Tag Archives: trees

Field Tree Seeding (Hazels and Hickories) – April 06, 2020

The surplus of my Winter 2020 seed stratification is going toward the seed bank of this back field as it rewilds. I had planted around 80 shagbark hickories and 800 hybrid hazelnuts in air prune beds earlier this Spring. The field section being planted was mowed Summer 2019 and most of the field has been hayed for years in the past.

These seeds serve as a subtle bump toward hazels and hickories in the decades to come for this forest. The potential of these seeds will be supported by my attention and selective-removal or support for certain species as ecosystem succession brings this field through the stages of life. In adjacent sections I’ve broadcasted and planted some black walnut seeds [and later on planted acorns], and I’ll continuing building the seed bank of useful ‘provision’ trees as this area reforests. In this area, I’m aiming for low-input food forest restoration.

Photos and a video from this workday field planting trees from seed are shown below. As I work out a system for sharing photos and videos, I appreciate feedback on viewing options!

  • Full moon over meadow
    Planting set sun set
  • Hickories and hazels for field planting
    Hickories and hazels for field planting
  • Sprouting hazels
    Sprouting hazels
  • Red hawk soaring on tree line
    Red hawk soaring on tree line

Spanning the Gamut of Ecological Restoration to Food Forests

“Edible Forest Gardens: an Invitation to Adventure” – a useful text by northeast permaculture wizards Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier:

http://www.cepta.sk/attachments/article/467/Food%20and%20Democracy.pdf#page=109

Spanning the gamut of forest garden examples and giving an overview of opportunities, applications, and implementations.

Nuts for Life, or “what does an ideal food system look like to you?”

From a food resiliency standpoint: collecting wild nuts, cleaning and drying them properly, and storing them in-shell with decent airflow in a cool space like a basement – it’s probably one of the highest levels of resiliency for fat and protein that you could store, I think. These hickories should be good for 10 years, I’ve heard for up to 15 years. Chestnuts when they’re dry, more or less indefinitely. Acorns, more or less indefinitely. These Japanese walnuts from 4 years ago…one out of 50 is a dud, the rest taste absolutely beautiful.

from Edible Acres (@4:31 of video below)

@ 5:34 some processing footage

“It feels like a critical base layer to food security, with gardening, wild foraging and hunting as additional layers of benefit.”

Replying to a comment about wild nuts being a most efficient form of hunting & gathering

Food sovereignty, good when times are good and when times are not so good.

An imaginative exercise – what does an ideal food system look like to you? When I envision optimal food systems and resilient, rewarding primary sectors that are grounded and guarded by ecological mutualism, I see trees are a key & core part.

Towering timber trees among their families and cohorts of diverse company, gifting staple crops for current and future generations with numerous co-benefits. Agroforest cows? Shiitake and other medicines? Trees of all types, hazel in the northeast alongside other handy hardy bushes. Alley & edge crops. Wildlife habitat. Connection to place and harmony with neighbors human and nonhuman. Productive conservation & restoration agriculture. Forest gardens. Community food hubs, gathering and processing.

How can we integrate ecological mutualism into our lives, at various scales? Go nuts

Thanks for the Hazelnut Harvest

Hazelnuts from my first times harvesting intensively, summer 2019, have lasted me through Jan 1. Maybe a quarter of my stash remains, still in shell stored safe and sound. I snack on hazels alone and in good company sporadically, this year being my first deep diving into staple tree foods. I look forward to incorporating these wonderfully healthy serious staple foods into my diet more in mutualism.

This bounty I’ve been snacking on is from one casual afternoon’s harvest with friends at Z’s Nutty Ridge, where I estimate I hand harvested ~2,000 nuts and kept half. I did another hazel harvest with local friends & nurserym’n one morning over the summer as well, collecting ~1,500 nuts that I’m stratifying in buckets to propagate from Dilmun Hill Organic Student Farm. I enjoyed reflecting on those harvests as I sat and had an after party hazelnut munch this Jan 1 middle of the night.

Both casual half-day harvests were some of the best days of the summer. Sure, it could get old if it was everyday work, but one thing that would not get old (or at least would help me get old) is that they were also some of the healthiest days of the summer. And here’s to health in surviving with’em: trees, gotta love’em. Thanks and peace.

Tony Santoro’s Guide to Illegal Tree-Planting

My early tree nursery efforts were in part motivated by this lovingly subversive solution to the very good problem of “I have too many trees – what do I do with them!?” Agroforestry efforts and community find all kinds of uses for trees, including forest gardens in urban areas

This video offers a very-urban forestry wisdom walk hosted by the Department of Unauthorized Forestry. I presume the agency is led by songbirds or squirrels. Humans can apparently contribute.

Trigger warning: Tony curses lots and calls some of the trees bastards. But I think he means it as a term of endearment – the trees seem okay with it.

Where’s your local forest garden?!

Immensely Rooted Webs of Wisdom

Love the way a forest floor is rich with roots. On a lawn or garden the roots you find are mostly of the plants proximate to them. In the woods, the soil is a fluff of organic matter and roots with nonspecific sources, almost impenetrable within its tightly woven softness. Roots everywhere, fibrous strands making up for lack of girth with their ubiquity.

I imagine this is akin to wizards (wise peoples): even if there is no apparent shoot (above ground plant), there’s likely a foundation full of fibrous roots. The source of those roots is effectively known yet ineffible: it’s from the trees! Sure, which one? It could hardly be said, and to declare it would neglect the interconnectedness of the root zone.

That said, is the wizard akin to a tree in that sense or to a forest? And how about the wizards woven through the world? An unseen sangha. שׁלום