Perennial, Productive Plants for High Country Desserts

Here is a link to some info to some info from UofI including lists of what trees, grapes, blackberries, etc. grow well in high country deserts.

Here is some info I got from a friend on some perhaps less traditional options:

The elderberries grow well, but they need to be watered about as much as your grass, they are supposed to be medicinal as far as antiviral stuff goes. 

Sea berries are pretty exciting they are supposed to taste somewhere between a mix of orange juice and peach juice - tart though need some sugar. they also have all sorts of omega fatty acids and anti oxidants in them. 

Goji berries are more of a vine once they get going they are supposed to do well. I'm waiting to see if mine come back this year. 

The saskatoon blue berries are about the most exciting they look and taste like blueberries, but unlike normal blue berries they grow really well in our alkaline soil. Mine are still fairly small but are heavy producers. 

You could also look at black walnuts - they are supposed to have all the essential amino acids in them Same as an egg, but easier to store). English walnuts also grow well around here - both black walnuts and english walnuts needs some kind of shelter the first couple of years like a fence or something to keep the wind off them. I planted mine out in the open and they die each winter and then come back each spring so they never get very big. My neighbor down the road has some nice english walnuts in her yard - it's a little more sheltered.

plums are also nice to get started, just for the change.

Choke cherries also grow well once they are established - make a good syrup. My neighbor down the road has a bunch. She also grows a lot of rasberries - she says she never has the birds eat any of her rasberries because they are always so busy fighting over the chokecherries. she never gets many chokecherries but birds will rob everything off most of the other plants so they would be worth it just as the decoy.

These are some of the edible plants they say we can grow around here. I put the link to burnt ridge nursery under the plant and then the link to wikipedia because it tells a lot about each plant.

elderberry
http://www.burntridgenursery.com/fruitingPlants/index_product.asp?dept=41&parent=28

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambucus_nigra

sea berry
http://www.burntridgenursery.com/fruitingPlants/index_product.asp?dept=43&parent=28

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippophae_rhamnoides

goji berry or wolf berry
http://www.burntridgenursery.com/fruitingPlants/index_product.asp?dept=36&parent=28

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycium_barbarum

serviceberry or saskatoon blueberry - will grow well in alkaline soil
http://www.burntridgenursery.com/fruitingPlants/index_product.asp?dept=35&parent=28

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier_alnifolia

Good Luck!!!

Ben

Thomas Jefferson

I received this in an email and thought it too good not to post.

Enjoy...

Who was

Thomas Jefferson ?

This is amazing. There are two parts. Be sure to read the 2nd part (in RED).

Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.

At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor.

At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.

At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.

At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.

At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.

At 23, started his own law practice.

At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America? And retired from his law practice.

At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence.

At 33, took three years to revise Virginia's legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.

At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.

At 40, served in Congress for two years.

At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.

At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.

At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.

At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.

At 57, was elected the third president of the United States.

At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation's size.

At 61, was elected to a second term as President.

At 65, retired to Monticello.

At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.

At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.

At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams.

Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."