Julian Kapoor

Having recently moved from a citrus growing mecca - SoCal (zone 9b/10a) to the mostly citruse-less PNW (zone 8a/b), I've thought a lot about non-fossil-fuel-aided ways I might continue growing citrus up here, and which varieties I might try first. That search has dredged up examples of some fairly successful local(ish) endeavors (check out the Duncans in BC https://www.fruittreesandmore.com/). Obviously your growing conditions, and whether you're  interested in protected culture [if you're not in ideal citrus country] will heavily influence what varieties you might want to try. Sounds like trovita sweet oranges are worth a shot for less than ideal conditions.

Growing conditions aside, the best oranges I've ever had were ones I tried while conducting field research on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. There are many different varieties there that don't seem to have much of a temperate presence, but that i consider outstanding. My two favorites are Ortanique and King Orange - the latter remains a deep glossy forest green when ripe but with deep orange flesh. If I can muster up sufficient heat from a passive solar greenhouse I'm definitely eager to try growing those up here along with some of the more conventional varieties.

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time permies lurker, first time poster. My family and I have recent moved to the spot we hope to spend the next several decades putting down literal and figurative roots.

The previous occupant of the property - we've discovered by surprise - buried unbelievable amounts of glass bottles (broken into shards), plates, tiles, tarps, old synthetic carpet, mats, and scrap metal all over the place, and seems to have sprinkled tiny paint chips over everything like some kind of garnish.

I'm hoping I can get ideas here for how to prioritize what to clean up first (or at all) and to brainstorm effective cleanup methods.

I guess the first question I should ask is, is it reasonable for me to want to get as much of this stuff out of the ground as possible? I know I could just start building soil over all of this debris, but I'd much rather put in the work to clean everything up thoroughly now than pull up fragments of plastic tarps and shards of glass over the next 3 decades.

My best guess for how to proceed is as follows, but I'm very interested in others' opinions and ideas:

I haven't yet tested any of the paint chips for lead, but that's the first item on my list. I've read a bit that certain soil fungi can actually break down paint chips, so if they don't contain lead I'm tempted to try to find ways to sift out some of the larger items (glass, tiles, etc.) mechanically through a sieve (anyone have design ideas or experience with this?) after the soil dries out next summer and to move the affected soil to a spot where I can specifically encourage breakdown of the paint chips. If the paint chip breakdown idea isn't practical, maybe I could pass that soil through an even finer sieve (the soil itself is a fine sandy loam) to separate the majority of those paint fragments? I'd really like to avoid just removing the affected soil entirely, though if there's a lot of lead contamination I guess that might be one of the only remaining options.

To give you a sense of the scale of the problem we're on 1/3 acre and about 1/3 of that appears to have copious amounts of this debris, and debris appears to go from the surface down to about 3".

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!