permaculture

["Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>]

Hi Gene,

Wow, you're daughter's already graduated college?  My girls are ten and 
eight now.  It's been a long time hasn't it?

It's funny, the older I get and more jobs I do, the less I wince at removing 
woody brush and small trees that have grown up where they may do harm - 
against slabs, rubbing against roofs, in the middle of gardens, etc.

In a garden, especially in a demonstration garden, I like to be able to see 
the plants we're cultivating and be able to take pictures and see what's 
going on.  Typically, the N2 fixing trees that I've planted close to the 
fruit trees are acacias and mesquite that don't shade the sunlight as much 
as a mature hackberry might.  So even though a hackberry might fix nitrogen 
it may not be the best farmer's tree to have up against your fig.

However, if you want to leave the hackberry because it's pleasant and useful 
then you really just need to know how long until your fig tree's health and 
fig production begin to decline, verses a stand alone tree in similar 
conditions (Kevin?).  In Houston, our neighbor's figs turned into big trees 
under the shade of pines and live oaks.  We had to climb up the tree or get 
on the garage roof to get the fruit.  Hard freezes, though, seem to keep 
figs at the large woody bush / small tree stage.  You could also take 
another graft from the fig tree, plant it somewhere else and allow the two 
other trees to follow Nature's course.

On our land we have a nice ratio of about 50/50, grass to trees.  If I did 
nothing it would be all trees within 25 years, which could be a good thing 
in and of itself.  However, the prairies and savannahs of Texas are 
ecotones, or transition zones between your great eastern forest and the 
plains and deserts of the west.  There's lots of edge between the grasses 
and trees, but without the bison, mule deer and antelope there's not enough 
disturbance to maintain the grasses.  We, to some degree, have to become 
that disturbance in their absence.

Point being, our open spaces and edges are preciouse to me and I'm pretty 
picky about what I fill hem up with when we're planting a food system or 
building a homestead.  Take care,

Kirby