Travis Roesler

A half hour video, in the middle of which he takes a trip to the mountains, and NEVER GIVES THE RESULTS OF THE TEST?!

Excuse me while I punch myself in frustration.

Thanks for the advice!  I don't think that a tree saw will be necessary for this level of brush, so maybe the sheep can just bust it out themselves!

Hmmm... but once I have the hops planted, I'm going to have to get rid of the goats, or they'll eat the bines!

Great advice!

We fully intend on shaping the pond first, and I own the excavating equipment required to do that (and any tilling/brush hogging).

We're just trying to get the 'master plan' in order... and I'm trying to wrap my head around having one cash crop while maintaining permaculture principles.

Alright... so I've decided that I want to try some commercial hop production on my 22 acre farm, but obviously this can't be a 'monoculture'.  I'm aware of the many drawbacks of pushing out a pile of the same crop.

Growing hops requires a large trellis to support the bines... which is a serious investment.  Obviously, underneath the trellis, it's going to be pretty much 'all hops' being grown, or at least as close as possible.  Anything else might be a poor use of that investment.  The trellis itself will cost about $20,000 and we plan on creating raised beds of soil, and fertilizing with local tested organic compost, ideally.

I would, however, like to throw down some large raised garden beds in between to attract the kind of insect/bird diversity needed to stop things from getting out of control, and also have a bunch of livestock running around in there.

Additionally, right now the land is probably 4 years fallow.  It's a hyoooooge pile of brush, long grasses, weeds and other stuff.  I am going to need to deal with this in the most intelligent way possible... which might include:

1. Tilling and cover cropping
2. Trying to cover all of this crap with mulch or wood chips.
3. Digging EVERYTHING up and creating large raised beds of good soil... as beds for both the hops and the 'other stuff'.

I am majorly concerned about disrupting the soil ecology, but also know that this is a virtually insurmountable amount of natural foliage/weeds.  At the end of the day, I think I need to run across the entire filed with the backhoe, and create long raised beds for everything.

SO....

I guess my questions are:

1.  How would you guys deal with the current level of brush in order to prep this thing for use, while preserving soil ecology and making the best use of the organic matter?
2.  Do you have any 'permaculture' based recommendations for making the goals of a 'monoculture' type endeavor mesh with the fine threads of sustainable farming?  Perhaps plant combinations?

Bonus questions:

3.  Is there any downfall to chopping this brush down, so that the field is easier to work with in the mean time?  It would be nice to be able to get around on the field.  I could actually pile up all of the brush and compost it.
4.  I have japanese beetles... anyone successfully deal with these organically?

Thanks for your time and your help guys!

I must say, this makes me feel a whole lot better about it!!!  Thanks!

Hey Chris,

Thanks for that info and citation.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by 'porting over'?  I have considered cover crops (white and crimson clover) but I wasn't really sure how to till that back in to a 6 foot tall hugel bed.

I am ALL ABOUT mulch, but I was just planning on using grass from my field.  

I don't have any spectacular plans... but I'm just looking at the color of my soil and shaking my head currently...

Thanks for all of the replies guys!

Hey Tracy,

This was very useful... sorry for not getting back to you.

I drastically lessened the amount of soil that I used between layers upon reading this, and STILL didn't have enough top soil for the 'top' of the bed.  

Good stuff!

I spoke with Paul not too long ago about 'not adding outside stuff' into my Hugel beds because, in truth, you can't rely on it to be contaminant free.

I am now most assuredly against adding horse manure compost since it frequently contains persistent herbicides and stuff like that.

However, the topsoil that I used in my hugel beds just isn't a very rich soil and I need to add something... so I've decided to consider grass/leaf compost from the local recycling center.

Leaf compost I'm sure is 100% fine... no one is treating leaves and trees in their yard with herbicides.  

My concern is the grass... I'm not sure what kind of pesticides or weed killers might have been put into people's lawns, and I'm wondering if you guys think it would be ok to add some of this stuff to richen up the soil.

It's certainly an 'organic' way to add some nutes, I just don't want to do more harm than good.  

Thanks for your time and help!