The Secret Sauce

Taking photographs of plants is a hobby decades in the making for me. Thousands of plant images every year.  And there is one thing that all the photos I love best have in common. "What is that secret sauce?" you say. In truth, it is nothing. Sure, there is a good composition, ample lighting, and a steady hand. But pictures I don't love can have that too. All the good ones have nothing from me in them. I was the conduit, but it is all about letting the plants speak for themselves. No fancy filters or crazy photoshop techniques can do as much as stepping back and letting the plant speak for itself. They all have their own beauty and stories to tell. 

Wintergreen in a mossy bed in a beech grove

Wild strawberry along a woodland trail

   

Water for a thirsty man in the desert

The hedge row

This fall, inspired by videos of people starting trees from seed I collected a bucket full of acorns from the "mighty" oak that is in an old fence line hedgerow in the field behind us. The fence line has obviously existed for some time and remnants of three different type of fencing materials can be found - stone, wire, and wood. For this collection work, I used one of my favorite foraging/harvesting tools -- a $0.99 plastic children's sand pail. With an hour's worth of work, I was able to collect most of a bucket's worth of acorns.  

I figure this tree is an exceptional source for seed as it grows in a tiny sliver of wild between two farm fields and those fields have been badly abused by 100+ years of broken agricultural practices. The soil in those fields is spent and crops only grow with chemicals. It took me 15 years of letting the ground lay fallow just to be able to support tree growth in the land I have that used to be part of these fields. So if this oak, the mother/hub tree of this area, has survived and thrived in spite of that, it hopefully will provide some nice local genotype stock to add to my young food forest plantings. 

My "Mighty Oak"

So with a 5 galleon bucket full of water, I separated the bad from good seed. The bad ones float. I lost two-thirds to three-quarters of the seed that I harvested. And the water showed why, bugs. Lots of acorn eating larvae floated up with the water. I never imagined I would end up with so few acorns left. But regardless, I sowed some in pots to let the winter do her germination magic and will move any spouted seeds to larger containers come spring. I also scattered some in the wild areas to let the acorns sprout and grow all on their own.

Top: My acorn harvest
Bottom: How few acorns passed the sink test

Not long after this, I visited a local nature center with healthy and strong forest areas of pines, oaks, beeches, and more. On a whim, I collected 2 handfuls of acorns from underfoot on the trails. When I soaked them in water to separate out the bad from the good, I got completely different results. I ended up with somewhere between one-fifth and one-tenth loss. 

After considering the results for a while, it became clear why I saw such different experiences. The oak behind my house is one of only a couple of acorn producing trees in the that hedgerow. Whereas the nature center has many, many such trees. "My" tree is supporting more than its fair share of native fauna life and is in a sense to those creatures, like a glass of water for a man in the desert dying of thirst. If you can, plant oaks as they are powerhouses of support for our native animal life. See writings by Doug Tallamy to learn about just how critical they are. 

And I will let you know come spring time how my acorn germination project has fared.

Some additional photos:

An oak gall - a small insect grows inside of these on oak trees

Acorns and leaves of my "mighty" tree

What lies at the oak's feet - old fence line materials

The few good acorns after sorting

Turkey tail fungi growing under the oak's canopy

  

Good Gardeners Kill Plants

I once read a gardening article about all the plants killed by "good" gardeners. It seems like a counter intuitive statement on the surface but the author went on to talk about these gardeners taking chances and learning the right conditions that plants need experientially. So yes, while they do kill a number of things while getting it right, they are in a constant discovery and analysis mode that better serves them than overly cautious and only sure-fire success plantings. Few gardening tips and articles that I have read over the years have stayed with me as much as the message of this article -- which I interpret as having a willingness to take chances -- because it perfectly marries one of my longest held garden philosophies. I believe the garden is a rare and glorious thing in life because it is a place of endless second chances.

My prize of ginseng seeds

So, with an idea of possible successes and failures firmly in my heart, I set off on an afternoon of seed planting. I recently got an awesome member deal on American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) seed from United Plant Savers. Members could get ~400 seeds for $15. How could I not take advantage of that. Now, I've tried planting ginseng seed before and that resulted in an utter failure with 0% germination. But what I did that time was pick what I thought would be the optimal location and planted all the seed in that location. I didn't do that this time. I roamed all over my 8+ acres and planted the seeds in what I thought may be viable locations, 40 different locations. 

One of many planting locations

Will they all grow? Absolutely not. But will I strike upon the right location? That is my fervent hope. Did I make notation of all the sites? Oh goodness, no. I don't operate in that manner plus that afternoon with its freeform planting was just as enjoyable as the possibility of seeing that seed surprising me in a few years with a full grown ginseng plant. 

So my suggestion?? Take chances. Learn from both your successes and failures. And if need be, try again.

Responsibilities

 “The findings of contemporary astrophysics suggest that we might do well to settle ourselves imaginatively into an endlessly transforming universe without fixed beginning or end. Chemistry, microbiology, and behavioral sciences confirm a fundamental kinship extending from the earth itself through all living things, from the tiniest bacteria to the largest blue whale. The recent discovery of possible bacteria on rocks from Mars may reveal that such kinship extends throughout the solar system – and much further. Our deepening awareness of the impermanence of even the most solid and stable-seeming structures – mountains, seas, the atmosphere, the countless, wheeling galaxies – has become poignant. Human life, indeed, all life, can now be seen as more interconnected, and simultaneously more fragile, than past generations of Western thinkers could concede. In the ongoing effort to gain moral control over our own relentless defensive and economic drives – including learning to control our own masterworks of impermanence: our nuclear weapons – we must now struggle with spiritual responsibilities to the earth and all its future generations, nonhuman as well as human.”  

-- Rafe Martin, “The Hungry Tigress”

Friends with Benefits

I have grown Elecampane, Inula helenium, for years but never realized until this summer that Elecampane had a special relationship with ants. While the buds were getting fat and preparing to bloom, they were guarded by a swarm of ants. "Ants???," you say. "Most definitely," says I. And while I could not find a specific reference to Elecampane having these special structures, the presence of the ants tells me it is there - extrafloral nectaries. Extrafloral nectaries are special nectar producing glands located outside of the flower and unlike the nectar produced in flowers, this nectar has nothing to do with pollination and reproduction. In fact, it is to entice bodyguards who help discourage herbivores.

Peonies are very common plants to see this mutually beneficial plant - ant relationship on. You do not to spray the ants off your peonies or Elecampane with water or any bug repellents because the plant has put out a place setting for its ant friends and will only benefit from their presence.

The Gift Not Intended

 So a bit of a story. Probably about 10-12 years ago, I had collected some black walnuts in the fall. It wasn't tons...maybe a gallon or so of nuts from some wild trees. At the time I was doing an annual presentation to local fourth graders on wild foods and medicines as part of their "pioneer day" activities. I had quite the road show and was always looking for more things for the kids to see and touch - like these black walnuts.

I was always amazed at how disconnected so many kids were with the natural world around them and so I did my best to introduce them to as much as possible in my 45 minutes with each class which included at least 20 minutes of letting them explore everything I brought on their own. This included a foraging game I made up which was always one of the highlights. While many probably forgot what they saw the moment they walked out the door, it made all the work so worthwhile to see the "lights" turn on for some of the children as to what amazing things were right out their own backdoors.

So I stored the nuts but like many older homes (and mine is 160 years old), rodents are a continual issue and they got into the nuts. I pitched the nuts out to the compost bin. "Critters" enjoy my open compost bins and it seems one of them planted one of the walnuts near the foundation of my house -- there are no nearby black walnuts and this is the only time these nuts made it to the compost bin so it didn't take much thought to figure out its origin.

Some time along the way, my husband or I chopped the seedling down at least once as the trunk bears the evidence. But last year it finally dawned on me what the tree was. So I dug it up in this spring, potted it, and will add it to my ever expanding young food forest this fall.

So while I never shared the nuts in my wild plant extravaganza, I did get a tree I always wanted out of it.

A Rare Find (Repost)

 This is a copy of a blog post I made on another, now defunct, blog in 2010. I am posting it here so as not to loose this wonderful info.

A couple of weeks ago while hiking at Letchworth State Park, I came across a rare find. Nestled between stands of spotted jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) and pale jewelweed (Impatiens pallida) I came across a jewelweed plant the likes of which I had not seen before. 

This plant looked like spotted jewelweed in the shape of the flowers and the leaves but it had white flowers with red spots. I've never in all my stomping about in wild places or perusing through various field guides trying to ID wild plants seen one like this. 

After some investigation, I believe it is one of two very uncommon variants of the spotted jewelweed: Impatiens capensis forma albiflora (white flowers with red spots) or Impatiens capensis forma Pease (white flowers with larger red spots/splotches). These variants are referenced here in a NYFA Newsletter  if you wish to read more.

It was very late in the day and the light was low so these pictures are not my best but hopefully you'll be able to see and enjoy this rare beauty as well!