Osage-Orange Hedge, Part 1
A
month or two ago, osage-orange fruits started washing up on the
ford. I've always been intrigued by the brain-like fruit, but as
far as I know they're not good for anything so I let them wash on by.
But then I saw a blog
post by Julie A Carda,
reminding me that osage-oranges are also called hedge-apples. As
you'll read in this week's lunchtime series, I have a new bee in my
bonnet about hedges, so I immediately set out for the floodplain in
search of osage-orange fruits.
Floods had washed the
ford bare, but a quick wade downstream through frigid water turned up
one osage-orange fruit rotting on a sandbar. I scooped it up and
headed home with my prize.
According to Hedge-apple.com, it's quite easy to turn
your osage-orange fruit into a hedge. Just let the fruits sit in
a damp place all winter (my fruit is already well into this stage),
mash up the goo in early spring, and spread it into a shallow
trench. The seeds will sprout thickly and turn into a
hedge. Just what I need! Too bad I was only able to find
one fruit.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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An old wives tale is that Osage oranges are good for pest control. I don't know if there is any truth to the matter but every fall I gather some up and put them in the garage and basement and hope for the best.
Naomi