The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Planting trees

Soak tree

Taking a tree out of its potI needed some good visuals for my tree-planting chapter of Weekend Homesteader.  Oh, how sad, I had to order a few more fruit trees!  (Don't throw me in that briar patch!)

We settled on two Asian Persimmons (Ichi-Ki-Kei-Jeiro and Saijo) that are supposed to be hardy enough to withstand our winters, along with a Starking Delicious Pear.  All are now installed in current or future chicken pasture areas.  The persimmons are diminutive enough that they could fit in our smaller pastures while the pear is (hopefully) willing to deal with somewhat waterlogged, heavy clay down in the floodplain.  The long term goal is to give the chickens some protective cover while producing late season fruit that they and we will share.

I love planting experimental trees more than (almost) anything, but I do have a tough time watching the ones that die.  Last year's hardy almonds were a failed experiment --- I thought they might have trouble fruiting because of being at the edge of their hardiness Chestnut seedlingrange, but what they had trouble with was being eaten alive by Japanese beetles.  I also lost one Carpathian Walnut because of planting it in the woods and forgetting about it (although I'm happy to report that its sister tree and the transplanted Chinese chestnut in the same area survived my neglect.)  But all of the rest of last year's perennials are thriving and I figure losing two trees out of eleven isn't terrible when so few of the varieties are tried and true.  (One of the almonds is clinging to life for another year.)

Let's hope 2015 is the year of the persimmon and pear!

Our chicken waterer keeps the flock well-hydrated so they survive my tendency to neglect watering tasks.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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I didn't like hearing that you had issues with your almond trees. I was planning on getting some of the Hall's hardy almonds to try. Do you know if these are the sweet variety? This is the only hardy almond that comes up in my searches. Do you happen to have a link to more info about hardy almonds?
Comment by Fritz Wed Nov 16 08:25:44 2011
If you follow the link in the post, you'll see what I dug up when I was researching hardy almonds last year. I decided against Hall's Hardy, but can't quite remember why. The varieties I selected instead were from Burnt Ridge Nursery, which has a great selection of fascinating fruit and nut trees. (I got a Dwarf Korean Nut Pine from them at the same time and it's doing very well.)
Comment by anna Wed Nov 16 09:49:16 2011
We just got a delivery this morning from Stark Brothers. I'm looking forward to getting our new trees in the ground.
Comment by Brian Wed Nov 16 13:00:07 2011
Just realized I missed your comment --- ooops! Ours came from Starks Brothers too --- probably why they arrived at the same time.
Comment by anna Fri Nov 18 11:40:32 2011





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