Ben Zumeta

Hi All,

We had a great turnout and accomplished a lot at last weekend’s shaded fuel break and biochar workshop, so many thanks to the nearly 30 people who came! Our 4th and final workshop of this series is upcoming:

Be the Beaver You Wish to See in the World—Water cycle restoration with woody debris, inspired by and in homage to beavers.

May 16th — 10am-2pm

Old Growth Edible Landscapes HQ — 2750 Low Divide Road — 95531
- 5mi up from Hwy 197, the last house on the right before Forest Service land and FS Rd 17n21

Our NW California-SW Oregon Wild Rivers region may be the most important to restore in all of North America, as our forested coastal mountains prime the continent’s hydrological pump. We will cover how to use the larger woody debris from fire mitigating shaded fuel breaks to build beaver dam analogues and other water retention-infiltration structures. A focus will be on low risk hand-scale work that can be done by any aspiring beaver impersonator. Doing this strategically can go a surprisingly long ways to rehydrate forests, mountainsides and aquifers–feeding springs, creeks and rivers through dry summers. This work can also encourage beavers return to do their work by providing them more food, water and shelter. Our site at the Myrtle Creek headwaters is strategic inflection point for watershed health downstream and fire mitigation downwind, and we appreciate your help in stewarding it.

What to Bring:
- Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground.  Shoes you don’t mind getting wet help working around water.
- Weather appropriate clothing (weather looks good, but long sleeves and pants are a good idea.
- Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)
- extra hand saws and loppers if you have them. We will focus on work not requiring chainsaws.
- Water bottle
- An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.
- We will provide snacks and lunch at the end.  

Emailing me at oldgrowthediblelandscapes@gmail.com to let us know you are coming will help us make an appropriate amount of food. Please bring something you can eat if you have special dietary requirements.

Thanks for your participation, collaboration, and help spreading the word.

Be the Beaver You Wish to See in the World!

I have Italian large bulbed fennel, and a smaller amount of bronze fennel, all over our garden and food forest. It self seeds prolifically, which I am ok with because it is a great biomass producer on our difficult serpentine bedrock based soils, it’s foliage makes pesto on par with basil, and the flowers support dozens of pollinator and pest predator insect species. I have not notices it being allelopathic beyond being prolific. I have even seen benefits to seedlings and transplanted starts with its dappled shade, especially when chopped and dropped strategically. It also seems to be a snail shelter plant, making it a place to harvest chicken treats. That snails seem to live in it without eating it was said by Bill Mollison to be an indicator of a fire resistant plant. I think fennel is one of the most under-appreciated volunteers (my preferred nomenclature for “weeds”).

A Clallam man taught us at my 5th grade outdoor school in the Olympic rainforest that eating slugs would keep us alive more efficiently if lost (as unskilled kids) than catching rabbits etc. Of course that is not compared to domesticated animals, but still brings a problem is the solution to mind. Most gardeners know how to propagate slugs and snails. I feed them to my chickens currently, and prefer that way of obtaining their fat to direct consumption;).

Would you like to take a permaculture themed tour on the largest undammed river in the continental US, and through the grandest forest Earth? Undammed rivers, old growth forests, and the cultures that have stewarded them for millennia can demonstrate permaculture principles and the patterns of nature in uniquely powerful ways. I am very fortunate to get to guide such trips through my good friend Adam’s company, Redwood Rides. I would love to share this amazing area of NW California with fellow permies, and Adam is open to offering these permaculture themed trips at a discount. Ask for Ben Zumeta and a permaculture paddle, cycling tour, or
a combined “multi-sport” trip when booking at:

https://www.redwoodrides.com/

Redwood rides can rent out all the gear you need for kayaking and cycling based trips, which are my specialties. The “Redwood Run” is an 8-mi stretch with class 1-2 rapids (doable for beginners and fun for all) that starts in the diverse and dramatic Siskiyou serpentine ecosystem, then runs through the world’s highest biomass forest in the old growth redwoods. This run can also be broken into two 4mi half day trips (upper and lower). I can also row a raft through this section if that is preferred.

One of my favorite kind of days to lead are “multi-sport”. On multi-sport trips we cycle through the old growth forest on an old stage coach road surrounded by an old growth redwood forest with 18 of the 30 tallest trees on Earth in the morning. We then eat a nice lunch by the river before setting out on the upper Redwood Run by boat. I rarely feel more fortunate than when sharing these amazing places from a bike and a boat in the same day.

For those looking for a more challenging paddle, I also lead trips on the Middle Fork of the Smith with class 3 rapids amidst where the diverse Siskiyou serpentine and redwood ecosystems converge. This is a beautiful run with epic swimming holes and unbelievably clear water.

Redwood Rides also provides gear and guides for big water rafting, which gets up to class 5 on upper stretches of the Smith. We have other guides who are world class big water river runners, and excellent naturalists in their own right. I can generally hang in up to class 4, but only like to guide class 3 and below. We also offer coastal trail rides (which I also lead), and shuttling for self guided trips. I hope to get to share this beautiful place with you sometime!

Kevin Stanton wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:
I'm confused as to whether you are trying to dig rocks, tree roots or rhubarb roots as you mention in your last post? maybe all of them?
This is in the forest?

splitting rhubarb in an establishing food forest that some chop and drop trees are growing next to, on peatland (not quite a bog due to filling in after the last ice age).

George Ingles wrote:If you are just trying to eliminate these roots - not harvest, and the tool needs to be narrow and durable, I have a suggestion.

I'm collecting rhubarb roots for replanting to eventually have a 4ish acre rhubarb farm to pay me when I retire.

Jim Garlits wrote:Everything is a trade-off, and you can wind up with a shed full of tools you only use once or twice a year instead of five or six that you use all the time.
Jim

What if you use it for a few days every year?

I would be concerned about the damage done by digging around established trees. Their roots can extend outward 2x the height of the tree. I would focus work where minimal disturbance to highly valued trees would be done to harvest a starter stock that then gets propagated out in raised beds with friable soil. I would also suggest a digging bar for anything requiring exerting anywhere near all your strength on. Be very careful though, as my trail crew bosses would often point out that gravity, leverage and big muscles in the wrong orientation can snap bone, especially feet, hands and wrists.

This tall grass is habitat!
Please let it grow.
Thanks!

M.K. Dorje Sr. wrote:.

Several years after planting them, I read that permaculture farmer Sepp Holzer recommended using Scotch broom as a mulch for chestnuts, so I pulled out all my weedy broom plants in that area and heavily mulched the chestnuts with them. I also gave them some mineral supplements the past few years- rock phosphate and an organic sulfur/magnesium/potassium mix. This seemed to make them grow faster and now they're roughly 18 feet tall. This year they finally flowered for the first time, but the nuts did not fill out.

Anyone here have luck with Chinese chestnuts in the Pacific Northwest? Do they require irrigation to form nuts in our dry summers? How about zinc supplements to help the chestnuts form? I've read that local filbert farmers use zinc supplements.

Great advice to pass along about scotch broom mulch! It has been shown to improve native pnw and norcal tree regrowth where it is mowed and mulched with or left to grow vs herbicide or pulling and removing. I hadn’t thought to use it on the hundred or so chestnuts I planted out this year, but I am going to brushcutter mow mine broom where it will mitigate fire risk to big trees and structures.

I agree it looks like a micronutrient deficiency (ie zinc) from the yellowing older leaves. I would foliar feed with a compost extract-kelp-glacial rock dust spray the entire plant, especially undersides of leaves where stomata are. Plants foliar uptake is a remnant of their marine ancestors, a bit how our lungs can only absorb fully hydrated oxygen due to our submarine gilled ancestry. Jon Kempf has cited 4-70x the uptake efficiency of foliar feeding vs soil application, depending on the mineral and plant species. I would still also soil drench with the same solution as above at least once in the spring.

Silage forks move 4-10x the amount of woodchips than a pitch fork. A shrimp fork is similar. Both moving silage and shrimp is done by pretty sturdy folk. My fork has moved hundreds of yards of chips, and was at least 20yrs old when my neighbor with back problems gave it to me. I think it is black locust and iron. Newer ones have lasted 5yrs so far being used by volunteers weekly at the public food forest I helped start….edit, just caught back end of post. Bulldog digging forks have served me well and are sold in the US through Red Pig tools, which are also great tools.