constructed rudimentary cold frames. This year I would like to create a larger structure but to do this I need posts. Pressure treated posts would be ideal but I do not want to pollute the soil or my vegetables. So the options are cedar wood (which rots with time), composite posts (which are expensive and may distort), metal structural posts (ideal but where will I find them) or use some oak trees from the woods (cheapest, self reliant and maybe the way to go). In the meantime I painted the wooden windows, first with Kilz primer and then a good quality exterior latex.

seed gathering – now the cosmos and zinnia have finished flowering and set seed, I sortie out to gather seed for next year.

rainwater collection – when it comes to my rainwater harvesting systems the invariable rule is that it will fail wherever I have not checked. The main flow from the house roof went through a “Y” and the “Y” leaked in small amounts and eroded the ground supporting the connection so one of the 4″ pipes disconnected (maybe also assisted by the rodent hunting activities of my dog).

plumbing for rainwater harvesting — this is the old, cheaper, now replaced Y connection

I replaced the old Y with a more substantial Y, I rebuilt the underpinnings and I secured the inlet pipes to the Y with duct tape and am resolved to keep a good eye on this joint and have instructed Trudy to leave the water drainage pipes well alone.

rainwater harvesting – the more expensive replacement Y secured with duct tape

winter vegetables – I decided to seed more lettuce since I already have sufficient kale. The lettuce was seeded initially into 3/4″ soil blocks and are now in 2″ soil blocks in the greenhouse. I will probably grow some full size in the greenhouse and the remainder will be ground planted once I have figured out the construction of my new windowed winter shelter.

lettuce in soil blocks — 4 varieties of lettuce seedlings in 2″ soil blocks. the reason there are several in one block is this was older seed and I thought germination would be irregular. silly me, they all came up and I will have to thin or transplant.

cuttings and acorns/nuts – I have taken cuttings from trees I would like to replicate like mulberries, pears (my neighbor’s pear tree was prolific this year and my Giant Korean, which bore for the first time, was excellent), cherry, plum and one of my neighbor’s apple trees which had very sweet small apples. I know with the apple tree I may have a problem with the root stock. Perhaps next year, when I am successful with grafting, I will graft scions to root stock. As for nuts – my other neighbor gave me a dozen pecan nuts from his magnificent pecan tree and I also buried Ohio buckeye nuts, acorns from selected oak trees and nuts from other local trees. The cuttings and nuts are in an area which I visit and weed and water most days, with good sun exposure and the soil is well mixed with compost. So I am hopeful. If the cuttings are viable I may transplant them in spring next year or, better, wait till fall and then plant them out with the nut seedlings.
in earlier posts I mentioned other activities such as terracing the hill in anticipation of delivery of assorted fruit trees promised for the end of November, and winterizing the bee hives and the chicken coop. When really cold weather threatens I will wrap my fig and other cold sensitive trees in swadling and leaves to prevent die back.

from peaflowers to DNA

I never studied biology and as I pursue my “new track “in growing and interacting with nature I am at a disadvantage.

I recently completed the excellent “Introduction to Sustainability” MOOC provided by www.coursera.org entirely free, and learned a lot. I enjoyed the experience and have now decided to study biology. There is a coursera course starting summer next year “Introduction to Biology: DNA to Organisms” and the notes suggest acquiring “Biology” by Campbell Reece. I was able to purchase the 2007 edition for less than $10 (including shipping) and am happily working my way through it. I also discovered an excellent website: http://www.dnaftb.org/1/animation.html titled “DNA from the Beginning” which is an animated primer on modern genetics, so as winter closes in, I have much to work on.

A few days ago I was plucking pea pods from the pea plants and I wondered how the peas would be pollinated now it was getting cold and my bees stay indoors when the temperature is less than 50 degrees. Since it was getting cold I headed indoors and began working through the website primer on genetics and, by pure serendipity, the first topic was on the Father of Genetics, Gregor Mendel, who in 1865 began his experiments on pea plants, which when left alone self fertilize. This answered my question on pollination.

Mendel focused on individual traits of pea plants (phenotypes) and by cross fertilizing them and careful analysis he concluded that each alternative form of a trait is specified by alternative forms of a gene (allele) and a pair of alleles is called a genotype. It was Mendel who identified dominant and recessive alleles and how the first generation (F1) will have the dominant trait but the second generation can begin to show the recessive trait. Which is why seeds from F1 hybrids will not produce true to the hybrid.

While working my way through the animated primer I read about Crick and Watson who discovered the DNA double helix and the book “The Double Helix” by Watson was referenced as a good read. I just finished reading it and it is excellent. Watson was an American student at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University and his insousiance and self-deprecating dialogue makes it an exciting romp with lots of humorous asides as he and Crick competed to beat Linus Pauling to solve the DNA configuration. At one point, when Crick and Watson were stumped “the problem was then put aside for a rapid scanning of a novel on the sexual misjudgments of Cambridge dons.” Or when visiting an aristocratic home “Sol Spiegelman and I went straight for a butler carrying smoked salmon and champagne, and after a few minutes sensed the value of a cultivated aristocracy.” When Watson excitedly informed Crick he had found the answer and was rebuffed, he notes: “Reporting that even a former birdwatcher could now solve DNA was not the way to greet a friend bearing a slight hangover.” There were four principal researchers and three of them got the Nobel prize but the fourth, Rosalind Franklin, died before the award and the prize is not awarded post-humously. There has been controversy about whether her contributions were fully recognized and I was pleased to read the unqualified tribute made by Watson in the Epilogue. A good read.

boxed in by a dubious premise

Georgia is the center of the poultry industry. At a local luncheon the former president of the largest poultry operation in the state recently (October 2012) said the industry grew tremendously since 1970 from 1.5 billion to 7.5 billions pounds of chicken a year. He added that by 2050 the world’s population will be 9.1 billion up 34 percent from the current 6.8 billion and meat production must increase by 74 percent.

His comments and others like his, operate at two levels – the explicit and the implicit. Explicitly there is huge growing demand (not only from the population increase but from increased demand for meat as people around the world earn more) and this is a selling opportunity so long as the infrastructure is in place, otherwise production will move to Latin America, etc. But there is also an implicit assertion – that there is a moral imperative to provide food for the growing population of the world.

And once you accept the implicit assertion you are boxed in. Because only conventional agriculture (Green Revolution now enhanced by GMO’s) can demonstrably supply the quantity of food required by the growing masses. I remember discussing organic growing with an intelligent younger person who accepted all the virtues of safer more nutritious food produced sustainably while caring for the environment, but concluded by saying that the big drawback, if organic production was the norm, was there wouldn’t be enough food for everyone. And that is the box I find myself in.

A big reason for the increase in world populations has been the availability of cheap food as a consequence of the Green Revolution, you can trace the correlation. But these production practices are not sustainable, using the definition of sustainable development as “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” How do you brake a runaway train charging down a hill? No one wants wars or famine nor environmental collapse. No easy answers, but at least escape the box and say it would be no bad thing if food prices began to gradually rise as we transition to more sustainable growing methods with better quality food and it would be no bad thing either if the world population gradually fell to sustainable levels. Or do I have it wrong?