Kathryn Tracy : PS I hope we get to add a badge to our Permaculture Qualifications. That would be so cool!

Nathan Dow : Can you elaborate a bit more on how you obtain the trees from said course? I have often wondered how people establish fruit/nut tree without spending a fortune on the trees themselves.

Kathryn Tracy : Nathan, first we have to firm up our list of trees for our project. Second, we'll find as many of them as we can that we can take cuttings from in the wild. Those will be totally free trees. Third, the more exotic and specific cultivars we'll have to buy at least one to two each (depending on whether self-fertile or not) from which to take cuttings to grow those types.

In our design, we have two types of trees that are indigenous to our region of the US that grow wild. Mayhaws and catalpa trees are easy as are several varieties of leguminous nitrogen fixers. We have a friend who has good black walnuts we can take cuttings from. It's the mulberries, cider apples, and other exotics that we'll have to buy one or two of.

We have the time and space to grow ours out to a decent height before transplanting. Our swales are long and will require bunches and bunches of trees. Inititally, we'll plant the swale mound with soil building cover crops, lots of chop and drop because we have terrible soil, low in organic content. We'll do this until our trees are ready to go in the ground, probably two or three years.

The PermaEthos Plant Propagation course teaches you how to plant from seeds, cuttings and grafting. I love this stuff!

Kathryn Tracy : Nathan, first we have to firm up our list of trees for our project. Second, we'll find as many of them as we can that we can take cuttings from in the wild. Those will be totally free trees. Third, the more exotic and specific cultivars we'll have to buy at least one to two each (depending on whether self-fertile or not) from which to take cuttings to grow those types.

In our design, we have two types of trees that are indigenous to our region of the US that grow wild. Mayhaws and catalpa trees are easy as are several varieties of leguminous nitrogen fixers. We have a friend who has good black walnuts we can take cuttings from. It's the mulberries, cider apples, and other exotics that we'll have to buy one or two of.

We have the time and space to grow ours out to a decent height before transplanting. Our swales are long and will require bunches and bunches of trees. Inititally, we'll plant the swale mound with soil building cover crops, lots of chop and drop because we have terrible soil, low in organic content. We'll do this until our trees are ready to go in the ground, probably two or three years.

The PermaEthos Plant Propagation course teaches you how to plant from seeds, cuttings and grafting. I love this stuff!

Rodney Robinson : PermaEthos? O K thank you for the tip. I have small pruning clipper, bags of play sand, and rooting compound on hand already. I spotted an arborvitae and some apple trees that are nearby on a parkway. I plan to steal some cuttings, dip the stems into the rooting compound and then poke them into the play sand and keep them watered until they grow roots and then pot them (got the idea from a Mike McGroarty youtube video). Then keep hunting for more species to get cuttings from. Maybe I was/am on the PermaEthos path already. I too have a new long swale (about 600 feet) that will need plantings at some point. Thanks again.

Kathryn Tracy : Here's the url for PermaEthos: https://permaethos.com/ Are you familiar with Jack Spirko and The Survival Podcast? That's where we first heard about Permaculture. PermaEthos is Jack's version of PRI. The course is tailored to rank amateurs...that would be my husband and I...and is money well spent. We consider it an investment like Geoff's Online PDC. Its also insurance against wasting a lot of time and money doing it wrong the first time, which is how we usually learn anything LOL!