mary yett

I plant food forests for the future here on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. I want to be able to feed my local village, Tehkummah, Ontario,  in the coming hard times when world large scale commercial food systems have failed.

I have planted over 110 nut trees,plus lots of fruit trees/ shrubs and support trees in windbreaks, nitrogen fixers and a varied herbaceous layer. The total number of trees and shrubs is now well over 1,000.

My farm is in zone 4b, but there are still many nuts that can grow here. I have hazels,heart nuts ( aka Japanese Walnuts), Black Walnuts,  ultra northern pecans, bitternut hickory ( better named yellow bud hickory), shagbark hickory, Korean pine nuts, ginko ( including 1 female named variety, King of Dongting), Burr oaks, Low tanin oaks from a breeding program that are a mix of white oak,burr oak ,etc., and 1 experimental Javids Iranian Almond( which is budded out for the first time right now).

The hickory family ( pecan,shagbark, and yellow bud) , Korean pine nuts, oaks, and ginkos are very slow to come into bearing, and i may not live to see nuts from them( I am 69), but once they start, they will literally produce nuts in large quantities for hundreds of years. Enough to feed a village.

I have not seen any data on rabbits eating box elder seeds, but the general veterinarian opinion is that only Equidae are poisoned by them, Box elders are native and prolific in their seed production. Surely many millions of rabbits have eaten their fill of box elder seeds. You don't see dead rabbits littering the ground under box elder trees during their seed drop season. I leave you to draw your own conclusion from that observation.

There are many other plants that are generally non toxic to other species, but horses can be poisoned by them, including black locust bark, alsike clover, wilted red maple leaves, etc. It seems to be a horse thing.

Mary Yett, DVM

The seeds of Acer negundo contain  hypoglcin A. If a large amount of these seeds are eaten by a horse. It can cause SPM,  or Seasonal Pasture  Myopathy, a neurological disorder. This can be a fatal illnes  although some horses survive. Seeds vary in the amount of hypoglcin A they contain, how many seeds the horse eats while grazing under a box elder varies, and how sensitive each horse is to the chemical  varies.

Hypoglycin A is not known to be toxic to any species except members of the equid family, such as horses, mules, and donkeys ( presumably zebras as well. Lol). It is not toxic to humans, any other livestock,or wildlife.

Eattheweeds.com is mistaken regarding the seeds of Acer negundo being toxic to humans. They are not all that yummy, but certainly are a legit emergency famine food. I am going to plant one in my large chicken run as a component of a self harvesting "food for poultry forest".

Mary Yett, DVM

Nanking cherties are not actually cherries, but are a close relative of plums and can be pollinized by them.
Most Nankings are not really self fertile just because they bear fruit when there is no nearby Nanking to pollinate them.  The secret is wild  or domestic plums growing within flight range of the local bees. Wild plums blend in so well that they can be hard to see and are often overlooked.
I love Nanking cherries and they do well for me in zone 4 in heavy clay soil. I especially like the fact that they come true from seed most of the time. This has saved me a ton of money. I get about a 50% germination rate from them.

I am too far north (zone 4) for many of the more popular perennial veggies like tree collards and good king henry to winter over reliably, BUT Turkish Rocket is tough, tough, tough and tastes great most of the season ( except when it gets really hot and dry mid summer). It is better cooked than raw, I think, but it tastes great cooked like you would cook any other greens -in lasagna, made into a mess o' greens with a touch of butter, in a stir fry, etc. It is yummy and bomb proof. Plant it once and eat from that planting literally for the rest of your life.

Self seeding purslane  and chickweed are good too. They  function like  perennials
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I really like this idea.  The one change I would make if I build one of these myself  (an idea I am seriously considering)  is that I would make the roof out of round cedar poles, of which I have an abundance.      
                                                                                                     
I  would place them tipi style, which will naturally create a smoke  hole. I would use metal straps screwed in place along with a few very  long screws to attach these poles to the top of the pallets.

Tall, good quality pallets like in your picture are indeed very hard to come by in my remote rural location, but I can source lots of 4 foot high pallets, so maybe I will make more of a tipi/yurt hybrid. This would still give more usable head space room inside.

As I am thinking of making this to house interns on my farm in the summer, I plan on placing the structure on a wooden platform built with simple concrete blocks on the ground as a foundation.  This will keep them dry and give them a bit of a mini patio to sit on when the sun is out.

Whiffletree nusery in Canads sells little leaved linden trees

I grew turkish rocket from seed this spring and has grown very well. Will start harvesting it next spring. Apparently,  even if you dig it up and move it, it will regrow from the tiny root fragments that are always left behind, much like comfrey will regrow. I figure this could be an easy way to expand my patch.

One of my favorite perennial veggies is the immature seed pods of milkweed,  either regular milkweed or swamp milkweed. The pods must be picked young, before the milkweed fluff develops inside them , sort of like okra , good when young, but tough if left on the plant too long.
I prepare them like green beans and they have a similar flavor to those. This is a traditional Anishabek food here in Ontario. They also used to collect the milkweed flowers and boil them down to make a sweet syrup, sort of like how maple sryup is made. I have never tried to do this myself, but it is on my bucket list.🙂

I also include various flower petals in my perennial vegetable list. I use hollyhock, daylily, dandelion, calendula, elderberry, valerian and many other flwers in salads and stir fries.
Cattails provide high protein pollen that can be added to baked goods, yummy ( when peeled) stalks and starchy roots that can be roasted like potatoes.

These are just a few of my favorites

Mary Yett, Manitoulin Island  zone 4

PS, btw, wild leeks do grow well in zone 4. There are lots of wild ones around me here.

Welcone, Acadia
. I look forward to reading your new book