Ep. 157 - How Goes the Struggle?

How I turned my pasture of thorny Callery pears into an Asian pear orchard by bark grafting and cleft grating.Do a Google search on Callery pears and feel the hatred.Bradford pears, planted nearly everywhere, are usually grafted onto Callery pear rootstock. Callery pears are thorny pears that I have never seen growing any fruit. On my land they spread by suckers - literally everwhere.In this episode I share about How I turned my pasture of thorny Callery pears into an Asian pear orchard by bark grafting and cleft grating.Check out the show notes for the pictures of how I did this.Times are tough. You want to be more self sufficient and grow more food, with enough to share with family and friends or even sell some of that surplus.You've heard of this "food forest" thing, but it's so overwhelming to get started. I can help.My Thriving Food Forest Design can help you realize your dreams of an edible foodscape or perennial paradise that will come back every year so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. Schedule your FREE Discovery call with me at Thriving Food Forest.Grow Nut Trees still has chestnuts, hazelnuts, comfrey. Get them planted before Summer!GrowNutTrees.com

Sam Baker from Wrigglebrew and I talk about soil health, and what does nitrogen poisoning look like?My leaves turned brown, despite enough watering. Maybe I gave them too much nitrogen?Overuse of phosphorus causes plants to not be able to uptake zinc, magnesium, calcium. That's another reason why our food is mineral deficient.Wrigglebrew is even used by soy farmers to reduce their nitrogen load and move a little more toward regenerative farming methods.Compost tea only has a shelf life of 24-48 hours. How does Wrigglebrew maintain the flora and be shelf stable?Sam also shares about Wrigglebrew's research - a scientific gov't grant to use worms to digest plastic.Wrigglebrew is a fertilizer made from worm castings, but it goes farther by adding helpful soil bacteria, mycorrhizae, and mycelium. The mycelium is a species that will not grow into mushrooms, if that is a concern. You can use it as soil fertilizer or foliar feed spray. Wrigglebrew started as a project at the University of Central Florida (UCF) to offer a solution to combat the nitrogen runoff that causes red tide - algae bloom in the Gulf (of America).Episode show notes: Ep. 162 - Talking Soil Health with Sam Baker from WrigglebrewTimes are tough. You want to be more self sufficient and grow more food, with enough to share with family and friends or even sell some of that surplus.You've heard of this "food forest" thing, but it's so overwhelming to get started. I can help.My Thriving Food Forest Design can help you realize your dreams of an edible foodscape or perennial paradise that will come back every year so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. Schedule your FREE Discovery call with me at Thriving Food Forest.Grow Nut Trees still has chestnuts, hazelnuts, comfrey. Get them planted before Summer!GrowNutTrees.com

Jamon Mysliwiec joins me to share about TIAG - The Independent American Gardener, an online to in-real-life community, teaching permaculture and self-sufficiency through regenerative community.The goal is to move to a closed-loop economy, with communities producing surplus, leveraging home based small businesses, and creating a barter and trade network for the surplus. Jamon started Lulu's Garden, the first Demonstration Hub in Trenton, MO, and has bought a commercial property which will have a rooftop garden, greenhouse, a food forest, and to trade surplus through a farmers market type model. He also shares about his new off grid property and soon-to-be-Demonstration Hub in SW Missouri.Show notes for this episode: Ep. 160 - Creating Community with Jamon - The Independent American GardenerGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Thriving Food Forest Design:We can create an edible foodscape, an orchard, or perennial kitchen garden so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.Start your journey to Thriving with a free 30 min Discovery call, to learn your vision and goals for your land.

As I get older, perennials have become more important in my garden.It is the first week of May, and this Spring I have not planted any new annuals, besides potatoes. But that doesn't mean that I do not have anything to eat. A couple of years ago I focused more and more corners of my garden and raised beds on perennials. I have bloody dock and other sorrel to add to salads. Bloody dock has a lemony taste, and it's blood red veins add an intriguing conversation piece when added to a guest's salad.This year I will add Skirret, which is a perennial that looks like a carrot and is described as "the sweetest carrot you've ever eaten." Skirret is a European perennial, popular in medieval times. Instead of one tap root, the skirret has multiple tubers off of a plant. I got the seed from Perma Gardens at plantonce.com.Yacon is a plant that has a deep tubers that look like a small sweet potato, and smaller tubers near the surface that look like sunchokes. Above ground it will look like a sunflower. It reportedly has a juicy fruity flavor like celery or fruit. I bought my Yacon at Raintree Nursery, and they also have a purple variety.Mashua is a plant in the Nasturtium family. It is a vining and flowering plant, but also forms tubers. The leaves and flower are edible. And it repels some insects and nematodes, so you can plant it between other plants. The tubers can also come in different colors. I bought my Mashua at Raintree Nursery.Sea beet is an ancestor of our beets and chard. It will have large edible leaves. It seeds in Year 2 and then, in midsection of country it would likely go perennial in Year 3.It is not a red beet, and I expect it to be more like a chard taste or closer to a sugar beet. I bought mine at Experimental Farm Network, which has unique things you may not find in your regular store or the usual online seed places.Try some of these plants, especially the tubers, and increase your self sufficiency by experimenting to see if you can get some of them to turn perennial.Show notes for this episode: Ep. 159 - New Perennials I am Planting this SpringGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Thriving Food Forest Design:We can create an edible foodscape, an orchard, or perennial kitchen garden so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.Start your journey to Thriving with a free 30 min Discovery call, to learn your vision and goals for your land.

Matt from FarmHopLife, Joseph the Homestead Padre from Smith Homestead, and Grant Payne from Christine Acres Farm join me on a community call to share our Spring plans.Matt is growing mini cactusHomestead Padre is growing Ayote squash which tastes like chocolate. He also shares his farmers market success with selling freeze dried herbs, teas, and candy.I am growing new types of chestnuts, and grafting Asian pears onto invasive Callery pears.And Grant is doing everything. Greenhouses, IBC totes with comfrey as far as the eye can see, ducks, chickens, trees, and hundred of flowers.Come and join in our success!Show notes for this episode: Ep. 158 - Thriving the Future Community Shares Our Spring PlansGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Thriving Food Forest Design:We can create an edible foodscape, an orchard, or perennial kitchen garden so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.Start your journey to Thriving with a free 30 min consult, a discovery call to learn your vision and goals for your land.

Perpend (David), who I started the podcast with, became an Orthodox monk and is now a Novice Monk at the Monastery of St. John in CA.As he was travelling from monastery to monastery throughout America, he occasionally was back in Kansas (the last time in September 2023). He would greet me, and others, with a greeting that he likely learned in his travels: Instead of saying, "Hi, how are you?", he would say, "How goes the struggle?"Instead of giving the usual response of "I am fine", you would think about it for a moment. This led to a more real and heartfelt conversation.In Orthodox Christianity there is a prayer: "Help the Orthodox Christians to struggle".Not "Help us get through the struggle". Not "Help us not to struggle".If you are saying to yourself, "That's un-American!", then you have lost touch with your history and tradition.I could go on for paragraphs here about how we have lost this touchstone of our human existence.We knew this just 100 years ago. The janitor knew that he was janitor and measured where he was in the world. He would hope and prepare his children to have a life better than his, but he knew where he was. In modern days, through credit the janitor thinks he can drive that fancy car.We watch TV or a movie and cheer when the hero goes through trials and comes out the victor at the end. We respond to these because these Hero's Journey stories are in our DNA.But now we watch the Hero's Journey story and do not want to experience trials and struggles ourselves.People watch TV and movies with the Hero’s Journey and then grumble, complain, and take meds when they are called to the Hero’s Journey.We need to struggle. We need the Hero's Journey.It all comes down to your mindset.Also - How is Great Lent going?Show notes for this episode: Ep. 157 - How Goes the Struggle?Grow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Thriving Food Forest Design:We can create an edible foodscape, an orchard, or perennial kitchen garden so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.Start your journey to Thriving with a free 30 min consult, a discovery call to learn your vision and goals for your land.

Mike Thomas of the Catholic Land Movement joins me to talk about Catholic Land Movement news. We also share about our apple orchards and cider.The purpose of the Catholic Land Movement is "a rural resettlement of Catholics onto productive property which they own".This is a network of Catholics supporting one another to help people start homesteads, and to help make homesteads and small farms thrive. They do this through helping folks find land, as well as skill swapping and workshops.The Catholic Land Movement is now up to 30+ chapters.Mike and his team visited Rome to discuss their mission and were able to meet with Pope Francis.Now is a 501c3 and you can donate to help the Catholic Land Movement.We also share about apple trees, progress in our orchards, my challenges with fire blight, and lambing season on the homestead.It has been so cold that his cider froze. How Mike will recover and try to to restart the fermentation.We also talk about Lent and Mike's recent tweet: "Time to use Lent to purify myself, to conquer my disorder and weakness. Time to build a foundation."Show notes for this episode: Ep. 156 - How the Catholic Land Movement is Empowering HomesteadingGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Thriving Food Forest Design:We can create an edible foodscape, an orchard, or perennial kitchen garden so you can grow more food and be more self sufficient. We use fruit and nut trees and perennial plants adapted to the Midwest to create a low maintenance food forest.Start your journey to Thriving with a free 30 min consult, a discovery call to learn your vision and goals for your land.

Roman Shapla, from Nature School Startup, joins me to discuss Nature Schools - where the outdoors is the classroom.Roman recently shared on Twitter how he has taught tracking class: showing kids animal tracks in the dirt teaches kids about pattern recognition, thinking through timelines, as well as problem solving in their surroundings ("if this track is here, where did it come from, where is it going, and what is the animal doing?"). Definitely worth a Follow.He teaches homeschooling parents and co-ops how to start their own weekend nature school or to help those looking to bring the outdoors into a traditional classroom.Some of the benefits of outdoor schooling that we discuss:Engaging teenagers by giving them responsibility on tasks and even including them in mentoring younger children.Breaking the cycle of screen addiction and reawakening wonder through teaching outdoors.Teaching skills like pattern recognition, timelines, seasonality, and sense of place.Including marginalized or difficult children in a school outdoors significantly counteracts boredom, anxiety, and even ADHD.He has more tips in his excellent Substack article on Valuing the Marginal - Designing for Children and Elders.Show notes for this episode: Ep. 155 - Teach Kids Outside - with Roman from Nature SchoolGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Grow Fodder Trees! New this year are cuttings for fodder trees - mulberry and hybrid willow. These are fast growing and the leaves are edible as forage for animals (my horses love them - maybe a little too much). Plus the mulberries can feed chickens if planted near a chicken run. And they are good for chop and drop. Get your mulberry and willow cuttings from Grow Nut Trees.

In this episode I cover an overview of the different types of chestnuts. And why do customers prefer hybrids over Chinese chestnuts? I share what named varieties that I am growing this year. And I give you tips to start your chestnut orchard, including soil pH and how/when to fertilize your chestnut trees.I forage buckets of chestnuts from local chestnut trees every Fall and store them in buckets of sand to sprout over the Winter. But in Spring 2024 my stored chestnuts were moldy and rotten - they had failed over the winter.I learned a lot more as I have diversified my chestnut offerings in response to this loss, as well as expanded my knowledge through my in real life contacts. In this article I will share what I have learned so it will help you as well.Varieties of chestnuts:American, Chinese, Japanese, European.Why are customers turned off by Chinese chestnuts? Why do they sell for less than hybrids?Dunstan chestnuts and other hybrids.Named varieties of chestnuts:A named variety, or a known-parent, is a tree or seedling that is chosen for it's heavy production and larger nut sizes. That known (named) parent mother tree is open pollinated by the surrounding trees. It's nuts are saved and grown into seedlings. This is a common way to grow and sell chestnuts, much more than grafting.Some sites call these named varieties of Chinese chestnuts Half sibs.Qing, Gideon, Amy, Peach, and Resilient are examples of named varieties (known parent/Half sibs) of Chinese Chestnuts.I am growing Qing, Resilient named varieties, and some Japanese hybrids this year.I am sprouting from seed:Eaton, which is a Chinese, American, and Japanese hybrid.Gideon seed. This will produce large to extra-large nuts that are high in quality and flavor.Hope is a Chinese, American hybrid that is a sibling of "King Arthur", a cultivar from the Connecticut Ag Experiment Station's chestnut breeding program.Revival: a HUGE hybrid with chestnuts as big as my palm.Tips to grow chestnuts:Chestnuts need moderately acidic soil, somewhere between 4.5 and 6.5 pH.Chestnuts need trace minerals like Boron, I have seen suggested that 1 tsp of borax, dissolved in water, poured on an 8x4 garden bed can help with this. I will experiment with adding boron this year.Do not put fertilizer in the hole when planting chestnut trees. You want the chestnut to grow out into the soil seeking nutrients. If you do fertilize, add some 10-10-10 fertilizer lightly to the top of the soil. Do not use long time released fertilizer.Foliar feed in the summer. This makes root growth and enhances the soil.Show notes for this episode: Ep. 154 - Tips to Start Your Chestnut OrchardGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnut seedlings. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Grow Fodder Trees! New this year are cuttings for fodder trees - mulberry and hybrid willow. These are fast growing and the leaves are edible as forage for animals (my horses love them - maybe a little too much). Plus the mulberries can feed chickens if planted near a chicken run. And they are good for chop and drop. Get your mulberry and willow cuttings from Grow Nut Trees.

Believe it or not, it's never been a better time to reinvent yourself than it is now.Sure, the job market looks bleak. Stories of downsizing nearly every day.But you can learn new skills, often for Free.John McCoy of John McCoy Writes tweeted a few weeks ago:"Friday reminder: you can just learn a skill for free off the internet and start selling your services and people will pay you. Nobody can stop you."Tips to learn new skillsUse LinkedIn Learning. You can often get it for free by using the library. Topeka/Shawnee County offer it for free. If you are veteran you can get LinkedIn Pro and LinkedIn Learning for Free.Get some training and a certificate, either through Grow Google, or take a class that guarantees you will pass the certificate at the end.Start small, work for a small company (or the State), and then leverage that experience in a couple of years to significantly increase your salary. Working in IT for a manufacturing company is how I started in IT.Build your experience portfolio by freelancing on Upwork.Facing Downsizing? Build Something for YourselfIn the second half of 2024, it seemed like downsizing was on the horizon (when you know, you know). Like Justin Welsh says: Build something for yourself.I got tired of the fear and expanded Grow Nut Trees, growing and selling more trees than ever before. I started Thriving Food Forest Design (see details below) and had my first really big customer.Check out the show notes on our website:Ep. 153 - It's Never Been Easier to Reinvent Yourself - with John McCoyGrow Nut Trees is now taking orders for Spring shipping or local pickup.Grow Nut Trees.comNEW for this year are more types of chestnuts, including Qing Chinese hybrid chestnuts. Qing (pronounced "Ching") is a Chinese chestnut Half-sib from a named tree that was open pollinated by other trees, including hybrids. The Qing tree is a heavy producer with sweet flavored extra large nuts. These seedlings were grown locally and are adapted to the Midwest.Grow Fodder Trees! New this year are cuttings for fodder trees - mulberry and hybrid willow. These are fast growing and the leaves are edible as forage for animals (my horses love them - maybe a little too much). Plus the mulberries can feed chickens if planted near a chicken run. And they are good for chop and drop. Get your mulberry and willow cuttings from Grow Nut Trees.