"This is a no-shitter."
"There I was, 150 feet above the VC and taking hits from Mosins and AK fire. The engine was red-lined. I was skosh on fuel and ammo, 350 klicks from base, trailing smoke and three SAMS looking to BOHICA my exhaust pipe. I was hung-over and had to take a leak. I knew there was no way my streak of good luck was going to hold..." -Mandatory start to a good story
The Aisle of Misfit Toys
I have on several occasions been assigned to groups or functions that disparagingly described ourselves as "The Aisle of Misfit Toys".
I must be totally weird. I enjoyed those assignments.
The phrase comes to mind today as I started populating the 10 foot wide "hedgerow" on the east side of my pasture. My motivation is three-fold. First, I don't want people on the road approaching from the east to see any livestock I might be grazing. The second purpose is to have a back-up in case the electric fence fails...a hedgerow in the European sense. The final reason is that I can plant food-producing plants in that space.
Ideally, the plants will be thorny and thicket-forming or tip-rooting and produce fruit or nuts. From a practical standpoint, the plants that end up in the space will be whatever I can scrounge up and I have a boat-load of volunteers.
The hazelnuts I had so carefully harvested and stratified were all found by rodents and consumed. I have a few suckers that I can move.
The peach-pits were untouched. I planted about fifty of them last night.
I harvested two kinds of plum-pits but was only able to find the less desirable ones this spring. The good news is that Prunus nigra is fully hardy to -35F, is thorny and suckers. It is a pity that the fruit quality is lacking but I know how to graft.
I have about 80 pounds of GoldRush apples that I harvested last fall but never used.. I need to dump them somewhere. It will be in the hedgerow. The presumed pollen parent is G-41, an rootstock that is very dwarfing. A few of the seedlings are likely to be very interesting. It is not a cross that any sane fruit-breeder would make.
I have a multitude of odd-and-ends that I will be moving to this 330' long by 10' wide strip. I enjoy this kind of work.
A hedgerow is a very attractive idea to me . How long does the average fence last ? 20 years around here is a good long lasting fence. A hedgerow can last for a thousand years if tended . Also you provide food for your family , and critters wild and domestic .
ReplyDeleteGooseberries are evilly spiny bushes. I would really not want to push through a thicket of those.
ReplyDeleteI've lived where blackberries are common; depending on the type and surrounding vegetation they can get 6 to 8 ft tall and be tough to penetrate.
ReplyDeleteBlackberry brambles can be formidable. I saw a farm that had a 100 yard row corralled with fence wire and ratchet straps. Looked interesting. On my list for this Spring....
ReplyDeleteThe general trend in breeding is toward thornless blackberries. Kiowa does have thorns and I ordered a couple of plants to throw them into the mix.
DeleteThere are some that grow here wild that are a huge PIA. Very tiny berries, too. My neighbor has a place up in the Clinch mountains where an old Verizon CEO tried to develop a neighborhood. Project got abandoned, but the roads were cut and gravelled. Blackberries grow by the mile up there, as big as your thumb! Plan on acquiring a few bushes when we go picking this Summer.
DeleteKiowa is a thorny devil, but Lordy! The berries are huge! I can pick a gallon pail of Kiowa berries in about 10 minutes. It'd take hours to get that many from local wild blackberries.
ReplyDeleteI hope you intend to finish the story you started.
ReplyDelete...and that is why you never, EVER want to annoy a veteran with a hangover.
DeleteA couple of interesting videos from YouTube.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn9M0ILmXKk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am8z-mzjytU
Have fun and good luck.
Thank-you for the links.
DeleteAvailability of labor is a factor in many of these skills. As a retired guy, my time is free (to me).
North America is much richer in species than the British Isles. We also have more plant diseases. Some of the challenge is to find edge species that respond well to management. One example is that there are no grape species that are native to Britain but many North American species and countless hybrids. Vines are awesome for tying hedgerows together.
I am a big-tent guy. Plant many candidates and let God, Darwin, soil, climate and my brown-thumb sort them out. Seeds are cheap.
Your welcome. I used to own an acre out in the country before my health deteriorated along with my marriage. So I really enjoy your posts. I was always amazed at how much food I could produced on just 1 measly acre.
DeleteShielding your pasture from view is a wise decision. I had two great uncles tell me about having cattle stolen during the Depression. Several from the pasture and two out of the barn. Quincy Mining Co. here in Hancock had a pasture they set aside for their employees to keep their milk cows in and they had problems with theft there also during those times. I doubt if it will be any better this time around. ---ken
ReplyDeleteDuring the Depression, poor people used to make fences out of Bois D'arc trees (AKA Osage Orange or Horseapple). The wood is very high-density, and will quickly dull a chainsaw. But fencepost often sprout, take root, and become new trees. So the poor folks would cut switches of Bois D'arc, plant one end, bend it over and plant the other, too. Then stagger successive hoops so they interlocked. It took time, but it made an impenetrable hedge, even kept hogs in. You probably don't have them that far north, but what about black locust?
ReplyDeleteAbout that 80 lbs.
ReplyDeleteSince you are retired, quit writing a daily installment on short stories, don't have any chores, etc.
Why didn't you dehydrate?
Make cider?
I love my dehydrater, and the resulting product.
Given that ERJ stated one purpose of the hedgerow is to block prying eyes, I do not understand the selection of flavorable berry brambles.
ReplyDeleteBerries attract the passerby. 'Ooh look, berries. Stop the car.' They hear a moo. Then what?
The devil is in the details.
DeleteMy property straddles the crest of a long hill. Call it a finger of elevated land.
As you approach my property from the east you can only get a really good look at it from near the top of the next finger east which is about 400 yards away. Plenty close enough to see cows. Not close enough to notice blackberries.
Even if they slowed to a crawl and rifle-sighted down the property line, that pasture is about 250 feet from the road so the closest part of the hedge would be pretty far from the road.
Bright reds and oranges and clear yellow are more visible than black and blues and mahogany and translucent reds that are not back-lit.
Great question.