Tag: Great Lakes

Adventures7 Comments

Selecting Trees for a Forest Garden: What to plant and How Many

Michael Hoag

These days, the “new” wisdom is that – 100, 400, 1,000 – “you can’t plant too many fruit trees!” Not surprisingly, this advice most often gets repeated by nursery businesses that sell fruit trees. And as a guy with a small nursery business, sure, I agree with it, but I add a HUGE caveat: it depends on what kind of tree you’re planting. The problem is fruit trees are work. Work, work, work! If you buy a bunch of fruit trees, you’re buying yourself a bunch of work!  So I break down trees into how much work -time, energy and care – they … Continue reading Selecting Trees for a Forest Garden: What to plant and How Many

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Plant Profile: Cornelian Cherry, Cornus Mas

Michael Hoag

If you like to pucker, then you’ll want to get acquainted with the sweet-tart flavor Cornelian Cherries.  The Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, Cornus Mas, is a native of west asia and carries an ancient culinary pedigree, being pickled as “olives,” used as gourmet floral-scented preserves, and even as the orginial sweet-tart “sorbet” in Persia. “Floral, complex, intriguing, distinctive, rich, unequaled” are often found in the long strings of adjectives writers use in describing the flavor of the cooked fruit, when sweetened or added to alcohol.  In the Great Lakes landscape, (it’s hardy throughout the Great Lakes Region) it grows to a … Continue reading Plant Profile: Cornelian Cherry, Cornus Mas