Food Forest Update #4

2025-08-19

One medium sized project I accomplished this weekend was taking care of the mound of brush in the back corner of the yard by the alley. It was essentially a big rough compost pile where I would pile larger limbs, balls of roots I was removing and things like that. Long story short is the pile had been there for at least a year and was getting unsightly. Normally I would be not consider having this pile of organic material hauled away. Most of the time I would turn it and use the stuff on the bottom around the garden and keep adding to it. This time though, I just have too much organic material and I don't have the time or space to do something with it all.

Another factor is the big pile of wood chips that is still in the driveway. In the spring I accidentally got two truckloads of free mulch instead of just one so I have a surplus of good mixed species wood chips that is probably even better for my soil than that pile back by the alley and I would love to use it all and get the driveway cleared finally. I'm not there yet but I'm getting closer. So I already had a bunch of other limbs and bushes I have been pulling out piled up out front waiting to get picked up by the city yard waste crew. So the other day I hauled that pile by the alley to the front and in doing so cleared a spot in the back yard to plant something else. Plus, that spot should have pretty good soil for planting in after that pile of organic material breaking down sat there for a year.

Something I've been kicking around in my head is starting to keep a list of all the species of plants I have in the food forest on my capsule. Maybe even add a new section to my just for food forests/permaculture. Just making the list would be a pretty big endeavor because I have SO MANY different plants I've planted and the list would be constantly changing and growing. I don't know. A list of my food forest plants would absolutely be constantly inaccurate and would definitely not be something I would be very good at keeping updated. Still might be interesting to attempt. We'll see.

New plantings

That spot that I cleared by the back alley is not really enough space to plant a medium to large tree. It's too close to a mulberry, a jamaican cherry and a jackfruit. It would just get too crowded. So, I planted some sugar cane in that spot and plan to remove the sugar cane I have by the patio in the fall when I harvest it. There are other things I would rather plant by the patio so that sugar cane will go. The sugar cane in the back corner by the alley should work well. It grows mostly vertically, doesn't get too huge and is easy to cut back or remove if it gets overgrown.

Since I was already hot and sweaty from moving the brush pile and planting sugar cane I went a head and got the last mango, the M-4, in the ground. That makes three grafted mangos that I have planted this summer. There are two mango seedlings that have been in the ground for a year or so as well. Now to watch them grow and hopefully get some fruit in the next year or two.

Continuing the plan to stuff pineapples under and around as many things as we can I planted a few more. The three I planted went into the front area around the banana circle and the jamaican cherry. Two that I planted are interesting varieties. A white fleshed one with variegated and more delicate looking leaves and variety that is specifically adapted to my area (Florida). I also have a couple more to plant that my friend brought me last week.

Many people are probably at least a little familiar with this next one. Monstera is a shade tolerant plant that is a very popular house plant. Monstera deliciosa is the species name and it has these big dark green tropical looking leaves with holes in them. It turns out that it will grow quite well here planted in the ground. Something many may not be aware of is that it actually produces a pretty wild looking fruit that supposedly tastes kind of like pina colada or a fruit salad. So I planted a few of these in the yard last week. Two in a pretty shady spot under the edge of our carport and one at the base of a tall palm.

The last thing I planted recently is not as much planting as it is shoving some cuttings in the ground. The African blue basil is very easy to propagate by just sticking some cuttings in soil or the ground and watering for a few days. So I did that with some cuttings in a handful of spots around the backyard. We don't actually use this basil for much (yet). I'm planting it out in more spots because it is great at attracting pollinators because it's flowering basically 24/7. We do plan to try making pesto with the basil soon.

Seed Starting Update

As I've mentioned in previous updates I have been starting a bunch of seeds of various things. It seems like a couple times a week I'm starting some more seeds that I have collected from somewhere. So far everything is doing quite well. Most of them are sprouting and growing. I have tried to get nasturtiums growing from seed a couple times before unsuccessfully and I even have a few of them coming up now finally. I think the seeds that haven't popped up yet are just types that are slower to germinate so I have hope they will still do their thing.

Here is a photo of most of my recent seed starting projects and a list of all the species.

ABP (Always Be Planting)

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