Notes
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Shout out to a sad beginning to duck-hatching season 💚
- The importance of living soil; the effects of naturally present bacteria
- Would drying seeds kill off some of the natural bacteria and fungi?
- Haskaps - does cultivar fruit size correlate with flavour, especially sweetness?
- Easy to propagate from cuttings
- Despite getting hit with disease and fungi last year, plants are growing and fruiting well this year
- Tend to do better with a compatible pollinator variety
- Growing annuals amongst perennials
- Do you separate your annuals from your perennials in your forest garden?
- Seems many commercial varieties are better suited to conventional organization (ie, rows, no mulch, etc)
- Through a few seasons of selection, oak leaf lettuce seems to do well in summer, and grows amongst perennials in more fungal-dominated soils (2 such anecdotes!)
- Experimenting with naturalizing garlic and onions as the perennials they were meant to be
- Human altruism is powerful
- Seems especially present amongst food forest peeps, and high quality folks like those who are a part of this community
- Building/growing with your community in mind leads to a better social ecosystem for all
- Wild senna is a wild (native to the northeast), perennial, water-loving nitrogen-fixer
- A favourite of some native insects
- Great for rain gardens and wet spots
- In urban environments, woodchip paths can have a wetland effect
- Instead of lawns, which allow permeation, woodchips will absorb and release water over time, mitigating flood and drought events
- Attracting monarchs
- Females will only reproduce if the native milkweed patterns are in ideally shaped clumps
- They’re attracted to several species of native milkweeds
- Amazing how quickly urban biomes can change; year over year
- Example: When a lawn is left to recoup, the succession will appear to change quickly and drastically over each growing season
- Soils will change (organic matter, pH, etc) quickly
- Goldenrod is a powerful native plant
- Seems to take over if allowed to
- Loved by pollinators
- Medicinal uses
- Great autumn interest
- Managing soil pH
- Soil pH affects which nutrients are available in a given soil
- Irregular or extensive rain events can affect soil pH over time through leaching
