Minutes from November 19, 2011

Attending: Bill Bross, Robert, Caroline & Charlie Gray, John & Ruth Hyde, Peggy Kane, Leona Lauster, Patty Love, Anita Messina, Laura Ouimette,

Due to new and re-construction several folks had difficulty finding room C 220. Before our next indoor meeting we will attempt to put a map online and provide directional signs on the FLCC campus.

We are looking for a new Canandaigua Botanical Society president (or assistant president). If you are interested, or know somebody who might be…please let us know! Also, we will be putting together the 2012-2013 program in January/February. Let us know if there is a particular program or event you’re interested in for next year.

Laura Ouimette was presented with Newcomb's Wildflower Guide and Peterson Field Guides: Wildflowers, Northeastern/North-central North America. A special thanks to Leona Lauster who knew how important these guides can be to a Botanical Society secretary!

A copy of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv has been purchased for the Wood Library in memory of Maya Hobday. Maya and Laura read this book together after attending the March 2011 Canandaigua Botanical Society presentation by Bruce Gilman.

Notes from “Where the Wild Things Are” by Patty Love

People are interested in the science behind forest gardening.

Observations of natural world – Adirondack region

Humans create monocultures in controlled spaces while nature is messy yet productive and does have patterns.

Natural Gardens are everywhere: Bristol, Italy, Serbia, Madagascar, Tasmania, Kazakhstan (humid temps. - origin of apple wild gardens with 80 varieties of apples).

Monoculture vs. Polyculture

Easthill Farm – chickens in orchard, breaks pesticide cycle, fertilize soil, cleaning, scratching.

Robert Hart – Forest Garden in England

Alley cropping – fruit trees and annuals together with chickens – a way to transition!

Polycultures producing plentifully (Camp Epworth, Hudson Valley)

Knowing Natives knew: Native Americans were managing forests – harvests, controlled burns and clearing for the three sisters.

Peggy Livingston Stark: “We are on the cutting edge of 10.000 year old technology.

Degenerative > regenerative: to meet everyone’s needs.

WHY PERMACULTURE?

People Care…Earth Care…Resource Share

Permanent agriculture (perennials 3-3000 year life spans)

Provides for needs we all have (fun/play)

A way of looking at ecological design system

Natural building

What would happen if we did NOTHING?

Purposely creating healthy ecosystems

Edible Forest Gardens – Art and Science of putting

plants together in a conscious way

(more than sum of parts)

Why Edible Forest Gardening (EFG)?

High yields diverse products

Self maintaining garden (once established) – eliminate weeding!

Creates healthy ecosystem

Moral imperative “Forest gardening helps us take our rightful place as part of nature doing nature's work, rather than as separate entities intervening in and dominating the natural world" - Dave Jacke, author of Edible Forest Gardens

Maximizing net primary productivity

Swamps, marshes, estuaries are most productive

Seven stories (layers)

* Canopy

* Understory

* Shrub layer

* Herbaceous

* Ground cover

* Underground

* Vine layer

Elements > architecture

Key EFG tool = polyculture

Multi functional: food, fiber, fun, fuel, farmaceuticals, function, fodder.

Use perennials as much as possible with annuals too.

Fill niches in

TIME (polyculture)

SPACE (guilds - plants happy to live together)

SUCCESSION (things will change over time)

Fighting succession = mowing lawns

Try to get many functions from one plant

Creating Diversity, Stability, Resiliency via planting and design

Needs are met in many different ways. “As it is above, so it is below”

* Nitrogen fixing – nitrogen releases when plant dies or is cut

* Dynamic accumulator – long tap roots pull up minerals into

leaves then release into ground

* Invertebrate shelter – so bugs are kept in control

* Nectar plants – butterfly garden, bee balm fills many

functions

* Confuse animals with scents (mint to confuse deer)

* Coppicing

* Stack functions – like patchwork quilt, interlock pollination

* Issues and strategies

* OVERPRODUCE

Youtube: Greening the desert by Jeff Lawton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG_vRG66wkA&feature=related

Patty Love is available for workshops, consulting, and speaking. You may contact her at patty@barefootpermaculture.com.

ALL ABOUT PERMACULTURE - THE WAY OF THE FUTURE

Indoor meeting at Finger Lakes Community College

Saturday, November 19, 2011

10 am Room C220 FLCC

This presentation will be a follow up to our August visit to the Permaculture Center in Rochester. Patty Love will introduce the vision of forest gardening with some scientific background, a few living examples, and a sampling of some useful edibles you can use in your own garden.

Rochester Academy of Science Herbarium Workshop

Saturday, October 15, 10 am - 2 pm – Life Sciences section will hold a workshop at the RAS Herbarium, located in the basement of the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC). No experience needed! Plan to come and help with this valuable collection – and see some interesting plants! Lunch is served in the RMSC Cafe until 2 pm. At RMSC, go to the front desk and ask staff person there to call ext. 368, the phone in the Herbarium. If you plan to attend, please send an RSVP to Elizabeth Pixley, herbarium curator, 334-0977 or epixley@rochester.rr.com.

To check out minutes from the Canandaigua Botanical Society's visit click here: Herbarium visit

Wood and Field Walk minutes

On Saturday, September 17, 2011 we gathered to walk the Ontario Pathways trail from County Rt 4 near the C.R. Zornow barn to the wooden water tower on Waddell Road in Orleans, NY.

Those attending included:
Fay & David Connelly, Arlene Copeland, John & Ruth Hyde, Peggy Kane, Leona Lauster, Laura Ouimette, Betsy Russell, Nan Seyfried, Pat Weaver, Tim Wilbur.

Ontario Pathways began in 1994 when what was most recently the Penn Central Railroad was turned into trails. The trail is now open without detours from Canandaigua east to Stanley and then north to Orleans. Tim Wilbur (who did some critter hole filling during our walk) invites anyone to join the crew of folks on Wednesday mornings to meet up to clear the trails. You can check out designated crew days at ontariopathways.org or call 585-234-7722 to get on the Wednesday morning Email list to know where the crew will be each Wednesday.
Tim Wilbur with his unique walking stick: Nan being introduced by Betsy:

Betsy Russell who was responsible for beginning the Ontario Pathways Trail in 1994 introduced Nan Seyfried who studied and taught at Delaware State University before making the Finger Lakes her home.

Nan explained how handy the Newcomb's Wildflower Guide is for identifying wildflowers by identifying the flower type, plant type, and leaf type of a species. By taking the numbers assigned to each of these flower/plant/leaf types you check to see what pages that combination appears in the Newcomb's Wildflower Guide to identify the species. Peggy Kane gave it a go and found it easier with practice.

Nan told us that there are 40 species of asters and 70 species of goldenrod. She did not claim to be an expert of either but seemed to know quite a few on our walk along the Ontario Pathways trail.
New England aster, unknown goldenrod, and white asters:

Canada Goldenrod (evident by the gall on the stem). The chickadees love this white grub of a little wasp.

Ragweed - the pollen culprit:

Smart weed: tearthumb princess smartweed:

Mayweed (stinking): very pungent smelling species from the chrysanthemum family.

Yellow tansy, bitter buttons: brought from Europe as a medicinal plant -
abortions in cows, tea herb for female cramping, ant repellant.

Bouncing Bet: soapwart - soap suds from stem of plant used in museums to clean delicate lace

Saint John's Wart: The leaves have resin dots which allow light to shine through. Good for depression.

Sumac: good for lemonade. Vitamin C from Sumac helped Native Americans through the winters. Great winter food for birds. Nan had us try the sumac by setting the hairs on our tongues.

Jewel weed, Touch Me Not: from the impatient family. The blossoms hang like jewels (garnets). The leaves repel water and look as though covered in diamonds when submersed in water. Peggy Kane recalled a time when Maya Hobday described the silver looking wet leaves as fairy wings to small children. When mature pods are touched seeds dispersal happens with a pop. Remove the brown seed covering to reveal a blue turquoise. The roots of the jewel weed are ruby red.

Teasel: Purple flowers that bloom in rows. used for felling wool and felt.

Crown Vetch (from the bean family):

Butter and Eggs (snapdragon family):

Leona listens for birds and Tim looks for critter holes:

Nan points out the invasive buckthorn and berries:

John Hyde pointed out this Viburnum Opulus. Red berries,wild raisins, wild cranberry

Osier dogwood. red stems - leaves have latex strings

Gray dogwood with white berries and red stems; blue berries on dagwood

Raspberry leaves have white undersides while blackberry leaves are green with spines:

Physalis (ground cherries) (Andy Fellenz grows these for CSA distributions)

Hawthorn apple:

Thimble weed in seed (anemone)

Tussic moth caterpillar, furry moth caterpillar, and fox berries.
Fuzzy caterpillars turn into moths. Smooth caterpillars turn into butterflies.
wide bands of colors on caterpillars and hearty fox berries...are these signs of a long winter?

Oxalis and Yellow globe Biden stick tight

Bracken fern and milkweed (favorite food and egg laying site for monarchs)

Climbing buckwheat. Triangular seeds, tiny white flowers

Horsetails: Great to use for scouring pots and pans

White Campion catchfly, sticky spots on stems

Bed straw and honeysuckle

Virgins bower and false solomon's-seal

Black Locust? Used for fence posts and perhaps natural arrows (or was that the viburnum?)