Dave Sansone's Page

Hi Dave,

I have been away from the TW site for a spell.   Glad to be in touch with you here though.    The garden is coming along pretty well.   We are trying to add more to it with each year.   The goal for this spring is to get some more elderberries and grapes growing along the alley and to plant shade loving natives in the front such as Oregon grape.   We get buried under an enormous amount of leaves from the elm tree each year in the fall and rather than rake them up (with lots of decomposing wood chips) I have been covering them with another layer of chips.   This is a bit time consuming, but I prefer this to shipping all those nutrients off site.      We are enjoying watching the plants grow and most are thriving.  The Paw, paw was killed when a section of our fence blew down in a storm last winter.   We are harvesting the elderberries and making tea with them at the first sign of a cold or flu.   I am willing to swear by their virtues as an immune system booster.   

 

How are things for you?   How is your patch coming along?   Although I'm a bit out of the loop lately, it seems as though it has been some time since you gavea talk in town.    I sure look forward to learning more from you at the next opportunity!   All the best,

Karl

Hi Dave,
We have never met, but I did attend your forest gardening talk up at Western last year. I'm friends and neighbors with Chuck Nafgitzner (creator of the Feral Farm's beaver gate), and I am also part of Chuckanut Transition and the Bow Little Market. We are using the market as a platform to create Transition action in the area. We are having a Harvest Market and Festival at the Belfast Feed Store on Old 99 where we are located. Part of the event is an informational area highlighting sustainable community building projects in the area and was wondering if you would willing to share your knowledge in Forest Gardening and promote your own classes/events/farm.
Sarai Stevens

Yes, we meet every two weeks. Next time is August 26. Hope you're having a great summer!

I think I have baked them, froze them, let them escape and then not given them a way back in and ...well, maybe that last one happened twice. I passed this one on to Rick. He said he is willing to have a go at it.

And I am not worried about the mistakes. I guess I am assuming I have the privilege of making a few right now. Not sure how long I will feel like that, however. Thanks for your encouragement!

How it is going? I took Skeeter's permaculture course last February at Sahale. I came home with a lot of excitement & planted 2 semi dwarf & 2 dwarf apple trees, a plum tree, moved a couple trees (per your suggested layout); thinned all the connifers to add more light & took 2 out (and one connifer died so we had to top it - I left the bottom 20 ft for habitat/food for the wild life), still not much light; I planted 4 poles with blackberries, 7 blueberries, a circle garden (with a center garden), 3 or 4 currants, a couple of gooseberries, built trellises and planted kiwis, planted the mound in the back with some strawberries (not such a good idea - still working on what to do back there), created a couple of odd beds here and there, created a huglekultur (forgot how to spell that!) using some branches down, took out the over tall plum tree and the purple flowering plum, deer fenced the yard, and ....had a lot of disappointment! Well, that is not quite the truth - I was viewing it as a garden lab and was trying lots of experiments and several failed (including another batch of worms dieing! 4th batch to 'disappear'). We also added a 300 gal water tank and are now designing a water catchment system and adding another tank. The
edible forest garden area is barely that....so far. I added some yarrow, some garlic chives, and ???? oh,....and the gooseberries are out there....but I have lots to do this spring on that area. I have done nothing with the rain garden and nothing with the front rock wall.

It was a lot of fun, I over bought seeds by a long shot (secure in seeds for this year, however!), and it was a lot of work. I moved a whole lot of chips (we ended up with about 10 cu yds of chips and I spread them all! I learned about fertilizers and even tried my hand at cardboard mulching - not sure how impressed I am. No weeds in that area but the plants didn't grow well, either. I don't think I had enough soil on top. Like I said,....lots of experiments.