Introduction to rest of posters

[atash]

Tom has known me for a while. To the rest of posters, I am an amateur tomato and potato grower. Not a breeder or a farmer. So please cut me some slack if I post something disclosing my ignorance.

I have a small but time-consuming project going on, collecting easy-to-grow backyard crops, on the theory that the current global recession is more serious than most people realize.

(Gerald) Celente predicted in his "Top Trends 2009" Trends Journal (written in December, 2008) that food-producing gardens will appear on people's lawns in tribute to President Bush's failed tenure: "The new 'Grow your own food because you don't have money to buy it' trend was dubbed 'Bush Gardens.'

Despite the swipe at Mr. Bush, Mr. Celente refers to himself as a "political atheist" with no interest in party politics. I feel the same way and say "politics is the problem not the solution".

I'd post a Youtube videolink, but my computer is missing an operating system at the moment (I am booted off a CD while waiting for a new DVD with OpenSuSE on it). You can look him up and there are plenty of videos with interviews.

Celente is not the only one predicting hard times; I just used that quote because he is well-known and made a quote specifically about grow-your-own-food.

I am interested in crops that

* are easy to grow
* are productive enough to make a difference on small plots of land especially using hand-labor (ask Tom about my pick-mattock)
* are nutrient-dense enough to provide a significant source of survival food (or in other words not too interested in Celery)
* available over a long harvest season and/or store easily and/or harvested when other crops are scarce

Potatoes of course satisfy all these criteria, superbly. They are roughly the most productive crop you could grow at temperate latitudes, and contrary to their bad reputation are really fairly nutritious (especially if you DON'T PEEL THEM! Supposedly most of their protein content is found in the typically yellowish area just under the skin).

Squashes are not as productive, but they have the virtue of being self-storing. Just put them on a shelf in a cool location. Moschata types last the longest, some up to a few years. Squashes typically rich in vitamin A. I suppose the seeds are rich in essential fatty acids and vitamin E.

Ethiopian Mustard Kale (Brassica carinata I think) has the virtue of producing seed in a single year (you don't have to overwinter it, if you live in a climate too cold to do that), is fast-growing and vigorous but roughly as nutritious as any other Brassica, and is more tolerant than most of its kin of a wide temperature range. I can grow it for most of the year.

I have a number of other interesting crops. Also some interesting uses. For example, excess Raspberry canes get harvested for their leaves to make "tisane" ("herbal tea"). By not wasting usable materials, I am saving on food and fertilizer bills.

I've been dropping by to say "Hi!" Tom asked me to post, and I was late getting to it. My excuse is a new baby daughter.

[canadamike]

Congrats on your new daughter Atash. And glad to see you here. One thing is sure: growing Tom's taters from seeds is quite a treat. If you like to see healthy monsters on health, you found the spot

The animals are almost indestructible.

Did you ever looked up mashua too? I just got some small tubers from Orflo. They are said to be TWICE as productive as taters per acre, although I doubt they can be as polyvalent culinary wise.

I have a question for you: I have read your posts on SSE's forum with much interest, to say the least. Can you explain me why, when people talk about self sustainability, either in a scenario of economic crisis or not, fruit and nut trees are so often not mentionned?

As I am resuming growing fruit trees, I wonder why they are not on people's agenda more. There are cultivars of pears and apples, as an exemple, that will give you fruits that you can start eating in the spring, they will keep and start being good to eat in march or else. Spome, of course, are not as good keepers as others, but still quite valuable.

Sorry if I am away from my beloved potatoes, but I like dessert too .

[atash]

Oh hello, I remember you. I haven't posted on seedsavers forum for a while. I have my own website to try to keep running. I probably should pop in now and then though.

>>Did you ever looked up mashua too? I just got some small tubers from Orflo. They are said to be TWICE as productive as taters per acre, although I doubt they can be as polyvalent culinary wise.

I've grown it in the past, but not lately. In my part of the world, it has ornamental potential aside from food potential, but alas the one cultivar ("Ken Aslett") that would actually bloom before frost (thereby cutting into productivity I suppose) has been unavailable for a while now.

They grow luxuriently up here and produce a surprising amount of tuber per plant. The tubers have a bad habit of forming right at surface level, so you need to harvest them promptly to avoid letting them get frosted. However, I think they were intentionally bred that way to make them easier to harvest!

I do have another ornamental-edible from the same part of the world: Oca. It's new to me this year. So far it's a nice clump of foliage. I dunno if they bloom or not.

Some of my friends are trying Andean Yam Beans, but I didn't have enough bandwidth to make the effort.

Can you explain me why, when people talk about self sustainability, either in a scenario of economic crisis or not, fruit and nut trees are so often not mentionned?

I can't speak for anyone else. A lot of the "sustainability" people are a bit too fanatical about certain ideological concerns, to deal with practical ones (no offense to those who are not so).

My own experience has been that every fruit tree I have tried has failed in one way or another.

The peaches kept getting peach leaf curl. Even the ones supposedly resistent, though I have to admit the last pair at least are still alive. It is so severe in my part of the world they die in a few years. I tried spraying them, but the spray just washes off. A strong of cold, rainy springs has doomed many young trees (older ones develop some resistance as they establish).

An apricot just died on me. The graft never completely took.

I have a small yard, so I can't grow a lot of apple trees. I stupidly bought one (I am naive) that had a huge tag saying "SELF FERTILE". HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Self-fertility is quite rare among apples, and the one I bought isn't really. Never bore one apple.

Plus, pears and apples get fireblight, scab, and maggots here.

The one stone fruit that seems to do well here is the plum. In fact there must be hundreds of feral Italian plums in my neighborhood, as they drop fruit from yard to yard and keep spreading backyard to backyard!! They ripen without a problem and are quite sweet and juicy. Much better than store-bought. I should have just gone with the flow!

One frequent problem I have had with many different kinds of fruits--even the ones that perform well here overall--has been poor selection of varieties.

I had to rip out lots of raspberries, that were tiny and brittle. They shattered in my hand when I tried to pick them (not to mention it got tedious to even TRY to pick them--no bigger than a small pea--the plant would produce vast numbers of small blossoms that ripened into tiny fruits). I mentioned the problem on another board, and another grower in another part of the country said he had the same problem with that cultivar--Heritage. I've heard a rumor that it is caused by a virus, but whatever it was, it had to be gotten rid of after wasting years trying to get it established. It got replaced by Caroline.

Tristar strawberry needed to be culled. First of all, it has weak leaf-stalks ("petioles") and scapes, that allow the leaves and fruit to DROOP and touch the ground! Therefor, it is disease-prone. (Didn't help that my wife decided that they should be closer to the house, and moved them, without asking, thereby placing them in the direct path of the drainage pattern of my yard). It also has tiny fruit (on a tiny plant with droopy leaves). They've been replaced with "Diamante" and "Seascape".

Also having problems getting good starter stock. "Anne" Raspberry just showed up, near-dead. I carefully had a look at it, and it has one TINY barely alive bud near the base.

3 specimens of Caroline showed up deader than a doornail mailorder. Luckily, a local nursery had beautiful healthy stock and I bought some.

I love nuts, but they are problematic too. Best bets here are Filberts and Hazelnuts. Filberts are indeed native and ubiquitous here! (try harvesting any ahead of the squirrels, who, I swear, watch them CAREFULLY).

Walnuts seem to do fine here. In fact they go feral. It always kills me to see people letting their walnuts go to waste, because they're too lazy to harvest them.

I love Pecans, but reputedly they are hard to ripen here. Plus they are big trees, too big for my yard.

One tree that would be fun to have, but alas improved versions of it impossible to find outside of Chile, would be Gevuina avellana. A member of Proteaceae, like the Macadamia nut, to which it has been compared. But Gevuinas are coldhardy in my part of the world, and Macadamias aren't! The problem is that unless you have a tree selected for bigger nuts, they are rather small.

[johndumas]

I have a new community garden plot here in Massachusetts, I will be donating most of what I grow to the local food pantry, so because of the "late blight outbreak" I want to know what kind of normal looking white potato that is late blight resistant can I get and where? Same for tomato. I am happy just to have see them successfully grow. If it was for me I would not care if the most blight resistant was a purple, red, blue variety but I need something white looking that people are used to.

[The Future]

Greetings all. I am one of Atash's online friends and have finally caught up on reading this interesting board. Wagner's work is amazing. Regarding trees, canadamike, to add to Atash's detailed comments, I would say much of the sustainability crowd is still caught up in the industrial farming mode - meaning annuals, same season harvests etc. Aside from finding something that works for your area - catalog descriptions just won't work as if by magic - there is the patience required (esp if things don't work). 5 - 7 years is a long time to wait for fruit or nuts. Media is peddling the quick fix, take this pill and you don't need to change anything about your choices solution and that is spilling into everything, sustainability included.

So I am glad you raise trees (figuratively and literally I hope). The right ones are said to outyield a vegetable patch by 4 times as much. I say combine then WITH the vege patch and get 5 times as much. Good luck.

[silverseeds]

atash..... Your a person after my own heart......

I do agree the economic issues are far from over, here and in many other places. Many triggers could still come.

but even ignoring that, if you have the land, why not figure something like this out.....

Id be very interested in where you live or what your climate is like.

Im in the high desert of new mexico. zone 5 roughly.

anyway Im working on many of the same issues as you are. Im going to experiment and have some ideas, that I think I can work into a sustainable way to farm this arid, short cool seasoned area..... So I am very curious in whatever you figure out, or different things you select.....

as for fruit and nuts.... Okay we cant all have all the choices, but come on.... theres GOT to be one or two varieties of each, that grow well in just about any place humans live on earth...... so we might not be able to grow the ones we want, without work, but surely theres a few each of us could use if thats all the choice we have......

I have Pinon nuts/seeds if anyone wants them...... Its a slow growing tree, but the nuts are abundant and very nutrient packed and tasty..... they are adapted to this arid regon, but online Ive read of a guy growing them in washington state, not only did they do well, but grew faster then they do here, and produced nuts yearly instead of every few years like they do here. (which by the way I think I should be able to correct that little issue, by managing the area better.)

Theres even wild plums native to this general area, acorns are apparently healthy and tasty after processing. Personally Im going to try some of every fruit and nut hardy to my zone I can get my hands on. some will stick others wont..... wont cost terribly much, and will be well worth it, if even only a few make it......

Michel I dont get it either. I worked as a landscaper a few times..... People paid so much for landscaping yet I saw so few people with edible fruit, and nut trees. This makes so of little sense to me. Imagine if even just ten percent of americans, got a garden going.....

I say victory gardens for the world...... a cultivated garden, and a perma cultured one on the side, for backup, and ease....

and if your having trouble with fruit and nut trees, I say go from seed.... its cheaper, and you can trade for them sometimes...... unless you have the cash, then Id just keep trying new companies and varieties, and types until I found things I like, and do well..... you can always dry the fruit if you truly need the calories...... if its not a long keeping fruit. nuts will store just fine of course.

[silverseeds]

Oh yeah about gerald celente, check out his track record sometime.... he knows his stuff.....

Hes also equally critical of democrats, you just found a line about bush.....

[atash]

Hello, Silverseeds. Pleased to meet you!