Orchard People

[00:00:00] Susan's Winter Reflections
Hi everyone. I'm wondering, how has your winter been for you this year? Here in Toronto, we are getting used to the unusual. when I was a kid, our winters were freezing cold and very snowy, and we had to bundle up to go outside. So we kids wore these goofy one piece snowsuits and big puffy boots to keep us warm and dry.
But for the past couple of years, things have been quite different. In fact, this winter I've been able to go for a walk most days wearing sneakers and a light winter coat. And instead of snow, we've had a lot of rain. It's really very strange. And while our winter this year has been wet, the summer was very dry.
In July, I spent hours and hours dragging hoses around the park, watering our poor parched fruit trees. It made me start to think, what on earth is it like growing fruit trees in a desert?
[00:01:06] Interview with Greg Peterson: Growing Fruit Trees in the Desert
So in the first half of this show, I am going to find out. I'll interview Greg Peterson of Urban Farm U. Through his website, urbanfarm.
org, Greg teaches city dwellers from across North America how to grow food. and how to become an urban farmer. Now Greg knows very well about the problems of growing fruit trees in the desert, and that's because he lives in one. He's a resident of hot, dry Phoenix, Arizona, and he's going to talk to us about growing conditions there in the first half of the show.
Now, When we grow fruit trees, we're usually taking plants that grew naturally in other parts of the world, and we're trying to adapt them to our climate and conditions. But what if we start thinking about things another way? My second guest is Russ Cohen from Massachusetts, and he encourages us to consider growing native edible plants.
These native plants can be easier to grow and delicious, according to Russ. He'll share his secrets about how easy it can be to grow native edible plants from seed. He'll talk about plants, including wild strawberries, hazelnuts, or beech plums. And lots more in the second half of the show. get ready to email in your questions and comments during the live show.
Our email is instudio101 at gmail dot com and it would be great to hear from you. But now, on the line is Greg Peterson of Urban Farm U. Greg how are you today? Hey, I am great. I'm so glad you're doing well. What's the weather like over there? Oh man, it is cold and we're getting like feet and feet of snow here right now.
Somehow I doubt that. You're pulling my leg. That's what I tell all the people that, that ask me about it here. Cause, it's actually beautiful. It's going to be 74 today. That's Fahrenheit. And, Sunny, I was just out in the backyard in my bare feet, watering some trees, that sounds awesome.
before we dive in, I'd love to know, just, can you tell me a little bit about Urban Farm U? What is it that you teach there? Sure. my goal in life is to transform our global food system. And over the past, and I've been working on this goal now for 40 some years. And, What I do through Urban Farm U is I put together easy to understand courses for people to jump in and learn about growing food.
The basics is our basic gardening class. We've got an introduction to permaculture course called permaculture city with Toby Hemingway, who unfortunately recently passed away. we've got a aquaponics class and a seed saving class. Our seed saving courses. So we do a lot of online content and online free webinars and online classes.
that sounds like a lot of fun. So when you are not teaching online, you're there growing food yourself, getting your hands dirty.
[00:04:26] Challenges and Solutions for Desert Fruit Tree Cultivation
So tell me a little bit more about, I would think growing in Phoenix, you've got a lot of benefits. You've got lots of sunshine. You're not grappling with the kind of winter that we grapple with, but what are the challenges that you face?
In growing fruit trees in particular. One of the cool things about growing in Phoenix is that we can grow all year round. And the hardest time to grow is in the summer. In, July, August, and September when it can get up to 120 degrees, which I think is, if my brain does the math right, it's like 46, 47 C.
which is really hot. So that's the hardest time of the year. To grow, it's if we're not dealing with snow You know when you're dealing with snow, you actually can't grow things But if we're dealing with heat we can actually put up shade structures, and I always encourage people to grow shade structures that you know that you can eat like grapes or You know here we have some native desert edibles, but Next guest is going to be talking about natives.
We do a lot here with natives that get larger and can provide shade on the western, from basically afternoon shade for us. Wow. that's really interesting. Yeah, you're right. It does give you some flexibility to be able to shade the trees a bit, whereas we're desperate to get a little bit more sun on our trees, Yeah. But, tell me what are the biggest mistakes that people make there when they plant fruit trees? There's so I've been doing my urban farm fruit tree program education program for 17 years now And often people will call me or email me and say hey, listen, I have a fruit tree that's suffering or died What happened to it?
And that's all the information they give me so I always ask for a photograph and Often they'll send me a photograph and it is one of three things that they do That invariably kills their trees Number one they plant them in gravel so we have these gravel landscapes here and you can imagine what gravel might be like in June, July and August.
It's just like a solar oven out there. So they're planting in gravel and that just cooks their trees or they plant in a lawn and lawns will outcompete your fruit trees. So those two things are two of the big things that people do to, to kill fruit trees. The solution for both of them is the same, and the solution is putting a six to eight foot diameter basin around the tree where you remove the gravel or rake the gravel back, or you remove the grass, put the tree on a mound in the center so it's up at ground height, and then you fill that basin with woody mulch.
And that woody mulch does multiple things for us. It, pulls water like a sponge. It creates a really nice, insulation layer. And at the interface between the dirt and the woody mulch, very quickly you start getting this amazing soil that is, is growing down there. and we basically here in the desert have dirt, which is broken down rock, and it's like good luck growing anything in it.
So this, putting the basin of mulch around your tree adds a lot of. Organic matter to help the trees grow. So that's two of the things.
[00:08:01] Listener Questions and Irrigation Tips
I just wanted to comment about the grass issue. That is incredibly common here as well. And I think so few people understand that fruit trees don't enjoy the competition, and it makes it challenging, especially if it's a young fruit tree. people will also plant hostas around their fruit tree or They'll plant other edibles, which is great, creating a more sort of permaculture style garden, but they're just too close to the trees. And I see that again and again.
Plus, so this leads into the third thing that people do. and when you're planting vegetables underneath your fruit trees, your vegetables need to be watered every two or three or four days. Your fruit trees need to be watered, once every two to three weeks. So the watering pattern for each of, for vegetables is different than fruit trees.
And often what people do here in the desert is they put their fruit tree on a drip system. And that's just not enough water. Yeah, so what, if you're not using a drip system, obviously, in, in a dry environment there, and as I mentioned earlier in the show, Our summers seem to be getting drier and drier, so more of us have to consider irrigation systems.
if you're not using a drip system, what are you using? Bubblers. it's just a different head that you put on your system, rather than putting a drip. Basically, rather than putting drip in place, you put, sprinklers in place, and rather than spray sprinklers, you put a bubbler on. So what I, coach people to do is that they put a bubbler in each one of the basins for their trees when the water comes, then the watering system comes on, it fills the basin with water over the course of, an hour or two.
And then, you let it sit there for. here in the desert, we like to water once a month in the winter and twice a month in the summer. And that's, when you're deep watering with a basin and a bubbler, that's plenty of water for these trees. And how long will you leave your bubblers on for?
that's hard to answer. because the, it depends on your soil. If you have really sandy soil, the water runs away very quickly. I know you've got clay soil up there. We have clay soil here. filling up the basin probably for an hour to an hour and a half is going to do it.
So you just, you want to fill up that basin with water and then, and then let it sit for a couple of weeks. Here's the deal with when you're over watering a tree or you're under watering a tree, the damage looks the same. So you really can't tell. If, if you're over watering or under watering, unless you get a moisture meter and I highly suggest, go to your local nursery and get a, an 8 moisture meter to check and see, do these trees need to be watered?
Yeah. And definitely check very deep down because the top may feel wet, but then you stick your finger a little further in and it could be dry as dust. we have some questions here from Cliff in Toronto. He has quite a few questions. I'll ask a few of them. He asks, do you put your irrigation system on a timer?
Absolutely. That way you don't even have to think about it. You just, the first, and third Tuesday of the year. Every month, the timer goes off and fills up the basins and you're good to go. And yes, you do. So are you fussing around the trees in the middle of those times and just sticking your fingers and seeing how dry they are?
or you just leave it and just hope for the best? What? No, never with fruit trees. When you're growing food, you never want to hope for the best. You always want to pay attention to what's going on in the space. And until Until the tree established and until you know that they're getting the right water, you definitely want to jump in and check.
What I found here in the warmer climate is that our every, deep water every two weeks with the mulch basins around the trees, that is plenty. But I now know that. and until you actually discover that for yourself, you just can't. You can't leave it to happenstance. You have to make sure.
Exactly, and like you were saying, you know it from experience. We have different soil. Wherever our listeners are listening from, you'll have your own unique conditions. And I talk a lot about, having a relationship with your tree. Communicating with it in the sense of listening to it. yeah, so I think it's really important that people start to play around with this and And see what happens.
Now we have Cliff Wrights again. What is this basin he is speaking about? And I would love it if at some point you could send me a picture. I'll put it on our Facebook page. But I'll try and summarize what you said. So you've planted your fruit tree in a mound that's a bit above the ground. And so it goes down in a donut around the mound.
And that's where you're putting your mulch and, your wood mulch. and that would insulate the tree's roots, which is awesome. here in Toronto, I'd, or in colder climates, I wonder about, would that be enough to insulate the roots? That people will have to play around with as well. Yeah, I, that, given that, I'm allergic to snow.
I have no idea on that answer for you. there you go. I have a good buddy that lives up there. I've known him for 20 years. He lives in Guelph. Jason Bavington, and he's been trying to get me up there for a long time. there you go. And if any of the listeners want to, make an argument of why Greg should check out, the colder climate of Canada and the colder places in the United States, please do write in.
Okay, another question here, again from Cliff, our questioning person today. Good. He's very keen. How many bubblers do you put around your trees? that's, that really depends on your water rate. usually I just put one bubbler in the basin and let it fill, and let it fill the basin.
So one bubbler is enough and I guess everything will flow around in a circle because yeah, exactly. okay, let's move on briefly from irrigation and let's talk a little bit about, the types of trees that you guys plant in Phoenix.
[00:15:02] Choosing and Distributing Fruit Trees in Phoenix
Do, how do you choose the types of trees that may thrive in your unique conditions?
that started about, I, planted my first fruit trees here in the valley in 1975. Okay. So that discovery began, back 42 years ago now, and I really dove in deep in the 90s. and I've planted, myself personally, I've planted hundreds of fruit trees here in town, and I'm always experimenting. So I started years ago, I started with the list from our, our cooperative extension, or, if you have cooperative extensions up there, but Sadly, we don't.
I started with their list and started practicing and experimenting with those trees. Cause there's very specific trees that will do well here in the desert and ones that, forget it, forget about it. And there's something with the deciduous trees, there's something called, chill hours. And chill hours are, eh, what, 35 to 45 degrees.
And, /in the desert, we've got about 350 hours of chill. So if you're going to plant a fruit tree, a deciduous tree that requires more than 350 hours of chill, / it's unlikely that you're going to get fruit. So chill hours is really important and honestly, chill hours is important wherever you grow fruit.
If you were to plant a low chill tree, which is like 200 hours in Toronto, it's not going to work. So you need higher chill trees there. So that's one thing. And then the other really big thing to look at is what rootstock are the trees on? rootstock is really important because there's specific rootstocks, I'm sure that will do marvelously up there.
But if we tried to plant a, one of them down here, they would fail miserably. So being cognizant of what rootstocks Work in your area is a really important, piece of the puzzle as well. So over there, you've had your years of playing around and research. You've figured out what works in your part of the world.
can you give me some examples of some of the fruit trees that you grow really, well in Phoenix? Oh my gosh, yes. in Arizona, one of our five C's for our state is citrus. Pretty much any citrus you want to grow grows great in the low desert. then apples. There are two varieties of apples here that do really, well.
And will give us bushels of apples at the Anna and the Dorset Golden. and then there's, about a dozen peaches that do really well. My favorite being the Desert Gold Peach. And then there's, Katy and Gold Kissed Apricots that do real well. And figs and pomegranates and, plums. Those are all, there's varieties of all of those that do extraordinarily well here.
Oh, that's fantastic. so now, I understand that not only do you teach, but for people who live locally, you actually distribute fruit trees. Can you tell me a little bit about how that works? Absolutely. excuse me, my first thing is education. It's so very important for me to get people educated, and so I, starting in the fall, I offer free fruit tree classes here in town, and it's how to grow them, how to prune them, how to be successful with them, how to water them.
We cover all those topics, and I actually do webinars as well. So people can take my webinars online, or they can take classes from me in person. And then they have an opportunity to purchase, pre purchase fruit trees from my program, which they then pick up in January, February, and March. And how many a year will you distribute or sell?
this is my 17th year. I know it's more than 20, 000 so far. Although, last year we were at about 3, 500 trees. This year we're at about 5, 000 fruit trees that we're distributing. Wow. So that 20, 000 number is accelerating very quickly. And how do they get the trees from you? They come to your house and knock on your door?
Yeah, exactly. No, I actually rent, I rent a warehouse here in Phoenix, for, and I call this my pop up nursery. We're only open, 18 days a year, in January, February, and March, and they come down, and we have, I have videos, planting videos, and content, and people, experts there to answer their tree questions and gardening questions, and, they come down to the warehouse, which is in central Phoenix, and, they get their trees from me and they get coaching from me and, once they plant their trees, if they have questions, they shoot me a picture and I answer, yeah, like that.
That is so inspiring and I don't know if you know this, many of our listeners, our community orchardists, who might even look at your model and think, this is something that we could do in our community, to help, I would love to teach somebody. About this model of tree education and distribution.
So anybody that's interested that wants to engaged in that conversation. Like I said, I've been doing it 17 years. I've got it down. I can teach it. That's wonderful. That would be wonderful because from my experience, here in Toronto and the people that I teach across the country, The biggest mistake that people make is they start with the wrong trees.
They just pick up a tree from the garden center, a familiar variety, and they pop it in the ground, water it a bit, and just hope for the best. And it really is, it doesn't work that way, sadly. I wish it did, but it doesn't. So that's great to have you as a resource there. So let's see. we have to wrap up in a minute.
[00:21:05] Greg Peterson's Urban Farm and Personal Garden
But before we do, I must hear about your own garden. I understand that in your garden, you have 70 fruit trees. Is that true? Yep, on a third of an acre, I have, 70 fruit trees, we, so the urban farm is right in the middle of Phoenix. If you stood on my roof and looked 50 miles in each direction, you would see houses.
And it's, it's, just, it's in the middle of the city. I have a third of an acre, that's about 14, 000 square feet, and, That's 80 feet wide and 160 feet deep. And on the property I have somewhere around 80 fruit trees. We've got chickens. I have three different kinds of solar panels. the entire, the front yard is entirely edible.
we got some food growing in the back, although the chickens get to roam in the backyard. So it sounds wonderful. that's I like to call it an environmental showcase home. I like that people, I bring people in here on tours and classes. to learn about this stuff. Lucky locals who can come in and participate in those.
That sounds great. What do you do with all that food? it's from 70 fruit trees. Yeah. the way I've got this designed, I designed it from a permaculture perspective on a forest kind of concept. So I don't have, with the exception of citrus and peaches, I don't have tons of tons of product.
I have basically enough to eat and share with my neighbors. that sounds pretty good to me. You can send some over to Toronto. we have absolutely nothing growing right now in our yard. So there you go. Feel sorry for us and send it over there. So Greg, I so appreciate you coming on the show. can you tell the listeners how they can find out a little bit more about you and what you do?
Absolutely. So urbanfarm. org is our website. I was just remembering that if you go to urbanorchard. org, there is a sign up for our fruit tree interviews, videos, and how to guides. and which, that also has a bunch of our podcast interviews on it and videos. So that's at urbanorchard. org, but urbanfarm.
org is my website, and I've been, I've had it up and running for almost 20 years now. That's just so wonderful, and I hope our conversation continues. You're doing such great stuff, and it is an honor to have you on the show today. Right back at you. When we had talked about you coming down and seeing us in August, and speaking at one of our, one of our day long fruit tree events.
So I want to continue that conversation as well. That sounds great. That's wonderful. thanks. And I'm going to say goodbye for now, but we shall speak again soon. Fantastic. Thank you. And thank you listeners for listening. Okay. Take care. Bye bye.
[00:24:05] Transition to Next Guest: Russ Cohen
/So my next guest is Russ Cohen of Arlington, Massachusetts and he sees himself as a bit of a modern day Johnny Appleseed, but instead of planting apple seeds far and wide, Russ is propagating and giving away native edible plants and trees. are native plants really easier to grow? And really, does the product, does the produce actually taste good?
During the interview, I'd really love to hear from you about any native edible plants that you may grow wherever you live. Is it really worthwhile? In the meantime, we're gonna chat with Russ Cohen about his experiences. So Russ is on the line with me now, and as we chat you can email in your questions and comments to in studio101@gmail.com.
Hi Russ, how are you today?
[00:25:02] Susan's Passion for Native Edible Plants
Hi Susan, how are you? I'm doing terrific. And I'm just wondering, I know that you are super keen on planting and growing native edible plants. How did this adventure all begin for you?
[00:25:16] The Spark of Edible Botany
I started connecting to the outdoors through my taste buds when I was a sophomore in high school.
I took a mini course that the high school biology department offered called edible botany. And we learned about two dozen species of plants that grew around the high school, and then we had a communal meal from the plants we had learned about. And that was the spark that ignited this lifelong passion I have.
[00:25:36] Teaching and Expanding Knowledge
So I went to the town library, took out every book I could find on the topic, taught myself over 70 more species, and then by senior year of high school, I was teaching that class I'd taken as a sophomore. describe to me, in this class, I'm just imagining, a little feast after the class.
What kind of things were you finding in the schoolyard? What kind of things were you eating out of the schoolyard?
[00:25:56] Exploring Edible Plants in the Schoolyard
Oh, plants like oxeye, daisy, and dandelions, and wintercress, and sheep's sorrel. These are, some native, but a lot of, what they would call naturalized species. things like chicory and burdock.
that are in our landscape, they're not native, they're not invasive either, and they're delicious, and so I was very happy to learn about them. Okay, so there you are, you're actually even teaching this course, where did you go from there?
[00:26:25] From Law to Wild Edibles
I had a regular career working, I was actually trained as a lawyer, worked for the Mass Fishing Game Department, taking care of rivers and stuff, but in the meantime, I was teaching these wild edibles classes all over New England and upstate New York just, connecting people to the outdoors for their taste buds and teaching them, the native species, edible invasives and edible weeds and all that stuff.
Anything that you'd encounter in the landscape that was edible, mushrooms too, I would teach people.
[00:26:53] Propagating and Planting Edible Natives
And then when I retired from my day job, in June of 2015, I branched out into actually propagating and planting edible natives. In gratitude for how grateful I am that Mother Nature has been so kind to me these many decades and give me all these wonderful things to nibble on, I wanted to return the favor and help make the landscape more edible.
Okay, so then how does that look? What exactly are you doing right now? I have set up a nursery about 15 minutes from where I live where I'm propagating plants from seed and also acquiring them from other places like native plant nurseries and stuff and I'll grow them out to a certain size and then I'm partnering with cities and towns, state and federal agencies, schools and colleges, just to plant this stuff in appropriate places in the landscape.
And I've been able to do nine projects like that in the past year. Wow, that sounds terrific. And you're supplying these plants for free? You're just, it's your way of, yeah. and, so you said that they're keen. What's happening from there?
[00:27:56] Challenges and Policies in Planting
Once these plants are out in these wild areas, do you know that people actually acknowledge them and are picking them and are nibbling them? Yeah. it depends on the policies of the partner that I'm working with. for example, if it's an Audubon Society property, they usually don't want people picking stuff there. But that doesn't deter me from partnering with a group like that because if the plant is there, first of all, it's a native species, so it's going to benefit the ecology anyway, the pollinators and the wildlife and stuff like that.
And as birds love to poop out seeds, and they start growing in other locations. So a bird might visit a juneberry bush growing in an Audubon sanctuary, and then another bush will start growing in a place like, along an edge of a bike path, or a school ball field, or a vacant lot, or someplace where it is okay for people to go foraging.
So that can happen. In the meantime, they can learn about these native edibles as they see them growing in the places and then say, Hey, I'd like to have one of those in my yard, and then of course they can pick it. And we have an interesting question from Robert. I don't know where Robert is, but he says, Do you supply any of these edible foods to restaurants?
What a great idea. No. No.
[00:29:11] Concerns About Commercialization
I'm actually, a complete conscientious objector from the whole restaurant scene because I've gotten very concerned about the commodification and the monetization of wild plants when I see them become articles of commerce. And unfortunately, I've seen irresponsible activities go on in the woods, driven by people that are converting plants to cash.
Oh, interesting. I'm not involved in the restaurant. You might imagine I get calls from chefs all the time saying, tell me what you know and stuff like that. And I'm just, I just don't like to do that. And yet, I'm much more interested in connecting people to these plants directly. huh. not through an intermediary like a restaurant or a fancy produce market.
I want them to learn how to find the plants And appreciate, because that's part of the fun of foraging, is being outdoors and actually connecting to nature. not just ordering something off a fancy restaurant menu. that's interesting, and it sounds very democratic, actually.
[00:30:11] Favorite Edible Plants
we should all have access, so Give me a few, of your favorite edible plants that, that we should all know about at least if we live somewhere nearby where they grow successfully.
I'll tell you stuff. I've made up a list, which I posted online to the edible wild plants that are native to the Northeast US and Eastern Canada. So just about everything on my list would grow where you are. Oh, good to know. Okay. And, even if it doesn't occur natively where you are, you could still grow it like beach plum, for example, is one of my favorite native edibles.
Ordinarily, you're going to find it in the sand dunes right near the ocean, but as long as it grows in a sunny, drained area, it should do fine. Okay, beech plum. So that's something that you just eat fresh, you wouldn't cook with it, or? Oh, no, you can absolutely cook with it. In fact, most people do make beech plum jam with it because it's a fruit with a little bit of an edge to it, if you compare a crab apple to an apple.
So a crab apple is going to make a much nicer jelly than an apple because it's going to have a lot more character to it. the same thing would be true with a beach plum. that's a really excellent way to use it is to make jam from it. But I've, the ripe fruit is about the size of a Bing cherry.
So it's big enough that you can pit it and use it for recipes like strudel, which is one of my favorite ways to eat it. Oh, that sounds so good. We have an email from Claudette and interesting. She says, any advice on identifying edible mushrooms?
[00:31:38] Foraging for Edible Mushrooms
So when you talk about your, your wild foods is edible mushrooms part of your repertoire?
Yes, it absolutely is. I enjoy foraging for edible mushrooms and teaching people about them, but it is a much Riskier thing than plants because I can't speak This isn't a worldwide comment, but at least for our region here the vast majority of poisonous plants taste horrible So I encourage people not to eat plants that taste bad Unfortunately, that rule does not apply to mushrooms.
in fact, some of the deadliest mushrooms, there's absolutely no indication from the flavor whatsoever that there's anything to worry about. you could actually potentially kill yourself from picking the wrong kind of mushroom. Having said that, you can arrange all the mushrooms species that aren't aligned and clustered one end of those species that are virtually impossible to confuse with anything poisonous, versus those that are at the other end of the line that even the experts can't tell apart.
And as long as you stay at the safe end of the line, and you gradually work your way out as you gain experience and confidence, that's how to stay out of trouble. And just about every, oh sorry, just about every area I know of will have a local mushroom club. That will go out during mushroom season for that particular area, and that is absolutely the best way to learn, is to join the club, go on a foray with them, see the mushrooms that people find, and just start asking questions.
And that's much, better way to learn mushrooms than, from a book, for example. Yeah, that's interesting, Claudette. If you are still listening, which I'm sure you are, tell us where you live. and it's just be interesting, hopefully you do have a mushroom club near you. So basically, Russ, you wouldn't say, this is my favorite mushroom identification book.
That's not something that you're going to, suggest. I have one. it's Gary Lindkopf's book that was put out by our National Audubon Society. It's got a maroon leatherette cover. And the reason I like it is because his photos, the color photos in that book are in situ, that means you're seeing little hints from the landscape surrounding the mushroom that give you little clues about the kind of habitat the mushroom likes.
So I find that better than trying to learn mushrooms from like a line drawing, for example. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay, so we were talking that your first favorite was beach plums. Let's talk about another, wild native edible that you love. Sure.
[00:34:03] Propagating Native Plants from Seeds
let me say since you gave a hint about plants that it might be easy for people to propagate.
I looked through my list of 150, because there's more than 150 edible native species to the northeast U. S. and eastern Canada. But on, of those, I've been able to successfully propagate 18 so far. Wow. I've been at this for just about a year, so that's pretty good. And, they vary as to, how you do it, but I'll give you an example for the things.
That you throw in a fridge because there's a process you probably know of called stratification, which is basically mimicking winter is most of our native species have seeds that need to go through a winter in order to break their dormancy. Okay. And so one way to do it is just to, use your regular fridge.
I actually bought, a little like dorm style fridge in my basement where I store my seeds and you just put them in the little plastic bags. He might. Put a little moisture in their little water with a little vermiculite something like that and then they'll just They mostly just sit there, waiting for you to pull them out and sow them.
But for some species, like the beach plums that I mentioned before, and a wonderful native fruit called the Juneberry, which is also called the Shadbush and the Serviceberry, so I gathered the fruit last June, enjoyed the wonderful flavor of the fruit, saved the seeds, put them in a plastic bag, stuck them on my fridge, and then, it's a good thing to do if you do stratification with seeds is check those seeds.
every few weeks or so. And what happened with my Juneberry seeds is they sprouted inside the little plastic bag in the fridge, in the dark. In the fridge? Wow. And so when that happens, you have to sow them right away. You can't wait until, spring. You gotta put them in the dirt so they have somewhere to grow.
And so in, I've got a, solar room actually at my mother's house where I've been able to, sow them. And now they're an inch and a half tall already from seeds I just sowed, just, about three weeks ago. Wow. Okay, we'll continue.
[00:36:09] Listener Questions and Comments
I just have a message from Shelly. Hi, Susan. She's from Florida.
And let's see what she says. Orlando, Florida. And she says, Hi, Susan. Great show. Very interesting information. Thank you so much, Shelly. I love to hear from listeners. I love to hear from you guys out there. And, get your feedback, get your ideas. So thank you so much, Shelly. Okay, so we're talking about Starting these seeds.
So how cheap is that? you get your service berry, like berry, you get a berry from your service berry or June berry or whatever you call it, that beautiful tree shrub thing. You eat the berry, you spit out the seed, you put it in the fridge. And did you say you put anything else in that bag with your use?
Oh, I just mixed it with a little vermiculite, but in some cases you can just put the seed right in there.
[00:37:02] Shagbark Hickory: A Nutty Favorite
for example, shagbark hickory, which is my number one edible favorite, whether it's native, non native, invasive, it's my number one favorite edible wild plant. And, and those nuts are ripe in this area from about the middle of September through the end of October.
It's a really delicious nut. It tastes like a walnut that's been lightly sprayed with maple syrup. And in the typical season, I'm gathering thousands of these nuts. And a few years ago, I said, I like this tree so much, I should be growing it. And so I started saving a bunch of the nuts that I gathered.
so most I would eat, but some I would save. So they need to go in the stratification fridge. Very soon after you pick them because, I can't remember the, botanical term for this, but these are seeds that can't dry out because they'll lose their viability. So if you let them sit, around in the shell in your garage, for example, which is what I do with the ones that I eat, if they're there for more than a month, They lose their viability and if you planted them, nothing's ever going to happen.
all So I had these shagbar kickeries and for the most part, a few of them sprouted, but most of them dutifully sat in their little plastic bags in the stratification fridge and I sowed them in the spring and they grew. The challenging thing with the shagbar kickery is that, it invests most of its effort in growing its taproot the first year.
So what you get is you get about a 5 or 6 inch tall seedling showing above the soil, but the root is 14 inches or more long. So you need to get something called a tree pot or a very deep pot, that can accommodate all that root length. So that, this is for, of course, for a tree that you haven't already identified the final location where you want to plant it.
So if you're going to plant it in your yard, you can just do that, put the seed in your yard. You don't have to use the pot technique. But, one other important detail is, you must cover the seed with some kind of protection to prevent the squirrels and chipmunks from digging it up. Oh boy. Yeah, I bet. I use, a half inch mesh hardware cloth, which is that wire mesh.
And if it's a half inch holes, then when the seed sprouts, it can very easily grow through the mesh. And leave it on there longer than you think you, you need to. Thank you. Because. Until that nut is completely used up, the squirrels and chipmunks can still smell it and will still dig it up even after the tree has started to grow.
I'm speaking from painful experience. So anyway, so you can leave it on the first growing season if you want, and then just take some wire cutters and cut carefully around it, pull it off, and then it should be fine. Because the nuts are all used up, so there's no reason for the tree to be dug up anymore.
Now, I want to comment on shag bar kickeries, because we in Ben Nobleman Park community orchard, we have two of them there. And we're used to fruit trees which, grow at a certain pace, some faster than others. Those shag bar kickeries. are very slow growing. You have to be a patient person to actually eat the fruit off those things.
actually, so a lovely choice for a community orchard, a public orchard, because, it's not like you have to think about, will I be living there in 20 years time when there's food on that tree? I don't want to discourage people because they're beautiful trees, but yes, just a little word of warning.
No, a shagbar kikri tree is definitely an investment in the future and I have no clue whether I'll be around to eat nuts from any of the trees that I'm planting, at least the shagbarks, because they take so long. But as you probably know, this wonderful Chinese expression, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.
Yes. The second best time is now. Yes.
/ I'm glad you mentioned the low maintenance part because your previous guest, Greg, who sounds terrific, by the way, he's planting fruit trees that he has to prune.
And I hate pruning. I just hate to cut any live branches off of anything. even though I know it's good for the tree and it's good for prune protection and stuff like that, I just have the hardest time doing it psychologically. But with these native species, these are plants that Mother Nature isn't pruning except in a storm, these are plants that are able to grow pretty well on their own once they get established. So they don't need any fertilization or watering or anything, provided that you've selected the right place for them to grow. That, approximates the natural conditions of which they would occur naturally. So that's a bit of a break for me. and that's great.
And so with regards to maintenance, so you don't need to prune them, but what do you need to do with most of these plants? Can you say that, or does each one have its own needs and demands? Yeah, they do vary quite a bit. some plants are very good, at, doing quite well without any attention whatsoever.
Like wild strawberry, for example, one of my favorite plants. easy to grow from seed. You can also grow it from just separating the plants at the runners. they stick out these little stolons. And set out little satellite plants here and there and you can just once the little satellite plant is developed roots, you can just pot it up and move it to a new location to get it started.
And those are plants that will just fill in patches in, a turf area lawn area. So if you have any kind of a lawn, that's a natural lawn without any chemicals or anything. And wild strawberry would be great addition to it, as would violets, just the oleifera, the native, Blue vial is what it's called for this area.
I love, I call them alpine strawberries. I think they're like wild strawberries, are they not? We grow alpine strawberries. Yeah, and alpine strawberry I believe is a variety of Chilean strawberries. huh. So it isn't the native one. It's still a delightful one. I have that one too. Oh my goodness, is it delightful.
Because it's everbearing. they're both good. But, there is a native choice which is a delightful choice. If people feel like they want to plant native, It's a great native strawberry. Now we're talking about native. What is, what does native actually mean? Like how far away is native? good question.
And the, depending upon who you're talking to, you're going to get a variety of different responses to it. in general, you're looking for plants that would naturally occur near to where you are. but, Some people define it geographically, like the county. Some people define it by eco region, which I think is appropriate.
So for example, black walnuts. I plant black walnuts, they're all over the place around here. the botanists don't consider it to be technically native to Massachusetts, but it grows in Connecticut. And Connecticut is within our same eco region, so I consider it native to this area. Now we have an email from Mike.
He wants to know, do you have a website? he'd love to have more information, about the different types of plants you're talking about. I don't spend a lot of time in front of my computer, and so I don't have a separate URL or anything, but, if you Google Russ Cohen or type it into any search engine, you will easily find me.
And you'll find a lot of stuff about my wild edibles classes, and as I am, developing more to say about this planting edible natives. There'll be more on there about that too. Okay.
[00:44:41] Dinner Parties with Wild Edibles
We don't have that much more time, but I have to ask you, I understand that you and your wife have interesting dinner parties with wild native edibles.
Can you tell me about that? Yeah, we used to throw these parties where we'd serve three dozen different dishes all made with wild edible ingredients and have dozens of people over and stuff like that. And that's quite a production. It takes months of preparation as you're gathering everything and processing it and then making the various things and stuff.
So we've scaled that down quite a bit and we'll still do, Edible cooking for our friends, and when I do programs, I always take some sort of forage goody with me, so people get to taste how wonderful all this stuff is, because I think there's still a conception on the part of some people that, yeah, edible wild plants, that's something I should know, if all the supermarkets close, and my garden completely dies, and I'm desperate, and I have to find something to fill my belly.
Well, a lot of this stuff is really yummy, like the Juneberries that I mentioned before. they taste, like a hybrid of, almonds and cherries together. and they're really yummy. It's a fun thing to just stuff your face right by the tree. And give me a few of the recipes that are your favorite recipes that you would make, whether with June Berries or some of the others.
Oh, sure. June Berries are also good in strudel, like I use, and I'll combine June Berries and mulberries together for strudel. And for the, Shagbark Hickory, I make a Maple Hickory Nut Pie, the recipe's in my book, which is the New England equivalent of the pecan pie. And just about everybody I serve it to prefer it over pecan pie.
it's really yummy. And, there's, a lot of the weeds and invasives that I'm eating, so I'll make pie from Japanese knotweed that's very good, and I'll make an hors d'oeuvre from burdock that's very good. as I say, I'm happily eating that stuff too, but in terms of what I'm planting, I'm just planting the, The native.
one of the, species I'm planting is staghorn sumac, and I hope your listeners know that any sumac that has red berries is nothing to worry about. It's not poison sumac. Poison sumac is drooping clusters of, yellowish white berries. All the red fruited sumacs are actually edible, and the main thing you do with them is you make a lemonade like drink from them.
It's very easy. I will serve that to my programs, too. So for those of us that don't live near you, I got a question as well from one of the listeners saying, how can we get the plants from you?
[00:47:22] Encouraging Native Planting
Can we buy them and order them from you wherever we live? But I understand that it's not like you don't sell them to the public.
So what advice do you have for all of us about, exploring native plants, right? what you can find out from me is you can find out what's native and what's edible because I've got that list online and I'll make sure that you Susan have a link to it when we're done. Great. And I'll put it. Yes, that's great.
I'll put it on my web website and on our Facebook page. Yep. So people will see it there and then they can take that list to their local nursery and say, have you got anything on this list? and then if they, and also there are, I'm happy to say, an increasing number of nurseries that are specializing in native plants.
Here in the Northeast, there's at least a dozen of them, which is great. And I've been telling them to play up the edibility of a lot of the plants they have as a way of appealing to their customers, to encourage them to plant native, because although the main reason to plant native is ecological, and it's a very good reason, I think the you can eat it too factor is a really powerful motivating factor that will get And I think that's a really good thing.
a larger constituency for these plants to put them in their yard. I guess that our planet would be a lot healthier if more of us were really more conscious about planting native plants edible and not edible. Is that your opinion? Oh, sure. I think we should definitely go that route. It's just, as I like to say, you can have your acorn cake and eat it too.
Ha That sounds amazing. I'd love some acorn cake right now. Oh, Russ, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I feel like we could continue this conversation at some point. Hopefully we will. So for coming on the show today. You're most welcome. Okay. Goodbye for now. Bye.
[00:49:15] Conclusion and Farewell
That was Russ Cohen from Arlington, Massachusetts, and you can Google his name to find out some, find some more resources.
I'll also get his list and I'll put it on orchardpeople. com and on Orchard People's Facebook page, so you'll get access to it there. the Urban Forestry Radio Show is almost over, but before we wrap up, I would so like to thank my two special guests, Greg Peterson of UrbanFarm. org from Phoenix, Arizona, and wild food enthusiast Russ Cohen from Arlington, Massachusetts.