[Image description: the white flowers and pale leaves of sea kale contrast nicely with the pink, white and green of the dappled willow's foliage]

At least, I think they do

archived (Wayback Machine)

I could have told them that. Who did they think pollinated the durian flowers?

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22446624

Have you ever had an especially rewarding, adventurous, dangerous, or really stupid experience of harvesting/foraging fruit?

I tend to live a sheltered life, so I don't have anything too exciting to share. I've harvested bananas with a hornets' nest on the underside of a leaf multiple times, but nothing unusual ever happened. I've gone wading through the swamp looking for aguaje, but the anacondas had already been hunted to extinction in that area. I've stood under a fruiting durian tree without a helmet, but it seems that durians don't just fall from the sky when I'm hungry.

Does anyone have an exciting or uplifting story to share?

Share your garden progress, challenges, and/or successes! What's growing on with you all?

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/27601391

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/27601124

I have Ostrich fern on the front of my house that I have been waiting years to try. I keep missing the window when they are ready so I was overjoyed when I saw my fiddlehead popping up. I chopped 9, steamed with in a pan with a little butter for 5 minutes. I plated them with just a sprinkle of flaky salt and had them for lunch today.

They were great and tasted a little like asparagus but with a more savory, earthly flavor. They were amazing and totally worth the wait. I might check tomorrow to see if I can sustainability grab a few more to have them again.

10/10 would forage again.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21789538

Not necessarily your favourite fruit to eat, but what is/are your favourite fruit tree(s) to grow based on survival rate, fruit yield, ease of maintenance, ease of harvest, grass-killing prowess, and any other combination of factors? What is/are your least favourite? If you have photos or diagrams to illustrate your point, even better!

(If you provide your region and/or Köppen-Geiger or Trewartha climate zone, it will help others to know what to plant or what to avoid!)

While it's not an exhaustive list, I thought this might be handy for any folks looking to ID mystery fruit trees in their area. If you've got additional resources like this but for less common fruits, please share!

Our state inspection was this morning (we passed!) and we're in full plant splitting mode. Today is catnip, irises, and a few more purple flowering raspberries that have begun sprouting from around the bases of our mature plants. Yesterday I gave Juniper the task of separating the yarrow cuttings from the mother plant, and she seemed to really enjoy it.

What's growing on with you all?

Hello,

I recently bought two small bamboo plants and put them in two pots on my balcony. They're both doing well and have grown several new stalks that are already growing a lot. But I noticed that the existing stalks were not growing at all, and today I found out why: a lot of them are missing their tips.

To my understanding this means those stalks won't grow anymore. Should I cut the "broken" stalks off to make room for new ones? I'm worried that the plant won't have enough leaves to do photosynthesis, because I would have to cut away quite a bunch.

As to why the plants are missing the tips: I don't know. I assume the store I got them from did it to prevent them from outgrowing the tiny pots they came in

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21477992

What did you harvest recently? Post photos if you like, and brag about what you grew or foraged.

Earlier this week I went to start veggies and flowers for the library's community garden

What's growing on with you all?

My bird loves a good cucumber, one that has a really goopy center. The problem I'm having is the store bought cucumbers in my area are pathetic even when they are in season. They consist of mostly the white firm flesh with very little goop or seed in the center. Additionally, at 22yo, My friend is running out of summers and I always promised him we would try to grow a good cucumber one day.

I'm not exactly a gardener but this seems easy enough. My grandfather gardened and I remember him going out of his way to get certain breeds of seeds to get the precise genes he wanted. I'm trying to do that with cucumbers, and I'm looking for that goop.

Any cucumber enthusiasts able to recommend a brand? Planting and growing tips are welcome as well, but I'm not trying to turn this into a large project either.

I'm in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I have several areas to plant for adjusting sunlight duration. Soil is poor and a bit swampy. I could probably use a container. Unsure what's best yet.

With some warm weather in the Pacific Northwest, my garden finally picked up and started producing! I was able to get some good greens for a soup and salad, along with the first bunches of herbs! Pictured in the basket:

• Russian Kale
• Chard
• Oak fire mustard greens
• Red leaf lettuce
• Mesclun mix
• Little gem lettuce
• Wild Arugula
• Mizuna
• Parsley, Oregano, Sage, and Thyme

They were delicious! What sort of greens are you harvesting?

Our desire to preserve is strongly linked to a narrative of loss, both for biodiversity writ large and for rare heirloom seeds. But we recognize the need for biodiversity and destroy it in the same breath. What if we protected the Amazon instead of just the genetics within it? What if we supported small-scale diversified agriculture instead of industrialized monoculture?

Seed preservation has a place, but it’s not the thing that will save us. Heirloom seed keepers attempt to preserve the past, while plant breeders control genetic resources to commodify the seed. Neither camp is particularly focused on how to expand biodiversity into the future, as if biodiversity and seed varieties are fixed and finite things.

Compounding this problem is the climate crisis, which is dramatically affecting our ability to grow food. Diversity is a core component of resilience, so we need rapid, ongoing and diverse adaptation of our regional food systems – everywhere, all the time. If we’ve been preserving all these seeds for some imagined future need, then the need is now. Arguably, it’s already too late.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20601298

A seemingly-undocumented Artocarpus with unique leaves and somewhat sour fruits. Superior to Artocarpus elasticus. Fruits ripen at the same time as Artocarpus lanceifolius, which overlaps the end of the season for Artocarpus odoratissimus.

Photographed at Jim West's place in Guaycuyacu (Ecuador).

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20552909

The fruit is edible, but there's not much food on it, so probably not worth planting outside of its native range.

Frosty blanket of white this morning.