This is the fourth such experiment in long term deep soil modification using a simple system of trenches or pits. For now I'm using the term catch pit. The basic concept is a hole where you toss in stuff that builds soil and feeds plants, backfilling with charcoal and dirt as you go. It's cool. Everyone should do it so we can find out how well it works. I think default thinking these days is to let someone else prove things first, but I think that is backwards and everyone's context is different anyway. I'm not just interested in how the finished soil performs, but how it ends up fitting into people's lives. To me that part is just as interesting. A society that feels an obligation not to waste soil nutrients and to build soil for the future is the one I'd like to live in, so that's what I'm doing. I don't really know about the state of the rest of the world, but I think America would benefit from picking up a shovel more often and investing in an uncertain future.
Axe Strops Project #4, Unhairing the Deer Skin, (Cordwood Challenge)
Moving along with Part 4 of making axe strops from scratch for the cordwood challenge. As some will remember, two of the hides for the project were stolen by a bear or bears. The remaining hide is now ready to flesh and begin the deliming process. In this video I finish scraping over the skin to remove as much hair as possible and then re-flesh it. Next it is rinsed and scraped alternately to remove all of the lime and return the skin to it's normal flaccid state before tanning. Also below is my original video on unhairing skins for tanning.
Saffron, Growing the Most Expensive Spice at Home
Todays video is on saffron. Saffron is expensive! a quick look on Amazon shows the lowest price around $5.25 a gram, which is approaching $2400.00 a pound. Um, yeah, right? Fortunately it packs quite a punch flavor wise and not only does a thread of saffron contain a lot of flavor, but it is essential that you don't use too much of it or it's rather odd and dusty flavor can unbalance a dish. So we can be thankful for that serendipity. Anyway, $2400.00 a pound and up, what's up with that? I'll tell you what's up with that from personal experience. Saffron is expensive for two reasons. Not a lot is produced per acre and more importantly, there are no saffron processing machines. Each flower produces only three threads of saffron, which are the red female flower parts that receive pollen (or at least they used to, now the plant is sterile). Every flower has to be plucked out of the ground, which is slower than you might think because they are buried in a brush of tough leaves, Then someone has to pick that flower up and nimbly extract the three delicate red threads without pulling out too much of it's lower white part which has no flavor, and without any other unwanted stuff like bits of petal or the male pollen bearing parts. If the worker is to neither starve nor be fired post haste, this must be done rapidly and preferably by plucking all three threads at once, not breaking them off short or pulling off one or two at a time.
Every year thousands of mostly young and lazy people flood the region I call home to engage in the harvest of cannabis. One of the more time consuming jobs employing thousands is trimming the buds to remove the larger leafy parts. Of course there are no statistics for a black market industry, but thousands flock here for this relatively high paying job. It is tedious work, just like saffron plucking, but the pay is vastly better. If saffron were illegal, people would flock to saffron growing regions to pluck saffron and leave with enough to live on for 6 months or more. Alas, saffron production is an entirely legitimate business and if you go to follow the saffron harvest, I think you'd better save up for a while first and bring extra money with you for your saffron processing vacation! I had some illusions of possibly growing the stuff for side income. Well, let me tell you, those notions came to a screeching halt when I weighed an hours yield of saffron plucking not even including growing and harvest. I'm going to try again someday when I'm better at it, but at this point is looks like it's the kind of work that the first world always shuffles off onto some place where people have fewer choices for employment. I can tell you, if you pay 2400.00 a pound for saffron, someone is getting royally screwed in that transaction and it ain't you! You're certainly getting a bargain.
But hey, money isn't everything and I'm about the biggest fan around of divorcing ourselves from the everything-has-a-price-tag, time-is-money, market value mindset. I've spent a lifetime unlearning that way of thinking in order to pursue the kind of knowledge that I'm after. If I stopped to value the stuff I do all the time, I would do very little of it. That means I am poorly adapted to the modern paradigm and really have low survivability in the current default society, but that's okay with me. There are things more important than money or survival. Look buddy, when the local economy collapses because of the legalization of marijuana I'll at least have saffron aplenty for my mixed rodents with gourmet mushrooms and acorn sauce as I slowly starve to death up here in the hills defending the last of my carrot crop from wandering bands of starving out of work pot growers. Nope, the saffron industry will never replace the pot industry in the emerald triangle but, thanks to it's inherent potency, growing enough saffron for your own yearly supply is very easy and not even that time consuming! I enjoy plucking those precious little red threads out, at least to a point, and processing the flowers from a bed 4x6 even at the peak of the season is basically the amount of time it takes to watch a tv show or part of a movie. I would present for your consideration the idea that kind of busy work is good for the soul.
Saffron is easy to grow here. I just plant the bulbs and maybe weed them and that's it. I did get two different batches of bulbs and so far one batch is far out performing the other, so that is something to think about. There are different strains, no doubt due to epigenetics or to random mutations over time since the plants do not produce seed but are grown solely by dividing the underground parts and planting them. While the bulbs are rather pricey, it might be worthwhile to pay extra for a proven producing strain if you can find a seller you have that kind of confidence in, like a producer that sells bulbs on the side to subsidize saffron thread production.
The worst problem I've had is that rodents seem to love them. I had to plant them in a wire lined bed to keep gophers out, which has worked well for a few years now. I've also made a lot of naturalized plantings, but they have done poorly so far. I had hoped I could just scatter the bulbs all over the hills and wander around plucking them with the theme song to The Sound of Music playing through my head, but it is looking like they are not well enough adapted to this climate or soil. I haven't given up yet, but it's not looking good. I'm not sure where all you can get away with growing the stuff, but you can look into that on your own. It seems to grow well in my mild Mediterranean climate.
The flowers bloom in the fall and are harvested daily or up to every other day as they emerge and processed immediately. Dry the threads quickly, but out of the sun and store in a dark jar. It is an oddly flavored but delicious spice and I'm finding more and more uses for it. Yesterday morning I made browned chanterelle mushrooms in a butter and caramelized maple syrup sauce with saffron, vanilla and candy cap mushrooms. Was it good? Do you have to ask? Omg, it was so good.
Well, that's it. Watch my short and very pretty video, because it's cool and I worked hard on it. And share it with someone you love so I can get more views and buy axes! I don't actually really want any more axes, (though I probably want different axes). I just want to test them all. I'm only interested in having a pile of axes to the extent that it serves the purpose of learning me all about them. Once I determine an axe or other tool is dead weight, just like an apple variety or saffron strain that doesn't perform, It's getting the axe so to speak. Skills and knowledge over gear. I have too many possessions already due to my not-so-simple living. I also don't need more saffron than I can process, or tons of saffron that I have to care for, but can only process for 3.00 an hour. Okay, maybe with the right marketing, selling local organic saffron to fancy by area restaurants maybe I could hit the point where saffron production is at least equivalent to very low paying job like working at walmart. Or, maybe I'm wrong and I'll get super fast and crack the saffron code to make it a potentially viable business. I think saffron will remain a labor of love though. Anyway, I was saying that I don't need tons of saffron plants, so I can sell the extra corms to other would be saffron growers, which is honestly probably much more lucrative than saffron production. Once I dispose of the poor producing strain and expand the good producing strain, I'll probably have bulbs for sale in my little SkillCult e-store or on ebay. Until then, I think you'll see saffron cropping up in a recipe here and there.
Note that there is no advertising on this site, nor am I constantly pushing you to buy products, but only occasionally link products that I can pretty much get behind with little or no qualification. That is no accident. I feel that having advertising everywhere is contrary to my goal of convincing people to learn and do more for themselves and consume less. The medium is the message as they say. However, when you do need to buy stuff, you can help me succeed at my endeavors by bookmarking this link ( http://amzn.to/1Ne861e )in your browser bar and using it whenever you shop on Amazon.com. It costs you nothing, but it has the potential to help me a lot if enough people do it. If you don't know how it works yet, that link contains an ID that credits me a small commission around 4% to 6% on anything you buy through it. That's why most sites are covered in links and ads pushing you toward Amazon or other affiliate programs. I really don't want to do that, and I don't think you want me to either. And a huge thanks to those of you who already use that link, it does make a difference!
Tasting a Couple of New Seedling Apples with Mark Albert
While at Mark's Albert's house shooting the pineapple guava video, we sat down and tasted a couple of my new seedling apples, one of which has red flesh. I'm a little more positive about the red fleshed apple now than I was at the time. It developed a bit more sugar after spending a little more time in the fridge. It's not going to be an outstanding desert apple, but I would think now there's a chance it will outperform Grenadine. It looks better I think. It's a very attractive apple. The flavor is quite nice. After that we tasted some varietal grapes and Glenora grape juice and chatted about grapes a bit.
Pineapple Guava Tour with Collector, Breeder Mark Albert
I visited with my good friend Mark Albert a long time collector and unintentional breeder of Feijoa, also known as Pineapple Guava. Mark is a dyed in the wool fruit explorer and has dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge in the realms of home gardening and orcharding. More importantly he's driven to share that information (as well as genetic material) forward through the local group, Mendocino Permaculture which puts on the local scion exchange , writing, teaching and personal correspondence all of which no doubt cost him a great deal let alone not resulting in any personal gain. We had a discussion while I was there about that drive to share information which we both share. The idea that someone would earn that kind of hard won knowledge and not share it would probably leave us slack jawed and shaking our heads in bewilderment. If that kind of thing isn't used to help us all progress then what's the point? I hope to do some more video visits with him in the future and get some of his wisdom and opinions out to you guys.
After about 40 years of growing and testing Feijoa, he has some new seedling varieties which have risen to the top. I've confirmed that at his tasting where I unknowingly picked the same favorite he did. They are smaller fruits, but quality over quantity if it comes down to that. Down the page you'll find his recommendations for a early, mid and late feijoa. After this visit I'm planning to put in three to cover the season. I have a smattering of them already placed here and there, but I think it's time to put in a row of better placed, and better cared for, bushes. The plant is very tough and drought resistant once established and it looks good. All around a good one for establishing on the homestead or home landscape if you have the climate for it.
VARIETY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM MARK ALBERT
At the 40 year mark of testing, the list has gotten pretty simple for the north.
The north means our Mendoterranean climate zone, or anywhere north of the bay, where the cooler climate zone will likely not allow the latest-season southern cultivars to ripen to perfection before our cold temperatures stop the ripening or freeze the hanging fruit. This list has a definite bias toward the home grower, with no commercial goal in mind, and quality of fruit comes before size.
The proven cultivars at this point are:
Early season (October): Albert’s Pride or Albert’s Joy
Middle season (November) : Moore
Late Season (December): Albert’s Supreme
Because these cultivars have been selected in the north, they will also work in the southern California when they are not ruined by the Santa Ana winds, the hot, dry wind from the east that can cook the ripening fruit in the fall. It does not work the other way: good southern cultivars may not ripen in the north.
This is an ongoing experiment, and we are now testing the latest New Zealand cultivars which have recently made their way to the U.S. These are likely to be very good, because they newest cultivars were selected by New Zealand feijoa lovers with a more educated pallet, not by paid academicians, as in the past.
Also the biological time factor is that feijoa is a very new fruit, only selected out of the wild in the last 130 years or so from South America. When we look back at the old cultivar names, that’s only 5-6 generations of development. So it makes sense that each generation is higher quality because they are crosses of the best of the previous generation of cultivars. This is how all fruit is improved. The previous 2 waves of New Zealand cultivars were commercial selections and were a bust in California.
So these recommendations may change in the next 5-10 years.
In Abundance,
Mark
Foraging for Gourmet Wild Mushrooms, coccora, porcini, oysters, puffballs
I've been putting up large quantities of dried and frozen wild mushrooms for a few days. These are some of the mushrooms I grow and a few other things I ran into running around in the woods having a good ol' time. Right now the good stuff that's out are lions mane, coccora, porcini and a few oysters. Also some puffballs, which I'm very fond of, especially browned in a skillet. Be careful out there if you decide to take up mushrooming. I highly recommend it, but it takes a while to get comfortable with identifying and eating stuff when there are always the possibility of eating something that will make you sick or kill you. What I do is mostly eat what I already know. This is a staple subsistence activity for me. I ignore lots of mushrooms I don't know and get on with finding what I do know and have already proven safe. If you live on the west coast I can pretty much recommend David Arora's books without hesitation. I use his small book All The Rain Promises a lot, but also own the large one, Mushrooms Demystified and use it quite a bit. I don't think I even own any others anymore. Once I got those two, I got rid of the rest. http://amzn.to/2fTRxzP
Tasting 17 Apples in November and Looking at New Seedling Apples
I went out and picked what apples were available to taste this past week. There were a few good'ns in there. More exciting is a couple of my seedlings that are looking rather nice. You can tell some things about an apple by just feeling it and looking at it. A couple just look like they are going to be hard dry fleshed and bitter. The one I taste in this video obviously looks more like something you'd expect to be eating. The most exciting though is a very red and beautiful apple which colored up amazingly even in nearly complete shade covered with stocking material to protect it from birds. Typically fruit colors up better with light. It is a cross between Grenadine and Lady Williams. Both are late apples and this may be a very late apple, though I'm inclined to think it is approaching ripeness fairly soon.
You can't judge an apple by it's cover. We certainly learned that from the red delicious era when strains of it were selected for better and better looking apples with worse and worse flavor and texture. But I'm hopeful for something tasty out of this with red flesh. The odds are against it of course. Most of my apple seedlings will be between mediocre, such as the one I taste in this video, and just plain bad. But even with the primitive, unrefined apples carrying undesirable characteristics that I'm using in many of my crosses, more will be edible than not and I'm expecting at least a smattering of apples worthy of further propagation by someone. This apple bears so much resemblance to Grenadine, that I'm hoping it has inherited it's beautiful and flavorful red flesh. Check it out.
There is more than a passing resemblance between this seedling and it's seed parent grenadine.
The thing is that the red skin of grenadine is actually from the color of the flesh showing through the translucent skin. My hope beyond hope is that this is the case with the seedling. It seems unlikely though. We'll find out soon enough.
In the video I taste wickson, amberoso, crabby lady, king wickson, muscat de venus, something that may be katherine, something that may be ashmead's kernel, bedford pippin,high cross pippin, claygate pearmain, one of my seedlings, pink parfait, gold rush and others.
Of Sharp Tools and Dummy Rules, A Safety Framework and 1/2 Hour Video Just Talking About an Axe Handle
Here is something I recorded regarding safety when using sharp tools. I hope it conveys my basic approach and philosophy regarding the subject. I'm much more about a general approach and philosophy adopted as a framework in which to approach work than I am about sets of rules. Most rules that are stated as absolutes need all kinds of qualification that they don't always get. Not only is that ineffective when engaging in real world work, it can be dangerous. What I like to call dummy or boy scout rules are generally stated in absolutes like never and always. That discourages intelligent engagement with the work at hand and defers your safety to an authoritative statement or entity. The idea seems to be that if you just do this one thing, you will be safe. If you're doing real work in the real world, you'll find that most of those rules will be broken, and some frequently, in order to carry out work at all or to do work more practically or more efficiently. It would be more constructive to state these as guidelines and be realistic about the risks involved and strategies one can employ to ameliorate risk when doing things that are dangerous, or when using sharp tools in the grey area that exist between the very safest ways to do things and the most effective. The usual black and white approach can lead, I believe, to unsafe work approaches when trying to bend your self and your work to static and overstated rules which experienced craftsmen and workers may not actually follow. In the future I'll get more specific on knife and axe safety, but this is actually some of the more important part to me.
Also, I forgot to post this video on the husqvarna axe handle. It covers various points regarding the handle and planned modifications and as a matter of course addresses some stuff about axe handles in general.
Starting the Husqvarna Forest Axe Project, Intro and Testing the Stock Axe
This is the beginning of a look at the Husqvarna 26” Multipurpose Forest Axe. After seeing my unflattering review of their hatchet you might expect me to be frothing at the mouth about this one, but I actually think it has potential or I wouldn't have bought it. The video is a short intro with a lot of chopping. I kept falling asleep while trying to edit it because the repetitive chopping is somehow very soothing. This is a class of axe that is light enough to pack, but as the name implies is good for a lot of different stuff. I like this class of axe for running around the woods here or doing a little limbing. The Gransfors Bruks Forest Axe is the most famous example, which I own. Having put that axe through a lot of firewood last year just to see what can really reasonably be done with it, I can say that these light short axes can do some real work! They are probably not the best at anything. It’s compromises all around. I would not really recommend this as a firewood axe to most people. it is too light and it would be better if it were longer.. However, if someone interested in a packable axe and improving their skill at using one, I think it would be an excellent exercise to get one of these and cut a quantity of firewood with it. It is also probably an easy axe to learn to chop on. Although a somewhat longer handle could be safer, the shorter handle should be more accurate.
I’ve had the gransfors for a very long time and thanks to the outstanding quality of the handle wood and my hard won skill at not breaking axe handles all the time, it has survived the years and seen a lot of use. I like the design, but it’s a tad short at 25 inches, which is my short limit for a truly effective and comfortable axe at my height (5’ 10”). The workmanship on the head is terrible though. The bit is extremely crooked. So if the Husqvarna works out, which I think it will, the Gransfors will go on the auction block. I’m not interested in these things hanging about gathering dust.
Coming up in this project, we’ll talk about the axe, buying it and what I do and don’t like and then start modifying it. Some stuff I know what I want and other stuff will be experimental. during and after, we’ll test it at various uses to see how it performs.
One Year Shelf Stable Apple Butter Update, Still Going Strong
It's been nearly a year since I made my first batch of old fashioned shelf stable apple butter. Today's video is an update on that project. It spent the year in my trailer here with wildly fluctuating temperatures. Many days were over 100 this summer and many more than that in the 90's. There is no sign of spoilage and it still tastes delicious. All the links to previous posts and videos concerning apple butter are listed below. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of apples on my trees this year and have not been able to get any to make a larer batch. It's an excellent product and not particularly difficult. I hope you give it a try if you have access to apples.
Axe Strops From Scratch Part 3, Preparing Wood and Seasoning
Part 3 in which I prepare some green wood to season as slabs and billets for making the paddles.
BITE ME! revisited, Checking in With My First Seedling Apple and a Few Others
I only had a few specimens of my seedling apple this year. The first couple were unripe, but the last one seemed better than any I had last year. That is not surprising since fruits either grafted or from seed can take a few years to start bearing exemplary fruit. BITE ME! is from an open pollinated Wickson seed, which means that I don't know whos spread powdery pollen was spread over Wickson's sticky stigma. This year BITE ME! seems to have more of the Wickson flavor that motivated me to use wickson as a parent in breeding. That flavor and the high sugar content (up to 25%) have encouraged me to make a lot of intentional Wickson crosses with other apples. It's encouraging that the flavor came through in the this case, although the sugar content of BITE ME! seems average. I will definitely be sending out scions of bite me to whomever wants to try it. It has potential and I'd like to see what others think of it in the long run and how it does in other regions. I will probably start selling scions in the webstore here about FEB 1st. That is the plan at this point.
Also in this video we taste a few other apples, one that is probably Northern Spy, Zabergau Reinette, Vanilla Pippin and Suntan.
Dealing With Meat Under Varied Conditions, Heat, Aging, Spoilage Prevention
I filled my second deer tag recently and had a carcass to deal with just on the very evening that we entered into a heat wave in late September, with warm nights on top of it. Fortunatley, I have dealt with this sort of thing enough to know not to panic. My deer is all in the freezer now and I've been chowing down on delectable venison for days and will be for months to come. Last night I was chowing down on raw venison that had hung through a warm night with no chilling right after being killed and then through most of a day that reached 103 in the shade, delicious!
For anyone of a homesteady mentality that will be planning to raise and slaughter animals, or who hunts much could probably be helped by this information. It takes time to build confidence doing this sort of thing and to begin understanding boundaries, but it's great knowledge to have. Everyone used to know this exact type of stuff, because that is what everyone needed to know. people used to get fresh meat from the butcher and needed to keep it without refrigeration or know how long they had to use it all up before it went bad. I was looking through a cookbook recently from way back and it had a section on judging meat at the butchers to suss out how fresh it was. Important skill to have at the time and also now if you choose to put yourself in positions where you need to make due under varied conditions. I have more to say about this whole subject and things I'd like to expand on or that got missed in the video, but I have to go get ready for rain this weekend. This video will have to do for now. It's not a how to kind of thing as much as an expansion of what are probably most people's perceived boundaries regarding this subject. It is certainly micro-niche information, but very important when you need it.
I also tagged in some neat footage at the end of a couple of yearling bucks play fighting near my house. Very lucky to have the chance to capture that!
Of Tan Oak Leaves and Rural Myths, Will They Poison Your Garden?
Here is a look at my first fruit from an intentionally cross pollinated apple seedling!
Now onto today's business. I've been told for years that you can't use tan oak leaves on a garden because they are toxic. I've used tons of them for over 10 years without observing any related problems. This video is about that assertion and the odd tendency for people to latch onto and propagate negative information.
Sweet Subversion, The First Fruit From My Cross Pollinated Apple Seedlings Finally Arrives!
Somewhere back over five years ago I began to cross pollinate apples with the goal to breed new varieties. This year 12 seedlings out of about 120 bloomed, some of those grew apples, and I now begin tasting the fruits of my labors. In the video below, I taste what appears to be the earliest ripening of those fruiting this year and am looking forward to tasting a few more as the season progresses, though the set is sparse, the growing conditions harsh, and many of the fruits look pretty stunted and tortured.
This particular apple goes now by it’s tag name GN x GRT 11/12, which means, A Grenadine blossom was pollinated with Golden Russet pollen in 2011. 12 is a random identifier, but it is the important number that distinguishes this apple from the other seventeen GN x GRT crosses I made in 2011. Grenadine is a red fleshed apple with fruit punch and berry type flavors and the Golden ‘Russet is a super sweet, complexly flavored gem of an old American apple. If one apple was the top inspiration to collect and work with apples in the first place it was Golden Russet.
The Venerable Golden Russet possesses remarkable depth of character and should be grown more.
The new, wild, untammed and Gaudy Grenadine. The red color of the skin is actually the red flesh showing through it's yellow translucence.
This offspring of those very different, but both very interesting, parents is yellow, smooth, takes a high polish and has a strong aroma, even though it was picked under ripe. The texture is crisp now, but a damaged one that I ate a couple of weeks ago had a rubbery texture, which if I recall correctly is a trait of the Golden Russet. The rubbery texture that some russets acquire as they age and shrivel is far preferable to the mealy texture of most over ripening apples. This new apple is very sweet, and I’m sure the sugar would rise further if it were allowed to ripen more. Golden Russet has very high sugar levels, allegedly up to 20% and even more, while grenadine is lacking in the sugar department. GN x GRT 11/12 has an angularity to it, like grenadine, but not nearly as pronounced as Grenadines “roman nose” ridge. Though perfectly edible, it is fairly astringent like Grenadine, although that may mellow if it ripens more or is grown under better conditions. These trees are not getting enough food and water, which I hope to fix this next season.
Like my first open pollinated seedling, Bite Me, there is nothing in particularly that is remarkable about this apple, even though it may end up being quite good. But it is quite edible and certainly not a spitter. As many of you already have gathered, I’m somewhat miffed about the urban (rural?) myth that you can’t grow apples from seed or you’ll get nearly 100% spitters. I’ve eaten two of my seedling apples now and they were both good. A third which I tested while very under ripe was astringent, so we’ll see how that one progresses. This myth is a misunderstanding blown out of proportion by overstatement and repetition in Michael Pollan’s book Botany of Desire, which was also adapted into a widely viewed PBS special. Many millions of people must have consumed that information. Since many people don't distinguish well between information and knowledge, we have the current state of things where any discussion of growing apples from seed is likely to be peppered with un-factoids stated as unassailable truths presented by a guy who probably never grew an apple, let alone from seed. If the truth were addressed, much of the apple chapter in that book would probably have to be consigned to the scrap heap and re-written since it seems largely woven around that misunderstanding. If you want to know more about that stuff, watch my apple breeding introduction video below.
For people who view and consume information primarily as entertainment the erroneous content of Pollan's book may be a minor issue, but for me it’s obviously more personal. I would like to see a frenzy of apple breeding and selection take place over the coming decades. A chaos of people planting seeds all over the place and doing back yard breeding and selection of apples and all other fruits and edible things. This is one of the ways we can reclaim responsibility for our lives and sustenance instead of standing by watching ever more gigantic corporations execute almost unbelievably Machiavellian long game plots to control the worlds food supplies while our seed and scion heritage go extinct in front of us. When I say things like that, many will think of saving existing heirloom varieties, but the breeding and selection of new varieties is also part of that heritage. After all, that is how varieties were developed in the first place. When seed is saved, even without intending too, we are selecting and adapting varieties. But amateur breeding and intentional improvement go back a good way as well and are easier than ever now with wider access to both germplasm and information.
With apples in particular, I think that we need to continue improvement because they could still be much more improved, they are remarkably useful and they have huge potential for diversification and general improvement in various areas. Major improvements are being made, but for the most part it is being left to professional breeders who are constrained by market forces into a narrow band of acceptable results. Things like shipping, storage, size, particular looks and shapes, and disease resistance are also likely to be prioritized before flavor or niche uses. By way of example, one of the greatest of our apple heritages is the russet group. Many russets are apples of outstanding beauty, utility and flavor. But the breeding and improvement of these rough skinned apples (the rough skin of which may actually contribute to their unique eating characteristics) will probably never be pursued by commercial breeders unless things change a whole lot, which lets hope they do, but it won't be without our involvement on some level. I think Russets are one of the areas that amateur breeders should pursue along with small high sugar apples containing crab genes which have unique flavor characteristics. I’m using russet genes and have my sights set on a red fleshed russet, which has already been achieved by another amateur breeder using my same favorite russet parent, Golden Russet. I’d tell you who it is, but I don’t know that he wants his door beaten down by people asking for red fleshed Russet scions!
I actually believe that the market can be trained or just adapt to love both small intensely sweet and uniquely flavored tiny apples and russets, but markets tend to be conservative. If russets make it into large commercial track breeding programs, it will be because we the people take an interest in them to the point that they eventually find favor and end up in grocery stores. For a large breeding program to invest resources into the gamble of breeding up russet apples for many years, then convincing growers to plant them, and finally seeing if the market will buy them, really makes no sense and it is hard to imagine that happening. You see what I'm saying. They either think they know what we want or are just conservative in their goals for perfectly rational, though not necessarily correct reasons. Narrow goals equal narrow results. Not necessarily bad results, but there is a world of possibility outside of what commercial breeding programs are likely to pursue.
Let me tell you something cool though. I think that we can probably outbreed the professionals, because their criteria are so limiting that they release apples at a slow pace of one in many thousands of seedlings grown. The market also only has so much room. Apples are like brands now that people recognize. New apples have to be tested, planted marketed and then maybe it will be the next Honeycrisp or Pink Lady and maybe it won’t. It probably won’t. But there isn’t the room in that type of market for 25 new apples a year. We on the other hand, citizen breeder/scienceishists gone mad, can plant seeds of apples we just like, make intentional cross pollinations with whatever we please, trade and proliferate the resulting fruits all over the place and just exist outside of the apple industry. We can even take advantage of the good work they are doing and back cross some refined, shiny, disease resistant, high quality apple genes from the big guys with whatever rough and ready, five o'clock shadow sporting lad of a russet we damn well feel like! I mean does she really want to keep doing it with the same pretty boy-band apples over and over anyway when the Sean Penns and Lemmy Kilmisters of the world surely perform far better?
I have been pleasantly surprised at the interest shown in this project. I hear from people who sound as if they have never grown much of anything that suddenly want to make some pollinations and breed a few apples in their suburban lot. That would be so cool! Like I’ve said before, I don’t see this as my effort alone here in my isolated world breeding for success or fame or my own satisfaction. To me this, and efforts like it by people scattered all over the place, is a group effort. I don’t breed apples for me to eat as much as I breed them for you to eat, and even more to inspire a rebellion as just described to take responsibility for ourselves instead of whining along as Monsanto and their ilk spread their diversity killing shadow across the globe gobbling up our potential to be free lumen by lumen. Think about it that way for a second. What is our potential for true human freedom without personal control of suitable and diverse germplasm for growing our own food?
Sure if I hit the jackpot and get something that happens to meet enough criteria to market I could see patenting and selling a variety, maybe to the home market, but I don’t think that will happen and it's not something I think about. I may sell scions for a while of something good that I come up with, but I’ll expect to be put out of business by scion trading and will welcome it. If I get something really good, I would like to see it propagated as widely as possible. On a motivation scale of one to ten money hovers around zero. I’m breeding for the public domain and to assess what is likely required to be successful in the endeavor.
I've invested heavily in this project at a personal cost, but it has been out of great interest an passion. Now we'll start to see what comes of it in the short term (meaning the next 10 to 20 years). I’m using a lot of primitive genes which will probably lower my success rate quite a bit and I may be pretty picky about what I name and release, except for my first apple Bite Me, which I released immediately for other reasons. Then again, I may not. I used to be more of the conservative ilk that wanted to know what every variety was “properly” called and that only the best improvements on existing apples should be released. Now I’m more for the chaos club. Let it all hang out, propagate, pollinate, trade and breed promiscuously. That approach creates life and engagement. If someone somewhere proudly names and sends out scions of something not so great, big deal. More life is more better and engagement, proliferation, diversity and passion are what is needed to subvert the tightening grasp on our food supply and our freedom to be responsible for ourselves.
Go forth and propagate!
Super Close Footage of a Rattlesnake, 4 inches Away!
I found this little snake in the woodpile. Judging from the size, it was probably born last year. There is a rattlesnake den very close by where they congregate in the winter. This one is probably working it's way toward hibernating there. I found it the evening before and went back in the morning while it was cold to shoot some macro footage. Not an opportunity that you get every day! By the time I was finished, he was a lot warmer and more feisty. I'm a lot more nervous thinking about it now than I was at the time, but I played it pretty safe. At one point I was focusing the lens with a stick :)
Tripod: Vanguard 263 AGH. Been through lots of dirt and moisture and still works perfectly. The head is not a video head. You can make pans with it if you shoot them multiple times until you get a good one. I also make tilting moving shots which works if you get all the tensions just right and have a steady hand, but it's not made for any of that and no substitute for a good video head. But I don't own a video head and I get by tolerably well with this. The pistol grip is really great for setting up still shots quickly.
The lens is a Nikon 55mm 2.8 MIcro-Nikkor. The very close ups also use an added extender tube to reach 1:1 magnification. I love this lens. It has great color and it's nice and sharp. My favorite all around lens so far out of the ones I've owned. Built like a tank. The camera is a Sony NEX5T. It has issues, but it's been pretty great really and will take any lens if you have an adapter.
Take That Axe Off the Wall, The Cordwood Challenge is Coming
I was just starting to stack my wood and in about 24 hours I went from wondering if I should do the cordwood challenge again, to planning the next one and starting to prime potential recruits! Now I'm all excited about fixing up some axes and getting back to chopping... Pretty challenging, but so rewarding! Just think about if for now :)
