#grownostr
#grownostr #snakestr
First we start off with our branch. Choose this year's wood. It will still be somewhat green at least in our area. You also want it to be over 6 weeks old should you do this earlier in the summer.
I chose this particular cutting because I loved the leaf shape. I chose some others because of the leaf size and health. Some leaves where I were had a fungus growing on them as well, only choose healthy ones since they will be growing so close in the nursery.
Mulberry is a "2-node" plant. Each leaf node will either be a leaf or roots so we make a cut leaving 2 leaf nodes on each cutting:
Now to clean it up a bit. We need to leave a leaf on the part of the branch that was furthest from the roots. We remove some of the leaf to reduce the moisture loss, and on the side we'll root, we remove the leaf by tearing it off (to create some damage) and also scrape the bark. This will help rooting.
Dip in some rooting hormone. I'm using Dip-n-Grow liquid at Semi-hardwood strength this time of year. I get it off of Amazon: 
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!
#grownostr #plantstr #propagation #nursery #garden #permaculture
Pork rinds, melted butter, salt, cinnamon.
We are calling it Skin-a-mon Toast Crunch.
#grownostr #porkstr #butter #foodstr
A little closer:
The path is the old tow path the mules would use to pull the barges. They still is the canal to transport large items too big for the road.
Here is the mulberry cutting haul. We should hopefully get 20 trees out of these:
#grownostr #propagation #nursery #plantstr
This helps keep them tidy and all going the same way for when I dip them in rooting hormone and stick in the sand.
Always looking for ways to make things more efficient.
These cuttings are variegated weigelia.
#plantstr #permacuture #propagation #grownostr
From Goldmound Spirea.
#propagation #plantstr #grownostr #garden #permaculture
The one on the left is already well branched and will turn into a nice bushy plant quickly.
The one on the right will also root fine but will take some more time and care to prune into a nice bushy plant.
When taking cuttings I try to maximize the number of cuttings ready to produce the most branches the fastest.
#propagation #permaculture #nursery #plantstr #garden
#permaculture #propagation #garden #plantstr #grownostr
I then turned it into a grilled cheese sandwich:
#grownostr #dinner
#parenting #homeschooling #kidstr
I've been feeding it cow and pig poop.
The "main" output is biogas, but the other output is this effluent rich in microbes (in the 5 gallon bucket), which goes into the worm bin for production of worms and castings.
I'm hauling the effluent to the worms by hand every couple days, but I set up the anerobic digester purposefully uphill of the worms so eventually I can gravity feed the effluent to the worms automatically.
#grownostr #permaculture #biogas #vermiculture #worms
About a month ago, I planted some 1' OP-367 Hybrid Poplars.
Here they are planted into some landscape fabric to keep down the weeds, about a month ago:
Now here they are 1 month later, I'd say average 2 stems, each 18" to 2' tall:
Here are some Silky Willows (Steamco) I planted last Thursday. Already putting on growth. Planted in 3' wide landscape fabric with drip irrigation under the fabric.
That's a black walnut in the background. Printing more trees via propagation from nuts.
Now let's look at the economics. 1 month in I have 4x'ed my cutting length on the poplars, which I bought for $2.50. In the fall if they grow no taller than they are now, I have $10 worth of cuttings.
This is the 2nd year for those basket willows. I cut them down to the ground in March and they've put on 7-8' of growth already on conservatively 30 stems on each plant. Say conservatively we have 210, 1' cuttings. So now I have $500 worth of cuttings per year possible from that one plant.
Let's say we pot them up and sell them like "fastgrowingtrees.com" does for $86.95 a plant! Now we have our single "parent" plant making us $15,000+.
At this point it's a marketing game.
Or all you chicken and duck farmers, use these plants in your chicken and duck yard for cover for your birds as well as to soak up the nitrogen in their poop. The birds will weed the trees for you and help them grow faster. Stack functions in your businesses and life.
Also as an aside.... these cuttings should go in the ground earlier than July! But they still work. Pretty forgiving.
#permaculture #grownostr #propagation #nursery #business #plantstr #garden
What we are looking for is a medium that drains easily, yet retains moisture. The cost is also a factor.
Since we pot mostly perennials, I also am looking for a fungally dominant potting mix vs. bacterially dominant as you'd have with fresh compost.
Wood chips around here are easy to get by the truckload, and I use well rotted ones for the basis of my compost mix. And by "rotted" I mean "rotted": They look like soil and are completely broken down by fungus, it takes about 2-3 years.
On top of the wood chips I add about 5% by volume charged biochar. About half of this is sifted to 1/4" + and the other half of the biochar is right out of the leaf vacuum I use to crush it up. The biochar is charged with azomite, sea minerals, worm casts, and effective microorganisms (EM-1). We make the biochar right here on the farm. It serves both to provide and retain nutrients and moisture as well as provide drainage:
Then worm castings sifted to 1/8" and finer at around 5% by volume. I also raise the worms for the casts, the current system involves growing them in 4'x8' Waste Management Bagsters:
Finally about 1 quart of activated EM-1. This is 1 oz Terraganix EM-1 mixed with 1 oz blackstrap molasses in 30 oz of water:
This all gets mixed up by hand, and then we use it to pot our plants.
I mix it in a gorilla cart which will provide enough for about 25-30 trade gallon pots.
#grownostr #permaculture #fungi #plantstr #garden
This device here takes the calcium ions in our water and carbonate ions in the water and combines them back together into a form of calcium carbonate crystals called vaterite, which is like talc powder when dried.
Since the ions are combined into the crystal and remain crystalized in the water, they won't bond with other ions in the water or soil.
This helps prevent a few things for us in the garden:
- the calcium and carbonate ions from bonding with other fertilizers, helping to lessen the amount of fertilizers needed and improving the efficiency of microbes in the soil getting needed nutrients to plants
- helps us from getting water spots on our plant leaves in the nursery and clogging irrigation parts with minerals. The vaterite will wash off in the rain rather than form crystals on the plant surfaces.
Incidentally we're using this to treat all the water in our house/farm since it's in-line with the line from the well. So this helps with clogged shower heads and sinks and water spots as well as making soap go farther.
Inside this device is a core which is coated with a catalyst to combine the calcium and carbonate ions into crystals. The rough surface helps add turbidity to the water to ensure the ions come in contact with the catalyst:
The core fits into a pipe which goes in-line with your water line, so it doesn't impeded the flow of water:
This gets cleaned out 2-3x per year with some CLR (Calcium-Lime-Rust) solvent just to clean up the catalyst. There are no filters or consumables other than the CLR cleaner.
Here is the website for the company describing the science behind it:
