“On the simplest level, whenever something bad happens, he [Pink] isolates himself a bit more — i.e., symbolically he adds another brick to his wall to protect himself.” - Roger Waters
California Gov. Gavin Newsom says the Trump administration has told states they can’t offer unemployment benefits to federal employees who are required to report to work without pay during the government shutdown.
Newsom called a letter sent to states by the U.S. Department of Labor “jaw-dropping and extraordinary” as he met with TSA workers at the Sacramento International Airport Thursday afternoon. “So, the good news is, we’re going to do it, and shame on them.”
The governor explained that California will offer the workers unemployment coverage, despite the federal government telling the state it can’t do so for workers still on the job. Newsom says he believes California is on strong legal footing.
I am in the process of debulking an overgrown Dawn Viburnum: in my zone (8), this beautiful plant produces clusters of pink blossoms as early as December, and flowers right through to February: it provides good forage for non-honeybee pollinators that fly in colder weather. The plant itself is also a great habitat for birds.
Whenever I am doing maintenance on an older shrub like this, it produces a tonne of biomass, so today, I’m going to go over what I do with all of the wood.
Use #1: New Plant Propagation
If you saw my post about ground layering, you will remember that shrubs often grow adventitious roots when they come into contact with soil. This Viburnum shrub has been collecting leaf fall in its crown for over a decade, which has decomposed into soil, into which numerous limbs have rooted well-above the grade.
By pruning these limbs below root tissue, I can use them as cuttings to propagate new stands of this patch-forming plant. They are much larger than most cuttings I take: already almost the height of a grown plant.
Uses #2-7: Timber
Use #2: Kindling and Firewood
I try to avoid burning too much firewood for environmental reasons, but we do have a wood burning stove and a firepit, with which we heat and cook (respectively) on occasion.
In any case, it’s good to have a decent stack of firewood around. If you ever have to depend on firewood alone for heating or cooking, it is used up more quickly than you would believe. Firewood also has to dry out before it can be used, so keeping a supply of cured wood on hand is important.
Use #3: Hügelkultur
I used a significant portion of the prunings from today to continue one of my hügelkutur berms: this is the rounded berm (~10 metres long x ~0.5 metres high x ~0.75 metres wide) that is accompanied by a swale.
I have used wood from numerous trees, especially the pollarded apple, in order to add bulk to this structure, but the smaller sticks are especially useful, as they can fill gaps between logs.
Wattle is one of my favourite building techniques in the garden, because it is both free and easy. Raised beds, retaining walls, and fences, can easily be built using this simple technique of weaving long pliable limbs between, stout, sturdy stakes.
I grow plants like willow (Salix sp.) and dogwood (Cornus sp.) in order to coppice new shoots for this purpose, but several of the prunings from the Viburnum also turned out to be decent wattle material.
Use #5: Planting Stakes and Supports
As noted in my post on sculpting trees: any sturdy, straight, and sufficiently long limb is pruned and trimmed into a support for other plants. Above, I’ve used hazelnut (Corylus sp.) limbs to straighten out my young elderberry trees.
Come tomato and pepper season, I won’t be able to find enough of these supports, and I am loathe to pay for bamboo stakes and tomato cages when I have free timber in abundance.
Use #6: Art
Interesting timber features like knots, crazy shapes, or natural grafts can be used for all sorts of decorative woodworking projects. One of these prunings from today has the form of a decent hiking stick, so depending on how the wood holds up, I may sand and varnish it.
However, if you have access to a wood-chipper, they can also be made into a wood chip mulch, which has untold benefits for soil fertility, mycelial growth, water retention, and weed suppression.
I cover all my growing spaces with a mulch of some sort (aside from a desert, nature doesn’t have much bare soil). A wood chip mulch is good for high-traffic areas where long-term weed-suppression is ideal. I stack up a bunch of prunings, and rent a wood-chipper once a year in order to make my own chip mulch: it’s much cheaper than buying it, and I return all the resources I have grown to the soil.
There are innumerable uses for what is normally discarded as “waste” in the garden: these are just a few ways in which resources from pruning can be directed back into a productive and healthy growing space.
If you’re going to burn prunings you should do it in a rocket stove! It’s designed to burn much more efficiently than an open fire, meaning your kindling burns longer and hotter and with less smoke to boot. You can even make one out of cinder blocks, or a small one for camping with old cans!
The most beautiful baby wolf that you will see today
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
![dream7790:
““ Pink Floyd - The Wall // 1982
“On the simplest level, whenever something bad happens, he [Pink] isolates himself a bit more — i.e., symbolically he adds another brick to his wall to protect himself.” - Roger Waters
” ”](https://64.media.tumblr.com/e183231902940951ba9d8a5900f645d4/tumblr_o2mzq653eU1qdqzl4o1_500.gifv)
