What a CRAZY few months it been, between teaching two permaculture design courses in Vermont for a month back in August to managing the fall harvest on the homefront and gathering as many apples as possible to put away oodles of hard cider for the year; and on top of that I’m finishing up several homestead master plans this year with Roots To Fruits Ecological Design—it’s all very good and exciting, but certainly a whirlwind of activity. With that being said, I’ve had very little time to update the website, but as the fall season slows down expect to see more new content. There is some catching up to do…
In the meantime take a look at some of the photos and video clips I’ve been capturing with my new Canon 6d…Cheers & happy harvesting!
European pears, apples, Asian pear, and jujubes.‘Xu Zhou’, ‘Redland’, and ‘Tigertooth’ jujube sent from Cliff England of Englands Orchard and Nursery.‘C-Town Red’ apple— a lovely red fleshed apple that makes an excellent cider.To the untrained eye ‘C-Town Reds’ could be mistaken for Japanese plums.The illustrious ornamental—kousa dogwood, few people know it’s fruits are fully edible and moderately tasty.The flesh of kousa dogwood fruit has a flavor reminiscent of pawpaw; the alligator-like skin(slight turnoff) and small black seeds are inedible.Magnificent American persimmon tree soaring at least 35′ tall in Williamston, MI at the MNGAfall meeting.American persimmon varietal sampling at the MNGA fall meeting, 10/6/13.
Now the autumnal shift is fully present and unavoidable as the trees show their gorgeous display of fall colors and days get cooler. However this is still a busy time of year…even with some 75% of the fruit crops wiped out there is still a bit to harvest. Before we take a look at that, I’d like to announce the addition of two new pieces to the Articles page, one titled Making Ink From Berries by guest writer Dana Driscoll, and the other a small-scale alley crop photo essay by yours truly. Speaking of new content, I am also excited to share with you my latest audio podcast with the American persimmon fanatic, Jerry Lehman! Click here to listen to the podcastand stay tuned for Episode 3 with Michael Phillips, the author of The Holistic Orchard.
In the latest podcast Jerry Lehman tells us about his work breeding and developing the American persimmon in Terra Huate, IN. Photo courtesy Jerry LehmanOne of the collection screens Jerry has devised for gathering fallen persimmons…Photo courtesy Jerry LehmanIn a new article Dana Driscoll teaches us how to make natural ink from pokeberries and other berries.Alley crop just the other day…nice shadows from the nanking cherries. Click here for more.
That pretty much covers the latest in terms of new content. Was at a client’s site the other day doing a check up and found some exciting things. This was a site we installed 3 years ago and haven’t gone back much since then, so whenever we make a visit its always surprising to see whats done well. While visiting we also decided to harvest autumnberries from a bountiful population along the edge of her street. Here are some photos from that adventure…
‘Amber’ is an autumnberry cultivar that produces yellow fruit…yum!These autumnberries are much larger and juicier then most…This multi-stemmed ‘Q-18’ peach provides nice shade when sitting on the bench.Mark standing next to a happy pawpaw tree with it’s companion comfrey…In just a few years time the swales and soil building plants turned compacted, gravely soil into beautiful humus…Fall-bearing red raspberry…not sure which cultivar.This ‘Illinois Everbearing’ mulberry has grown rapidly in a short time…Wild autumnberries growing along the street…
Autumnberry is a truly abundant wild food that is loaded with nutrients and so widely available. More people need to start harvesting it. There is a big debate with autumnberry and many other plant species— some folks believe eradication is necessary because these plants are “invasive”, which is an entirely non-scientific claim that lacks any ecological footing. This is a big issue and we won’t get into it too much right now, but I would like to point out one thing. In the case for autumnberry, the plant arrived to NA back in the 70’s and was promoted largely by the USDA and conservation districts, NOW the same folks who encouraged the planting and dissemination of autumnberry are the ones promoting its eradication…SO, to me it seems only rational to NOT put full trust in these organizations and institutions. Who knows what will happen 30 years from now if herbicide applications are continued in radical attempts to eradicate opportunistic plants? All I am saying is we need to be incredibly mindful when we intervene on this level and have great forethought into potential future outcomes…good or bad. That concludes my rant for now.
Harvesting lycopene-rich autumnberries…which I later made into tasty jam.Foley food mill worked wonder for separating the pithy autumnberry seeds…As the autumnberries cook down they turn a beautiful reddish-pink color.
Speaking of jam, just the other day I harvested some mountain ash berries from a tree my parents planted some 25+ years ago. The yields were down this year but there was
The berries are much more attractive to the eyes then the taste buds.
enough to experiment making a small batch of jam. If you’ve ever tried mountain ash berries then you know they’re incredibly astringent and barely palatable(there are some varieties and hybrids which are better for eating). In past years I’ve made mountain ash mead and used the tree as a rootstock for shipova(more to come on that soon). But I never really ‘ate’ the berries. So I tried making a batch of jam…and…it tastes awful. No matter how much sugar you add the astringency just intensifies. Supposedly the berries get sweeter with a frost… and they are said to be high in vitamin C. I think its more useful as medicine then food.
Another not-so-edible berry…is the yew berry. Which in fact contains a highly poisonous seed…but the red jelly-like flesh is said to be edible. And it is edible, I am living proof. Out of curiosity I began nibbling on the berries this fall and I found they’re actually quite good! Very sweet with a mild flavor. The texture is slimy. An interesting relative that I’ve only read about is Japanese plum yew(Cephalotaxus harringtonia); this one is said to produce larger fruits that are fully edible, seed and all.
Yew berries are ornamental and delicious…just be very careful not to eat the seed, or the ‘pip’ as the brits say.Chestnut season is upon us! Look for a chestnut post next week…Hickory nuts in husk…good luck getting ’em before the squirrels!‘Szukis’ persimmon working its way to the top of the tree tube…Gorgeous fall colors…embrace the beauty!
The Fruit Nut 