Carol wrote: I am growing alders in my urban garden. I bought them from Burnt Ridge Nursery at the suggestion of the nursery's owner and interplanted them with my fruiting trees and shrubs so that they could provide a nitrogen boost in the early years of my garden. Wow, this triggered a lot of thoughts... and a story. If anyone isn't interested in alders and forest gardening skip this. Anyway back to my story.. I've been studying local trees and talking to local foresters. Everyone recommended playing with the Sitka alder because it is very high in nitrogen and is shrubby. It may be the best choice for coppicing and is a native. The leaves are about 4 percent nitrogen making them outstanding for mulch. Today (Monday) i went off into the Mt Hood National Forest hunting for sitka alders and found nothing. What i did find was the native chinquapin. This was even more exciting. I collected some nuts and planted them. Then i went to the forestry office and managed to find someone who knew where to find Sitka alders. Most are under snow this time of year, but there are some on BLM land which i'll try to find tomorrow. Last time i went up that way the roads were washed out so this might be an adventure. Anyway, i looked up the alder in Burnt Ridge catalog and found they had red alder which we have thousands of growing wild all around the house. But, on another page i found the Chinquapin. Looking closely i found the latin name is different from all my identification books and the Burnt Ridge catalog says it is a native (there is only one native chinquapin). Maybe i'll be able to sort all this out tomorrow and find those alders. They are planted near cherry, mulberry, apple, and filbert trees. Under them I have gooseberry, currant, thimbleberry, highbush cranberry, and herbs. Last year I grew acorn and spaghetti squash under them. Everything seemed to do fine. This was an "instant garden", a la Bill Mollison, so nothing was big enough to shade out the other stuff yet. This year I am planning to grow sunflowers, corn, and cucumbers in that area of the garden. One of the foresters suggested cutting the alders and laying the limbs down as mulch. This keeps the trees small and the resulting mulch will grow most crops. He said this idea has been used successfully with interplanted rows where the alder roots get involved also. It won't work with red alder very well because cutting the tree kills it. I find it interesting that you can grow so many crops near the alders. This seems to be true of all alders and should be fun to play with. I've even heard that potatoes like it under alders. My original intent was to cut the alders down for homegrown firewood and kindling when they got big enough to shade the fruit trees. I then found out that you cannot cut down a tree in your own yard without permission from the city. Makes me want to scream! Yeah, we can scream together. What key do you scream in. We can start a band maybe? jeff
