The past 2 months I've been working on a book on plant propagation. The working title is "Micronursery: How to grow a personal garden center in your backyard" I completed my first draft of the body today: Preface + 7 chapters. I wrote it out by hand on about 2 1/2 legal pads. Now to get this thing typed in and edited! #bookstr #permaculture #garden #grownostr

Attention Homeschoolers: Free IEW (institute for excellence in writing) writing walls for the kiddos. Usually available only one or two days! https://iew.com/christmas24-portable-walls-for-structure-and-style-students-strengthening-structure-models-for-iew-structural-units #homeschooling #homeschool #unschool #writing #bookstr #grownostr

Hello fellow #permaculture minded Nostr peeps. I'm exploring the idea of creating a book related to starting a home "micro" plant propagation setup and nursery with the knowledge I'm gaining working on our nursery at our property. However, before I get too far, I wanted to chat with a few people who are interested in the same topic. It could be that you want to start your own "micro" nursery for a little extra money, or it could be that you're working on a food forest or a permaculture property and want to get going quicker, without spending money buying lots of plants. If you have a few minutes for a DM conversation, I'd love to chat with you and I'd greatly appreciate your help! I'd like to understand your background, needs, and current goals. I'd also like to understand any challenges or obstacles standing in your way. My objective is to find a common thread in which I can help people using my unique skills and the expertise I've gained, so you can get started faster and with fewer mistakes. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, please DM me and we can communicate there! Thanks a bunch and I look forward to hearing from you! #grownostr #plantstr #gardenstr

Just noticed our kids stockings: #grownostr

Ever bite off more than you can chew? #grownostr #snakestr

As promised: Mulberry #propagation via Semi-Hardwood Cuttings under mist in your #nursery. Here is the final result: 61 mulberry cuttings from 5 branches collected a couple days ago. Intermittent mist 10 seconds every 10 minutes. 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:

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

(I'm an affiliate and this was an affiliate link. You can click here to support me and help a pleb buy more rooting hormone! 😉 ) $16 worth of the stuff has lasted me about 1600-2000 cuttings. Now stick in the sand bed under mist and you're done! They should be rooted in 6-8 weeks. I also snagged a juniper branch on our walk and stuck 15 of those cuttings as well: Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! #grownostr #plantstr #propagation #nursery #garden #permaculture

#carnivore Cinnamon Toast Crunch: Pork rinds, melted butter, salt, cinnamon. We are calling it Skin-a-mon Toast Crunch. #grownostr #porkstr #butter #foodstr

We spent part of the afternoon out on the Erie Canal with the kids today. We were gathering mulberry cuttings to propagate. Here are the gates they use to shut off the water for the winter to drain the canal: 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

On #nostr, you define your own algorithm of notes you see by who you follow and your filters, rather than someone else deciding for you. #grownostr #plebchain

I've been organizing cuttings in groups of 10 in cell packs while propagating in the #nursery. 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

When taking cuttings for your #nursery, be sure to remove reproductive parts like these flowers so the cutting will put its energy into rooting instead of reproducing. From Goldmound Spirea. #propagation #plantstr #grownostr #garden #permaculture

A tale of 2 cuttings for the #nursery. Both of these are from Goldmound Spirea. 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

Here are our Limelight Hydrangea about 3 weeks after sticking for #propagation in the mist bed. Nice set of roots! We will leave them in this bed for another couple weeks then migrate to cell packs. #permaculture #propagation #garden #plantstr #grownostr

My neighbor set up an #agritourism #Airbnb this summer. He set up a camper on his property and built a deck, hot tub, and a shower around it He has been doing really well with the bookings this first month. Really encouraged to see constant rentals. Here is his update on YouTube: If you feel inclined, please watch the video, like and subscribe! I've told him he should get on #nostr so hoping to give him a boost to encourage him. #grownostr #smallbusiness

#poetry posted on the fridge by my daughter: #carnivore #grownostr #omad

My wife made a sausage roll up today. I don't know what else you'd call it. It's a layer of bread dough covered in sausage, rolled up, and baked. Here is a cross section: I then turned it into a grilled cheese sandwich: #grownostr #dinner

Proof of #kids: a little path into a clump of raspberries so they can reach more. Little things like this will be missed when the kids grow up. #parenting #homeschooling #kidstr

I added a couple supers onto the #bee hive. They have really been active these past couple days. In the process of doing that I had to remove this comb so we got some honey. #beekeeping #apiculture #honey #grownostr #beestr

Here's the 2nd part of #permaculture stacking functions with the effluent from the anerobic digester: The worm bin: Right now it's set up to produce worms more than castings in that I'm keeping it very wet. I have it in an unheated barn that is open to the outside. I dump the anerobic digester effluent in every few days and also mist the bed with the mist heads attached to the white PVC pipe a few feet above the bed. The bin is constructed of PVC pipe and a Waste Management Bagster. I got the idea from Meme's Worms on YouTube. The 1/2" hardware cloth keeps the skunks out. Before I had that the skunks would come in to eat the worms. Here are some worms uncovered by scratching the surface a bit. They are a mix of Red Wiggler and European Night Crawlers: They were overwintered in this bin just by stacking 18" of leaves above them... the temperature in the compost didn't go below 55 degrees F even though it was 5-10 degrees outside for a few weeks straight. In addition to manure, straw, compost, shredded cardboard and shredded notices from the IRS, they are fed a mix of ground birdseed, ground corn, azomite, and biochar, all finely ground: I throw a couple of handfuls on every day or two: The plan is to expand the worms in this bin to the other bins in the background and set up mist systems above them all, as well as a gravity fed effluent distribution system. Once up and running, I've read you can harvest 5-6 lbs of worms per square foot per year. Right now a pound of worms online is going for $40 and in the spring will be around $65 or so. Each Bagster bin is ~32 square feet so you can do the math. To achieve this though I need to invest in some better separating methods like a trommel of some sort. The beds are also way to wet for any sort of automated separation right now. Right now I'm in production mode to grow out to the rest of the beds. #worms #vermiculture #grownostr #plantstr #garden #valueprinting #moneyprinting