permaculture

[Armed With A Mind Armed With A Mind <armedwithamind@hotmail.com>]

I appreciate the warning Doug. I am definetly wary of both manitoba maple and 
balsam poplars weedy tendencies. Growing up in a half acre suburban lot in 
Ontario there was a line of 60-80 foot tall balsam poplars on the edge of our 
property. As a child and teenager I had the 'pleasure' of cutting the grass 
for many years (probably my first nudge towards the sanity of edible 
landscaping), and every year seedlings from both the poplar and manitoba 
maple would pop up amongst the grass in droves to my amazement. I could not 
believe how resiliant and fast growing these two species were in the face of 
a half acre army of grass roots and many times I steered around the trees out 
of respect. In few years of vegetable gardening manitoba maple is one of the 
more common self seeders that has popped, regardless of whether or not there 
were any seed bearing species within visual distance. I've since learned 
about black locust as well and how it can spread like wild fire, and am 
amazed that I see only one around. 

 

Here at the farm as I think I said in an earlier post, there are several 
dozen balsam poplars establishing in the north edge of one of the hay fields. 
Most are about 3-5 feet heigh and have multiple sprouts from the base of each 
tree. I gather this is because of being chopped up by haying equipment year 
after year. I figure I should use this to my advantage and keep most of them 
around as an eventual renewable firewood source, mulch the areas around them 
with woodchips and/or old hay, and in two or three years time planting 
compatable hardwood species amongst them in suntrap patterns and filling in 
hte suntraps over the next few years with a food forest. We'll see how it 
goes...

 

Travis 
 
                                          
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