Inevitably, unwanted trees grow wild in the food forest but instead of cutting them down entirely to remove them, I pollard them. By pruning the tree back to the main trunk, I get food for the rabbits. If I kill the tree, okay but if it lives then it will grow even more food for the rabbits next season.
I do the same practice with the seedling apple trees that get too large to use as grafting rootstock. I didn't realize how convenient planting them next to the rabbit colony would be. Each year I cut all the branches of each of the trees and toss them into the rabbits. Each year the apple trees have more branches to cut.
#permies #permaculture #homesteading #grownostr #meshtadel #selfsovereignty #forestgarden #foodforest #pollarding #returnsurplus #nonextraction
quotingRabbits eating mulberry prunings
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I've pruned this mulberry tree several times this season to feed the rabbits. I barely made a dent in it this pruning and the rabbits got more than a full meal out of it. I'll keep pruning it until there's nothing left going into the fall. It was a volunteer in the food forest so I'm not concerned if I kill it. Eventually I might want the space for another fruit tree anyway. For now, it's growing into rabbit meat.
#permaculture #permies #homesteading #grownostr #selfsovereignty #meshtadel #rabbit #rabbitcolony #forestgarden #foodforest
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