Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Fruit Tree Care
Susan: Hey everybody. I have been growing fruit trees for over 15 years now,
and I've been seeing all sorts of situations.
Often people struggle with their fruit trees and usually there is one root cause, and that's that the grower and the fruit tree aren't really working together.
In fact, sometimes they're not working together at all. So if you've read any of my books, you'll know that I see fruit tree care as a relationship. We give our fruit trees correct hands-on care, and they reward us with years of healthy and abundant harvests. So I teach people the science behind fruit tree care, including fruit tree pruning, pest and disease prevention, correct feeding, and lots more.
[00:00:47] Exploring Relationships in Fruit Tree Growing
Susan: But I've been thinking recently. What other relationships are at play when we grow fruit trees? And that's what we're gonna talk about in the show today.
[00:00:58] Introducing Guest Expert Ryan Blosser
Susan: My guest is permaculture expert Ryan Blosser. He is the co-founder of the Shenandoah Permaculture Institute. He's also the co-author of a new book called Mulberries in the Rain: Growing Permaculture Plants for Food and Friendship.
So we are going to chat about companion planting and fruit trees, and that is essentially the relationship between various plants in your orchard or in your backyard, and how they support each other just like we support our trees and they support us. What trees and plants work well together.
We're gonna talk about Ryan's accessible and simplified view of food forest guilds, and we're gonna explore some of the healthy relationships and companion plantings that you can see there in those food forests. And I'm gonna talk to Ryan in just a moment, but first, I would love to hear from you.
If you are watching this on YouTube, I would love to know what are your thoughts about companion planting and fruit trees. Do you have any stories to share or thoughts about that? Please, please put those in the comments. I would love to see what you say. And if you enjoy this show, I hope you will click on like and subscribe. That would be fantastic.
So I look forward to hearing from you and, Ryan, welcome to the show today.
Ryan: Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Susan: There are so many permaculture books out there. More than one or two for sure. Am I right?
Ryan: You are right. We often make fun of 'em, and we read 'em all.
Susan: And you read them all as well. So why did you decide to add to that with Mulberries in the Rain?
What, why did you decide to write this book?
Ryan: We felt like one of the things we do at Shenandoah Permaculture is we want to demystify permaculture. We want to frame the technical aspects in a way that's a little more practical and more simple. And we also wanna integrate the human sector as well, and do that through story. And so this book focuses heavily on stories.
It's one of the things that we think is quite unique in the permaculture world. There may be one or two others like it, but not very many, and create a relatable text that can help people figure out how to explore and start planting without having too much anxiety, to just go for it.
Susan: I totally resonate with that myself.
I have quite a few of aforementioned permaculture books and other books, and I find that when it's 10 million plants and all the different options, it is really overwhelming. And I, also as a teacher, find that people remember stories. Mostly stories of when I failed and how I did it wrong so that they don't have to do it wrong.
But I think that's how we've evolved since the beginning of time to learn through stories. So I really love that about your book.
[00:04:09] The Art of Relationships in Permaculture
Susan: One thing that you said in your book that also just woke me up out of my stupor, and that was you defined permaculture as the art of relationships. And I'm like, okay, that is what I need to hear.
So tell me, what do you mean by that?
Ryan: Again, I don't wanna oversimplify it and the word that pops up for me is connection. The art of relationships. And so a resilient ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem, but diversity for diversity's sake doesn't work. Diversity, when connections are made, creates very strong systems.
And so, for us, when we think about the art of relationship, it's the art of finding plants, people, animals, finding ways to help them connect so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Susan: Absolutely. So you're finding a team that's gonna work together really nicely.
[00:05:13] The Importance of Human Relationships in Permaculture
Susan: So I'm flipping through your book, and then I'm surprised to see that there was a whole section on human relationships that has nothing to do with plants.
And I'm like. Okay, this is getting more and more interesting because, for me, I have planted a community orchard in my public local park,
Ryan: Uhhuh,
Susan: and there are volunteers working in this orchard, and what are the dynamics between the volunteers, and what is sustainable, and what is not? So for a number of years I worked in a small team and then people retired and everybody went their way.
And for a while it was all on my shoulders. And I started to sink. So then I had to make some changes. I had to assert myself so that others would take some of the burden and the whole drama unfolded. And it was wonderful because we now have a really beautiful, balanced relationship and the human level in our orchard where everybody knows how to do stuff and everybody's got their forte and everybody contributes something.
So I loved that. Is that the kind of thing that you were thinking in terms of exploring human relationships also in permaculture environments?
Ryan: Yes. And that's a beautiful example to point to. I bet that was a tremendous amount of work too, and not easy work. Dirty work, hard work, sometimes work that brings you to tears and sometimes relationships don't last through work like that.
And so when I hear that story and hear the resilience on the other side of it, that's exactly what we're talking about. Most projects, in fact, Dave Jacke, a permaculture writer and thinker, has a great quote. 95% of the permaculture projects that fail, fail due to poor design in the human sector.
And as plant people, we are famous for overlooking the human sector. And as a good friend of mine likes to say, people ain't easy. And so if we're gonna learn about fruit trees, let's learn about people too and learn how to make these systems connect and work.
Susan: I absolutely love it. So we're going to explore companion plantings and healthy relationships, and that is involving the humans in this situation as well.
That's wonderful.
[00:07:37] Understanding Companion Planting and Guilds
Susan: So let's dig into this idea of, I hate to use the word guilds. I really don't like the word, but you boil down to these companion planting. We know that fruit trees like some combinations don't like other combinations. I know that, for myself, I've seen a lot of permaculture plantings where, for instance, the fruit tree is surrounded by, let's say strawberries.
And this young fruit tree, either the strawberries are taking energy and water that the young fruit tree needs. Or, if it's an older tree or even a younger tree, you have to prune the tree and you're stomping all over the strawberries in order to prune the tree. To me, that's not a good relationship.
That's not a relationship where everybody's gonna thrive. The fruit tree doesn't get to get the correct pruning, and the strawberries don't get to live because people are gonna trample all over them if they care for the tree. Can you describe to me what are these guilds and how does this work?
What, how do you do the right kind of matchmaking here?
Ryan: I would also add the strawberries' production declines, unless you're moving it and or allowing it to move. So as a multi-functional plant, you're only getting ground cover after the first few years anyway. But just that's a quick aside.
How do we figure out the plants that work well together? A lot of it, it depends on your bend. I really recognize and respect a lot of the science behind it. I'm more of a poet, and I approach fruit growing and food production through that lens. And a lot of what I have done over the years is harvest mistakes, a lot of observation, a lot of "that didn't work" and "that works great" and so, starting to make connections through experimentation. Not all- in experimentation, very small scale. And if it works, scale up. And factoring in all things. So you mentioned needing to get into the tree to prune, or into the drip line to prune or to pick fruit. And so the classic diagram of a permaculture guild in a book looks like it's over stacked and things are get stomped on and there's no room to fit.
I would agree. And so why not design it for human access? Maybe there's a keyhole, maybe there's a couple paths in there. Maybe you leave one side open strategically. And so, these tension points in the design, when we start to factor in all things, end up leading to solutions that can help us resolve some of that.
Susan: In trial and error, which is what you mentioned, is so important. I find that often, people who are growing or learning to grow fruit trees, they start to psychoanalyze, I don't know if that's the right word, but, overanalyze what needs to be done. If I make this pruning cut, what will happen next year?
Once you learn the strategies, you make your best guess, you go for it. And then you see what happens next year and you follow your learning from the tree. So the same thing you do a permaculture planting, maybe you start small. Maybe that's the way. To start small with a companion planting of a fruit tree and some shrubs and some ground cover.
How is it working for And then try that and then perfect it as it goes along. So I love the fact that you are allowing people to make mistakes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do your research first, but then go for it.
Ryan: Sure. And, what you're describing is some of the more beautiful aspects of relationship, and that is observation, deep listening, and spending time with that partner. The partner we're talking about right now is not a human, it's a tree. And so I'm gonna make this cut. I'm not going big, and then I'm gonna see what happens, and I'm gonna stick around long enough to know whether the tree likes it or not. And it might, it doesn't sound very methodical.
And over five years or a decade, you've accumulated a deep experience and understanding of that tree that you can then extrapolate and say, I wonder if other trees are similar, and start to know a plant really well. And so I love your description of that.
Susan: It's so funny because I wrote my first book 14 years ago, I published it, and I just republished it.
And there's an introduction from Ashley from Giving Grove, the wonderful organization that starts community orchards all over. And Ashley writes something that I love so much. She says, I've learned over the years that every fruit tree has its own personality. Yeah. Some of them are wild and some of them are very well behaved, and some of them it's always unexpected, right?
And so again, this is all about relationships. What every cultivar, every variety, every type of tree is going to have its unique flavor, let's say. And we work with it. So that is really cool. Now let's talk about these guilds. Okay, so tell me what does this mean in terms of companion planting?
Let's simplify it a little bit.
Ryan: So the guild strategy that we wrote about in the book, the companion planting is trying to code or group plants together into very unscientific categories. They're more conceptual categories, and so it's a strategic way of thinking about plants that helps you figure out which plants are gonna occupy a different niche in the ecosystem.
Susan: Okay, so what I got out of that, okay, it sounds scientific. Okay, so we're categorizing the plants. We're basically trying to match make everybody, so let's say if it was a human group, you would maybe put the introverts together and the extroverts together and, at this party, make sure there's one extrovert to start the conversation.
An introvert who will listen and somebody else who will do whatever. I don't know. Let's go in and let's explain what are a few of those categories and how could they possibly work together?
Ryan: Yeah. You can like pair up skills and skillsets.
And so the idea is that you wanna plant that's comfortable, with a different function than another plant. Sometimes plants have multiple types of functions, but in our guild system that we de describe in the book, we have an anchor plant, which is often the fruit tree. It could be a nut tree, it could be a tree gonna harvest wood from for furniture years later. And that's one.
Another one we have is a barrier plant. It's a great strategy. These are the plants that we wanna plant to prevent encroaching grass or competing species that are gonna hurt our fruit trees that we planted.
We often want a beneficial insect plant. It's gonna attract insects that'll prey on our pests that we don't want, or it's a pest confuser, so it's a plant that has lots of interesting smells that confuses a lot of our pests.
We also want what's called a dynamic accumulator, and conceptually it's a plant that has a deep tap root and is quite leafy. And so it's mining the nutrients, micronutrients from deep in the soil and dropping on the surface. And then, was that four?
Susan: That was four. Then nitrogen fixers.
Ryan: Nitrogen fixers, yeah. Then nitrogen fixers. feel like it's important to include those and we like to break rules at Shenandoah Permaculture, and so we're less enthusiastic about them as we used to be. It's also just a great category of plants with really cool plants in it. So it's an excuse to write about the redbud or the black locust or the indigo.
And nitrogen fixtures are another important piece.
Susan: I can handle that. Five guilds, five functions, and we're trying to find ones that work together as a good team. Something that you mentioned in the book is there are some trees, for instance, like pawpaw trees, the native North American pawpaw tree, and they like being their own little lone ranger.
They're not so much, I'd love to meet new friends. Am I right? So some trees maybe don't want these relationships.
Ryan: Maybe. They like to grow in clusters. But of course they evolved in some parts of our area in the understory of black walnuts, which is interesting.
They also like riparian areas, so they may go well with things like the false indigo, which likes riparian areas as well. And so we can use our observation of what would a classic for succession be to start to make these pairings based on these functions of the plants.
[00:17:20] Building a Companion Planting Guild, or Groups
Susan: So let's now you and I build a little companion planting with a few guilds. Okay. Okay. So for instance, we've got a young mulberry tree. It's a dwarf actually, but it doesn't look dwarf to me. It's growing pretty big. Nice. It's in our orchard, these dwarf trees.
Man, nobody told them they're dwarf.
Ryan: Is it the Girardi? I'm so excited about that one.
Susan: It's a seedling actually. Okay. Morus nigra bush type. It doesn't look like a bush to me anymore but yes, so it's probably a seedling tree. Now, so we've got our little mulberry and we want to find it friends and family to hang around with.
Okay. So if we were to use the companion planting or the guilds, what would we wanna pair it up with to make a perfect little planting where everybody's supporting everybody else?
Ryan: I like to use a couple classic dynamic accumulators. Might be comfrey. Or would be more fun if you're thinking about pie fruit, and this is a plant that can be in either a barrier category or a dynamic accumulator category would be the rhubarb.
Susan: Okay. So what's the benefit that my little mulberry tree is going get from having a neighboring comfrey or rhubarb, or both, one of each?
Ryan: The comfrey is gonna mine those deep micronutrients and drop 'em onto the soil early in the fruit tree's life.
You can also do the technique that people talk about often called chop and drop, where you chop the leaves and speed that decomposition up and you can get several chops, create lots of biomass in the drip line very quickly. Same thing with the rhubarb, but the rhubarb also works really well as a barrier plant.
So you can plant that out on the edge of what will be the drip line of the mulberry to prevent encroaching grass a lot like you would a moat. But of course then you're also getting really great tasty food outta that rhubarb that may pair well with a mulberry.
Susan: Another interesting one that you mentioned in the book is, you talk about bulbs.
now the, oh yeah. The bulbs are barrier plants, so they're, if they get really dense, that you're suggesting they will prevent weeds from crawling into my mulch circle where my tree is. I find that really interesting. How does that work? Is that just theory or have you seen it actually work?
Ryan: Actually, yeah, I've seen it work and we plant them again, that word moat style. So think of they dig in a ditch where you want the encroaching sod or weeds to stop, and think about like a moat that would circle a home or the fairytale castle. And instead of water, you just dump bulbs in it, and then you cover it.
And then in our area, in the Mid-Atlantic come February, there's lots of beautiful flowers. And then come July, I don't have to work so hard either to keep that encroaching grass out 'cause it stops it. Now the seed can get thrown over it and you gotta weed the seed. You don't want a seed bank in your moat area.
But anything with a rhizome, wiregrass, and just encroaching turf, it will stop it in its tracks.
Susan: It sounds beautiful. My challenge is, and it depends what fruit tree you're planting, what rootstock it's on, fruit trees... their roots go pretty far out and the roots that take in water and nutrition are at the outer edge of the canopy.
Oh. So if you make your circle of bulbs, if it's really dense, it'd have to be pretty dense, my fear would be would the feeder roots at the edge of the canopy, would they be able to push through to keep expanding and gathering the water? Because the stuff closer towards the woody roots closer towards the trunk, they don't really take in water and nutrition very well.
So what are your thoughts about that?
Ryan: That's a great question. And I'm gonna say two things. The first thing I'll say is I don't know. And the second thing is I'm gonna answer anyway, not knowing, 'cause that's what I like to do. The first mistake a lot of folks in our area and that are designing guilds make, is they often not only overstack their guilds.
And when I say that, what I mean is too many plants, way too many plants, and it creates disease pressure, it lowers airflow, all that. But often it's seen as this bullseye design that is really tight around the trunk of the tree. And so when I say words like drip line, what I mean is what is the mature drip line gonna be?
There is where you're gonna plant your moat way out there, even when the tree's little, and you're gonna keep that mulched and you're gonna give it a whatever, five, depending upon your root stock 10, 25 year head start from the encroaching turf, if that's a makes sense, so much bigger area and many less plants.
And so that's my answer to that.
Susan: I think that resonates completely with me, and I wonder, it would be lovely if there was some scientific research. I suspect that at that point, when the tree is big and strong, I suspect that when the roots are ready to push out, they'll twist in and out amongst the bulbs.
I hope. But I love that. I love the idea. I know for myself, like again, when I read your book and talking about barrier plants, one thing that I'm experimenting with at the edge of my garden, I have gout weed growing in on both sides of the garden. It just keeps on coming. So I have one experimental area where I have planted a thick, like foot deep, layer of daylilies, ditch lilies, like just the original ones. And then chives, which I love and are so useful, also like a foot deep. So this is far away from my fruit trees. This is at the edge of my gardens, but I'm trying to see what will fight off the nasty, we call it the nasty weed. Now you mention in your book other barrier plants, and one of them you mention is rhubarb. And I've, we've grown rhubarb and I'm thinking, oh, that rhubarb is not gonna outcompete that weed. It'll just crawl underneath it. Have you seen rhubarb work in that way where it can really prevent weeds from coming in?
Ryan: Yes. And again, the strategy is to plant them very close together and in a moat style, and that tends to work very well. Very well.
Susan: Interesting. Yeah, with our rhubarb, it was getting bigger and the quality of the rhubarb was getting skinny and worse so it needed dividing.
But yeah, you have to find that lovely little point where it's got enough room to be productive and yeah, maybe we shouldn't have dug that one out and put in the compost. It would've been a good experiment, but yes. So that's barrier plants, anchor plants. We've talked about one of the anchor plants that you talk about in the book, I was very curious.
[00:25:01] Exploring Willow Trees in Permaculture
Susan: Why did you include willows as an anchor plant?
Ryan: Oh, we love 'em. And again, the classic bullseye design of a guild is not something I'm into. I've fallen in love with willow trees in our system because of the functionality of the fiber to use as, I also work on an education farm that serves youth, and so to use as molded or braided structures so we're making a willow dome and a willow class outdoor classroom outta willow. Also willow arches are quite beautiful, striking, built, almost built, but also grown little habitats in the landscape and it's something that is new to us. It's also really easy to propagate in our area.
And so it's something, it holds soil really well, especially with river banks and in riparian areas and one of the things that we've started to get more interested in. I used to be really worried about the greediness of willow with water and with nutrients. Really worried about that. In our own systems here in the Shenandoah Valley, we're noticing that as long as there's reasonable spacing, so we're not talking about right next to each other, that the willows are not out competing our fruit trees. And in that observation, Trevor, my partner with the book, started digging a little deeper and started finding that there's a fungal relationship to the soil that willow helps to actually improve, that helps our fruit trees in our food forest. And I'm looking forward to learning more about that. We just started scratching the surface of that. But what we know from observable fact in our area here in the Mid-Atlantic of the US is that willow's not out competing fruit trees, which is fun.
Susan: That's super fun. In a previous episode of this radio show and podcast, I interviewed an expert from Bartlett Tree. He's a researcher and he researched willow mulch. Okay. Oh, yeah. As it turns out, willow mulch made from the young branches of the willow tree, so chopped up young branches, is perhaps the best mulch for fruit trees.
Oh. Because it actually, and this has been scientifically proven, that it boosts the tree's ability to fight off disease, just like the willow tree produces, I guess some parts of it make aspirin or things that we humans use. He did a bunch of studies so that I should share in the notes of this episode, that episode where we talk about willow mulch because it has been proven that this is really useful.
And yet, saying that, in our park we have limited space and I'm thinking we don't have room for a willow tree. Is there such a thing as a willow shrub? Yes. That we can just keep cutting those branches down. Is there?
Ryan: Basket willow. There's, there's so many. There are hundreds of varieties of willow. Basket willow is beautiful. Pussy willow is a beautiful willow. There's variegated basket willow as well. There's a flame willow that has got this orangish yellow, I'm getting excited right now, I'm sorry, bark in the wintertime. There's the osier dogwood, I don't know if it's actually in the willow category.
It's willow-esque, the way it behaves, but it's got a red, a very striking red bark in the wintertime. I'll blend the willow up, the young willow twigs up, and use it as a rooting hormone for our cuttings. It is just a great plant.
Susan: And can you cut it right to the ground? These willow shrubs? Just say, okay, it's the end of the year. Grab all those twigs, cut it right to the ground. Will it come back again and again, or you have to be selective?
Ryan: Yeah, I coppice all of mine constantly. Emily, my partner at Shenandoah Permaculture, she's got a whole nursery business around coppicing and selling the cuttings.
They, as long as you keep 'em dormant, in the fridge, in a walk-in, they can be just jammed into the ground with a shovel.
Susan: Wow.
Ryan: Or hammered in, and they're gonna root. They're so strong. The rooting hormone is so strong. It's an amazing plant.
Susan: So coppicing is cutting your shrub, for instance, to within an inch or two of the soil.
Ryan: Yep.
Susan: Cutting it right down.
Ryan: Yep. I'm experimenting with weaving living fences out of the willow. I got a lot of corkscrew willow that I love, because it's got this wonderful Tim Burton style effect on the landscape, which is really fun to look at. The aesthetics are things I'm starting to appreciate, now that I've got plenty of food in my system, and corkscrew willow is quite beautiful and, again, easy to propagate. And yeah, I would encourage exploring some willows, especially the basket willows and the variated basket willows, for some of the park projects that you got going.
Susan: And when you talk about a living fence, that's not coppicing, that's actually taking the branches that are alive and then weaving them into something else. So there, you don't chop it down or turn it into a basket. You're actually starting off with something beautiful. It sounds wonderful. It sounds like the potential is incredible.
[00:30:59] Beneficial Insect Attractors and Pollinator Gardens
Susan: With regards to favorite beneficial insect attractors, for years, it took me a while, but then I finally figured out that for any orchard or fruit trees to be successful, you need a wide variety of beneficial insects. And over the years we've got a beautiful big pollinator garden in our park and we've focused more and more on native flowering plants and perennials.
I've gotta say the benefits are evident, and I think there's a lot of scientific proof about having these kinds of companion plantings because, for instance, there was one year where there was a nasty aphid invasion all in my city, all around my city. All the cherry trees looked like, heck, they looked terrible.
Yeah. And our cherry tree did for a while too, and I thought, oh my God, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Do I need to spray? What do I do? I came back a couple of days later, I saw ladybugs in all stages of development, eating away those aphids. And I knew that was the payback, that was the thank you from the pollinator garden. That's why we spend so much time taking care of it.
So what, for you, are some of your favorite flowering, beneficial insect attractor, or in general?
Ryan: This category is so big. I'll start with one of the strategies we use to attract more ladybugs. "Read behind me." I love that phrase 'cause I don't know the scientific research on this.
[00:32:37] Borage: The Beneficial Attractor
Ryan: Borage. It's a wonderful, an edible flower that's an annual in the Mid-Atlantic of the US. And ladybugs seem to love borage and we like to plant them near tomatoes, anywhere aphids are potentially gonna do their thing.
Susan: Borage. That's great.
[00:32:56] Attracting Beneficial Insects with Color and Scent
Susan: 'Cause it grows from seeds so easily annually. It just pops up everywhere.
Ryan: So easy, and that's a Geat strategy for beneficial attractors.
[00:33:07] Color and Smell: Attracting Pollinators
Ryan: I like to think about color and smell. So when I think about attracting insects, I think about what's gonna draw the eye of a human, is gonna also draw the eye of a pollinator. And what's going to confuse in terms of the scent in the air.
I want lots of strong, oily plants. So your lavenders, your mints. We use mountain mint, which is a native here in the Mid-Atlantic of the US. Bronze fennel
and so we like to think about patterns in plants rather than go through a list of exactly, I could probably name a hundred specific varieties, but in terms of the patterns, we're looking for color, we're looking for smell, we're looking for interesting, unique flowering, like the umbels that you find in dill or fennel, or a wild carrot. The Queen Ann's lace.
[00:34:09] The Importance of Flower Variety in Gardens
Susan: I think that's such great advice because, from a conventional design perspective, you might be considering, I like blues and purples, so I'll make sure all my flowers are blues and purples. But then you're missing out because perhaps there are some birds or beneficial insects that prefer yellows or oranges or reds.
Is that the case?
Ryan: Yes. And you want constant flowering, so you don't want a spring pop or a summer pop or a late summer pop. You wanna roll it through. And so, that's how we like to think about stacking our area with beneficial attractors.
Susan: And I also like how you were talking about the way that the flower looks is important.
So I love daisy shaped flowers. That's just so I could choose five different daisy shaped flowers and put them in my pollinator garden, even if they flower at different times of the year. Maybe there are small native bees that need the tinier of flowers. So I want to make sure there's different shapes and colors.
So it's going to be a riot of color rather than matchy-looking. Yes. That, and what I like about that is it gives people a freedom to explore what they like, what flowers they like.
I also want to talk about stories.
[00:35:35] Stories from the Farm: The Rooster and the Goumi
Susan: So one of the lovely things about your book is you guys chose, you and your partner who helped you write the book, you guys chose stories to, and I don't know, what was your goal?
And for instance, the one story that jumped out at me is the story about the rooster and the goumi plants. So why don't you tell me that story, tell me about it and what it is that you hope these stories will help readers with.
Ryan: Great. I will, tell the story first since you asked that part, and then tell you how we arrived at stories being more effective than what we were doing in terms of helping people acquire plant knowledge. The rooster story is, so goumis are plants that we love here in our bioregion.
They are Elaeagnus, cousins to the autumn olive, which is invasive. The goumis have larger berries, especially the Sweet Scarlet variety, and do not spread quite as easily. They are a really great nitrogen fixer, so we love them for nitrogen fixing, but also their berries are so tasty.
My kids love their berries, and they also are great habitat for chickens, for free range chickens. Years ago, when we first started our farm setting journey here in the Shenandoah Valley, one of the ideas we had was, let's help my daughter learn some responsibility, so we're gonna give her chores.
And so very little, I forget how little, I'm talking like four years old, five years old, at that age. And she held chickens chores for a while, and her job was to feed the chickens, check on 'em, let us know what's going on in the coop. When she got to feed them, let 'em out, let 'em back in at night.
And it was her thing. And she was really good at it, and she was really proud of it. And it was just idyllic to see her head off to go take care of the chickens in the morning, in her bare feet on a summer morning while we're having our coffee. And we're feeling like the best parents ever, right? Oh, we're so good at this.
And that's when the difficulty started. We had, one year, a very aggressive rooster, and I was a little dismissive at first. I was like, you'll be all right. It's just a rooster. Rooster's not gonna hurt you. You're a small child, but you're a human. You got this, and don't worry about that rooster. And she kept going out and come back. Dad, I'm scared. You'll be fine. Dad, I'm scared. Finally, one day we go out, we're sitting at the table right across, I can see it right now, sipping our coffee, me and my wife feeling all proud, as great parents we are. And we look up, hear screaming, and my daughter is sprinting across the lawn, the yard. And there's this rooster just chasing her and she is screaming. Apparently the rooster had gotten her a little bit and there was no getting her back into that chore.
Susan: The rooster bit her or something, or?
Ryan: It had gotten her with the spurs. It wasn't a bad one, but it was enough to, yeah. She's I'm not doing this anymore. Yeah.
And so I was like, okay, whatever. I'll take care of this chore. This rooster's got nothing. He's gonna be afraid of me. And so I go out, and I'm doing the chores for a couple days. And every now and then, the rooster gets brave and comes out from underneath the goumi, and I step at it and he sees me and backs up and it's not that big a deal.
One day I go out to feed the chickens. And the rooster, I guess he's feeling a little more jumpy than normal, or he is starting to feel brave, and he had waited till I turned my back. And so I started walking away. And he must have done the same thing with my daughter, Kai Marley, when he chased her.
But I heard the sound of wings behind me. And, I grew up as a basketball player and in a town where your instinctive, physical abilities were really important. And my instinct fired up and I turned around and I saw the rooster basically feet first coming at my face and I punched it.
And, I felt horrible. And we ate him that night.
Susan: And you ate him because he was, he had attitude, that guy.
Ryan: Yeah. He was not gonna live. He should not have been left in that flock as long as he did. Yeah. I should have taken care of him earlier. Yeah. But we ate him that night. And that is a story that is always paired for me and my family now, with the goumi.
It's paired with myself, it's paired with my daughter, it's paired with my wife. And the goumi is a character in that story as much as the rooster is. And the experience, mythology of our lifestyle, living immersed in the plant world.
Susan: I love it. And to me it's also about relationships. Some relationships do well and some relationships are just not meant to be, and how interconnected we all are.
Even the fact that you ended up eating the rooster. Yeah. How did your daughter, talking about the interconnection, she told you. Watch out. You didn't believe me, mister. So how did she feel when the rooster became dinner?
Ryan: I love that take that you just had.
She did tell me, she was telling me, and she was saying this is a boundary we need to set. So like the child and family therapist in me would think about that through setting boundaries. Now we shouldn't eat everything that we need to set boundaries with. And it worked in that instance.
She was quite comfortable with that at that age. She grew up learning how to butcher rabbits, butcher chickens. We had a problem around the age of 15 when I asked her to help me, skin and butcher a deer with me. And at that point, the deer, when the skin was off, the deer was too human-like when it was hanging, that it turned her off from meat for years. And so she got uncomfortable. As a small child, it felt normal to her. And so, eating the rooster, it wasn't like a haha gotcha. It was more, I don't have to be afraid when I go out and outside anymore. I don't. The boundary's been set. This is a space I can share with the rest of the chickens now.
Susan: It's so amazing. And you didn't mention, and I didn't mention at the top of the show, that you are a therapist, that you also work with people and boundaries are so important. And what we are talking about in companion plantings and guilds is we talk about barrier plants, boundaries. Get, weed. You do not belong near my fruit trees.
Yeah. I'm going to find a way, as best I can, just try different partnerships. Who will protect you, my young fruit tree? Will it be a rhubarb? Will it be some daylilies? But we're gonna find a way to protect you. So it just seems so common sense.
Like when I first got into growing fruit trees, I literally am embarrassed to say this, that I just thought you just plant the tree and you just leave it and it does its thing and you get a harvest. I really thought it was the easiest thing in the world. Of course, it's easy.
Nobody ever said to me, how is it that, why are Honey Crisp apples so expensive if all you have to do is just plant a bunch of apple trees and then just sell them to people. I didn't think about that. But I just love the take on permaculture, that it is around relationships.
[00:43:54] Lessons from Hunting and the Persimmon Story
Susan: And the other story that I remember very clearly from your book is about the relationship between deer. And if you could tell that story as well, because the related fruit does play a role.
Ryan: The persimmons.
Susan: It's not just us eating this food.
So tell me the story about the deer and the persimmons.
Ryan: Yeah, persimmon. It's a fruit, at the time, I had not really, I definitely hadn't indulged, I didn't appreciate. I've come a long way and now adore the fruit 'cause I learned how to eat it and learned when to eat it more importantly, and learned how easy it is to grow, except I just lost. Anyway, that's a different story.
I, grew up my life, my history. I grew up making fun of hunting, because I was a ball player and I lived in town and when we saw camouflage and people that hunt, it usually meant trouble. And there was not a lot of cultural vibing happening, and I othered hunters.
And then later in life, 35, 37, I forget how old I was. A good friend of mine said, you've gotta stop being bitter and talking bad about what you don't know. Let me take you hunting. He convinced me and he took me hunting and, boy, I caught the fever. I fell in love with it very quickly and there's a lot of reasons for that.
One of them, it was psychological healing for me to spend all that time in the woods with a focus. It gives vigilance a purpose, it gives anxiety a purpose, which is quite beautiful. And of course when I started hunting, I started dreaming of a spot and stalk, which is a style of hunting that is hard to do and not something that happens very easily here on the east coast of the US. It's more of a west coast or big country type of hunt.
And we do more sit in a tree and wait, ambush style hunting. And I'm a bow hunter. And spot and stalk is very hard with a bow 'cause you need to get very close to the animal. And one morning, I was late to head out to my stand with my bow. And I got lucky being late because it was just enough light coming up and I saw what became clearly a horn, the antlers of a buck, turning its head.
And the buck was on a ridge, just below a ridge, face down, and the buck had gotten the wind wrong, which is not normal. And so the wind was blowing in my face and I was above the buck. So the buck could not smell me. And I had a couple decisions to make. To shorten the story a bit, I decided I was gonna try to put a stalk on the animal and it felt like hours and it was a very slow, controlled move towards the animal. The whole time being terrified the wind was gonna shift and, instead of blowing in my face, blow from behind me, which the animal then would've smelled me very easily and gotten spooked.
And the wind stayed in my favor. And eventually, I was able to stand up from 20 yards from the animal. And that's when the wind shifted. And when the wind shifted, the animal stood up very quickly and looked in my direction 'cause he smelled me. And I had already had the arrow drawn. I let go and I sat down immediately 'cause I didn't want the animal to run far and be spooked. It was a good shot. And, right now telling the story, I have a very connected and real memory of weeping and all the emotions that come from death, but also that kind of focused mindfulness, which is hard for me to do. And I sat there and I watched the buck die, and I don't know how long it took.
It felt, again, like hours. It could have been much shorter, but I lost track of time because of the mindfulness, quite frankly. And after enough time had passed, I remember shaking. My hands shaking. I approached the animal. And when I gutted the buck, sweet, sticky persimmons just spilled out.
And it got me really curious about this animal. I made sure to grab a few from the forest floor on my way dragging the animal back into my truck. And then that night, we dined on that animal, on the venison, and persimmon. And to me, it's a really quite beautiful pairing.
Since then, I know that almost blackened, rotten persimmon from the forest floor is the sweetest that could be. And that's really the longest you can possibly wait, is when you should eat it. Any other time is just too cloying, and there are also some varieties that I grow now. Nikita's Gift is my favorite variety that does really well here.
Yeah, that's my persimmon story.
Susan: It's a really touching story because for those of us who eat meat, we are so far from the process. And I love how First Nations communities, after they do hunt an animal and kill it, they honor it with a prayer and with gratitude. And again, we're talking about relationships.
Yeah. Relationships. There's so many people who, this is not a problem we have in our urban environment, but who say, oh my gosh, the deer, they're eating the branches on my fruit trees, and I get it. That would be very frustrating. The hey, that's what I know is fruit trees, and that would be heartbreaking.
But yes, we cohabit and we share this beautiful planet with animals and, for us, it's like raccoons that we worry about. But I just love the circle of life there that clearly this deer was enjoying the persimmons. And then later, hopefully, the persimmons you were eating were not the ones that spilled out of his gut.
Ryan: No, they were not.
Susan: Good. Thank you. That was good. That would've been a little bit weird, but, yeah, so it seems like it's all about relationships.
[00:50:56] Companion Planting Insights
Susan: I'm gonna end the show in just a little bit, but before we do, I wanna do some quick questions about different companion plants that I've always wondered about and wondered what your approach was. For instance, you mentioned earlier strawberries, and as I said, I've always had struggled with interplanting strawberries anywhere near fruit trees. It just never seems to work. So tell me, what is your approach in using strawberries as a companion plant or just growing them in general?
Ryan: I value, as a market farmer, so there's tension points, in how I approach different collections of plants. And one of the tension points, for me with strawberries, as a market farmer, I value and prize the fruit too much. And so I grow the strawberries for production, not for ground cover. And certainly not for both.
And I like my strawberries in a block. And I plant 'em in October in the Mid-Atlantic. I leave them until the following season when they fruit and then I rip 'em out and I put 'em somewhere else.
Susan: You don't divide them, you just move them.
Ryan: I end up dividing, for sure. And take the runners, because the runners would be more productive the following year. And I like to move them. Similar strategy with raspberries, raspberry canes. You gotta move those every couple years as well.
Susan: Go ahead. Sorry.
Ryan: This is if you wanna optimize fruit production. I think that there is nothing wrong with an established tree, planting a ground cover of, not a baby tree, not a youngin that's really struggling, an established tree that is doing its thing already, a ground cover of strawberries, if you're fine with the production going down after year two and three and it just being a ground cover. I don't see any problem with that at all.
Susan: But what do the strawberries, I guess what they contribute is just covering the soil and preventing it from drying out. They're not contributing nitrogen, they're not dynamic accumulators pulling up good nutrients from the soil. They're just to cover the soil. Keep it cool. Help protect the roots of the fruit tree a little bit.
But I love what you say is don't do it when the baby is young. Don't do it with a young fruit tree. They really do not tolerate competition very well.
Ryan: What's worked well as ground covers with young fruit trees in our area, I'm in Virginia and we get really hot summers, is raising the soil a little bit around the tree, putting sweet potatoes in, and the sweet potato greens act as the ground cover.
And then you harvest the sweet potato in October. You're good to go.
Susan: And so, this, you would do how far from the tree? Because again, you don't want the sweet potato to compete with the roots of the tree.
Ryan: No, I've done 'em in raised mounds, in fact.
Susan: Oh, so they're not actually even in the, like you could even put them in a pot, grow them in a pot, and let the greens wander around that bed.
Ryan: Exactly. Exactly. And they're wonderful ground cover and they fill the area very quickly. They save you a season of having to mulch. Just let 'em do its thing. So there are all kinds of strategies for that function that you can do instead of the strawberry.
Susan: Fabulous. Next one. I wanted to ask about.
[00:54:54] Insights on Specific Plants: Strawberries, Sorrel, and Nettles
Susan: Sorrel. I don't know if that's something you use.
Ryan: Oh, yeah.
Susan: Sorrel is so exciting in the spring, you get these nice greens and then it looks horrible the rest of the year, and it's like am I doing something wrong here? What do you use sorrel for?
Ryan: I like to use it, very similar as a dynamic accumulator.
There's a variety and I wish I remember the name of the variety right now. When we're done with this call, I'll remember it. There's a variety that is quite tough, quite big, and quite tasty. I can't eat too much of it because of the, what's that acid? Rhubarb's got it too.
Susan: Oh, ox. It starts with an o doesn't it?
Ryan: Oxalic acid. Yeah. And the kidney stone worry, so I don't eat too much of it. But that lemon, that tang in spring salads is so wonderful. Yeah. And in our area, rhubarb's similar. A lot of those kinda leafy plants are very similar. If you keep 'em in shade, the decline can be slowed. So a lot of times full sun because you want big, heavy production early, but if you sacrifice a little bit of yield keeping shade, then end of July and August, they're not quite declining the same.
Susan: Gotcha. And let's throw one more in that I'm curious about.
[00:56:21] Stinging Nettles and Other Ground Covers
Susan: Stinging nettles.
I have done shows about how great it is, to use it in sprays on fruit trees, and I'm just like, aren't they invasive? Is that something that we really want on our property? Tell me about that.
Ryan: I love stinging nettle. To me they're easier to control than comfrey, but you gotta use 'em.
One of the ways I use to control my stinging nettle, I love my stinging nettle. I, in fact, will just harvest them bare handed because I'm almost 50 and I'm starting to worry about arthritis, and I got all these aches and pains, and the histamine from the stings hurts for a little while, but it'll take away my ache for farming for a whole day.
I also pound the tea in the spring. I love making nettle tea. We use the nettles in pizza as a pizza topping. It's one of the tastiest, brightest spring green, and it's just there for the taking. It's so easy. And so, use it is one way to control it. And then I like to plant it in areas that are quite wet.
So swales, if I've got a swale that I'm using to send water towards a pond or to slow and sink the water, I'll run them into that, into the ditches. So a swale is basically a basin or a ditch with a berm on the other side. And so I like to plant 'em there where, you know, let 'em take over.
But again, I've never had one get away from me because we use it so much.
Susan: Interesting. Fabulous.
[00:58:03] About Shenandoah Permaculture Institute
Susan: Okay, tell me now, for people who have listened to this show, who are watching it on YouTube, tell us a little bit about your institute and what you guys do and what you teach.
Ryan: So Shenandoah Permaculture Institute, it is co-owned by myself, Trevor Piersol, and Emilie Tweardy. We're best friends who started it 12 years ago. We teach permaculture design courses. We've taught, I think we're gonna do our 21st or 20th this fall in Harrisburg, Virginia. We do 'em all over the state.
We also do land consultations for folks, and the three of us are writers. Trevor and I have this book, Mulberries in the Rain. Emilie is working on a book through New Society as well, called the Permaculture Nursery, which we're really excited about.
Susan: Fantastic.
Ryan: Yeah.
Susan: And do you have a website or where can people find you on social media?
Ryan: www.shenandoahpermaculture.com is the website and people can find us on Instagram @shenandoahpermaculture.
[00:59:16] Final Thoughts on Permaculture, Relationships, and Advice for Gardeners
Susan: And so let's wrap up, like what is the one piece of advice that you would say to people who are growing fruit trees who have been a little bit freaked out, perhaps by permaculture, and is this for me? What would you suggest to people?
Ryan: Take it plant by plant, and learn the plants. Learn how to grow a plant and how to use a plant with the idea of story in mind, as if that plant is gonna become a character in your own life. If it doesn't take, that means y'all aren't a good fit.
And I guarantee you there's a plant out there that everyone can become smitten with real quick.
And then from there, you just add another, and then you add another, and then you add another. And so plant by plant, story by story, that's how we grow our knowledge and become a resource to our ourselves, to our community, around food production, and just what a great way to live a life. Huh.
Susan: It's so fantastic, and taking it that extra step to looking at relationships, whether it's our relationships with the family or friends that we are growing things with.
Whether it's our relationships with our fruit trees, are we spending the time to learn about what they need to take care of them, and the relationships with the trees and their neighboring plants? Are they getting along? And something we're probably gonna talk about in my next episode is the relationship between the tree and the soil organisms, that's quite an interesting, we are so interconnected. Boy are we ever in this beautiful planet we are all lucky enough to live on. Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This was a total delight to chat with you and I really enjoyed your book.
Ryan: Thank you so much.
And thanks. I love talking about this stuff. I know you did too.
Susan: I'm so glad you came on the show today. So if you, the listeners, want to learn more about today's topic, check out the show notes. We will have a full article with extra information and links that Ryan is sharing. So check that in the show notes.
And if you would like tips, podcast updates, and articles sent to your inbox, sign up to my newsletter. It's at https://orchardpeople.com/signup. I would love to keep you posted on all the new podcasts coming up. So that's all for now. I hope you will join me again next month I will see you then and thanks for tuning in. Take care, and bye for now.