Dave Miller

I'm on the southern border of Western WA (Columbia River/Cascade foothills) but my climate is probably not much different than yours.

My 0.5 acre backyard food forest is about 15 years old and overall is producing really well.  Always a work in process, of course.  I have about 200 varieties of edible perennials, including 96 varieties of apples and 19 varieties of grapes, across about 30 species of shrubs, vines, and trees.  Produces WAY more than we can eat or even harvest. I'm happy to trade plant materials and lessons learned.

We got a 10.6 kW Tesla solar roof + PowerWalls in 2021.  Since then we have spent a total of $15 for electricity (including the monthly connection fee).  i.e. we produce quite a bit more than we use.  However we just got an EV so that won't be the case going forward.  But will be way cheaper than buying gasoline.

I've done quite a bit with mason bees, including "raising" them with a large volunteer group as a fundraiser.  At the peak I had 160 mason bee houses deployed all over this area.  Covid killed that off so I am slowly ramping back down to just my yard + a handful of friends and family.  Difficult to do since hundreds of people now know me as a local "mason bee guy".  I don't have any other animals in my system other than a pet dog and wild birds.  I have somewhat "trained" the birds to remove pests and fertilize for me.  Otherwise I don't spray or fertilize anything, and I only water if a plant is showing signs of drought stress.  I am glad to let a plant die if it is unhappy or if it makes me unhappy.

My general overriding goal is to be able to go into my backyard every day of the year and harvest something.  I am very close to that goal.

I do still have a day job (1 year from retirement) but that doesn't stop me from spending time in my food forest.  It really isn't that much work once everything is established.  I could of course annually prune every tree & shrub for maximum production, remove every invasive, harvest and preserve every single fruit/berry/nut, brew and apply compost tea, chop every pruned branch into tiny pieces, etc. but I don't have to do any of those things, and I usually don't.  I do take full advantage of my headlamp to work even in winter evenings.  That is also the best time to kill slugs, which I do with an old pair of scissors :-)

My main short-term goals right now are:
1. Figure out what to do with all the pruned branches (I prune most things annually).  I don't want a gas chipper.  Currently I pile them up and let them decompose, which the birds and rabbits LOVE, but takes up space for about 4 years.
2. Lower the height of everything.  I have planted pretty densely and thus as things grow, everything wants to be tall and skinny, and things that are shaded have slowed their fruit production significantly.  Also I don't want to have to use a ladder to harvest.
3. Finish building a raised hugelkultur veggie garden. The larger wood chunks are going into that.
4. Add more native flowers and beef up my plant guilds.  I have tried MANY guild plants under my apples, most have failed.  Only comfrey and native strawberries have thrived.
5. Remove nearly all the native trailing blackberries (Rubus ursinus).  I tend to allow natives to grow when they show up (and I have planted dozens).  Most are well-behaved.  Trailing blackberries are NOT well-behaved and have spread over the entire space.  I will however let them grow over my branch piles to make them look a bit nicer, and because trailing blackberry is my mason bees' favorite flower.

A longer term goal is to get connected with some person(s) who would want to come harvest my surplus.  I think there could be a "roving harvester" role in permaculture - a person who harvests surplus from people like me and sells it to local restaurants and farmer's markets, and uses it to make value-added products.  Their main value-add would be knowing when and where certain things are a) available and b) in demand; and building up a large, seasonally-aware, local trading network.

I also do a lot of volunteer work at some nearby wildlife refuges (habitat restoration etc.), and many other wildlife-related projects with/for native bats, turtles, pikas, Vaux's swifts, pollinators, and more.  I have been doing that work since 2006.

I won't be able to meet up, but I'm happy to participate remotely.

Casey Wing wrote:Hi, Dave, thanks for the offer as well!  I will definitely let you know if I'm ever passing through and would love to learn from your experience. Do you have a list of your edible perennials that's easy to share?

Sure, I will send it in a PM

I'm down in Camas, too far for a meetup but I'm happy to share what I've learned, (and plant materials, if you're ever down this way). I have a half acre food forest that is about 15 years old. Overall it is doing great. I have 156 varieties of perennial edible plants.

An onion farmer in Idaho (not me) talks about farmer's stress - https://www.tiktok.com/@shayfarmkid/video/7233912345767054635

Do permaculture farms have the same stresses?  Or, what would a permaculture onion farm look like?  Does "permaculture onion(/fill_in_the_blank) farm" even make sense?

I'm in Camas

I'm in Camas, WA, about 1.5 hours from you.  I just have a 0.5 acre backyard food forest/forest garden.   It is still a work in process but most of the "anchor plants" are at least 10 years old and producing well.  My current project is a raised hugelkultur no-till keyhole-shaped veggie bed.  Otherwise everything is perennials.  I have no animals but I attract a lot of wild birds who do all of my fertilizing and most of my pest control.  And occasionally bring me new plants.

I have learned a lot and have made quite a few notes on what I've learned, which I am happy to share.  I am not a PDC designer.  My main inspiration has been Toby Hemenway.  We had a permie-aware designer do a design for us 15 years ago.  At the time we were focused on natives but as I learned about permaculture I substituted edibles for some of the natives in the design.  The combination of natives and edibles (and native edibles) seems to work well for me.

A few photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6PqLysXWoXjp9WEeA

Let me know if you're ever up this way and we can walk through it.

Dave

Re: very few bats, that is probably because I don't see any suitable bat roosts.  Although I bet the bats have explored every nook and cranny of your house exterior to find a suitable roosting spot.  If you put up a bat house I think your chances of occupancy are very high.  And yes they eat mosquitoes too but will go for bigger insects first.

Re: birds, it would be great if you learned to identify them and logged them via ebird etc.  The free Merlin app does a pretty good job of identifying birds via their calls and you can post to ebird from it.  I bet there are very few data points from your area, I think your observations would be quite useful to bird science.  Speaking of bird science, here is an intriguing device I saw on kickstarter: https://www.terralistens.com/  Basically an automated ebird, but you can also use it to listen to your birds on your bluetooth speaker or phone.  A bit geeky, but if it becomes popular it will be quite useful to science.  I'm curious if you have ever seen or heard a Vaux's swift in your area?  If so I have another project for you to consider, which I am building for my yard (vaux's swift roosting cylinder made from used cedar fence boards).

Re: birds eating your crops, that will definitely happen.  Often, planting more "bird food" just means more birds will come.  I use fine mesh over the plants I'm not willing to share such as blueberries.  Otherwise when I see birds start pecking on my fruit I know it is time to pick them.  But if a whole flock shows up they will get it all.  So I have to watch very carefully to only let the birds get a little.  And they do of course come back after I harvest and get anything I missed, which is fine with me.  You can of course do things to discourage birds such as raptor perches, predator bird houses, etc.  But you'll need to observe and think through the long term impact of those things.

I'll send a link to my lessons learned via PM.

Sounds like an awesome adventure!  I am also just outside of Portland, on 0.7 acre with 0.5 of it in permaculture food forest/forest garden that is about 12 years old and doing great overall.

Of course your new place is in a very different environment, but I'd be happy to share what I've learned.  I started writing down my "lessons learned" a few months ago and it's up to 12 pages which I'd be happy to share.

I bet your pond & wetland attract a lot of wildlife.  My first thought when I saw the pond photo was "bat house".   I've built about 15, and lead bat walks at a nearby wildlife refuge.  Bats will help cut down on insects in your area, mostly moths and flies.

If I was in your shoes the first thing I would do is find a "wild"/"undeveloped" area near you that has similar conditions as your property and observe it carefully.  Learn every plant that is growing there and its function in that ecosystem.  Then find plants in the same family or that perform the same functions which are useful to you and which grow in your USDA zone - edibles, materials, etc.  Those are the plants that are likely happy to grow there and which will hopefully make you happy.

Keep us posted!

Dave
Camas, WA

If you can keep 1" of water on top of the sand, that will keep the plants alive.  Although with my filter the important variable is the amount of oxygenated water that I can flow through plant roots.  So ideally the water level on top of the sand should be about the same as the depth of the pots.  Or maybe you could embed the pots down into the sand?

When you gather your plants, pick ones that are growing at the same depth as you'll have them in the filter.

Also note that birds will be attracted to the shallow water in and around the pots for drinking and bathing.  This is great for having more birds around, which do most of my pest control and fertilizing, and bring new plants to my yard.  But they also poop wherever they go, probably including in the water.  If birds have access to your filter currently, they are probably already bathing and pooping in it.  With plants you may have more birds in your water.  But I imagine the plants & root microbes are taking up most of the bird poop.  So like everything else, there is a balance there.

I have never drank any water from my pond.  On a hot day it looks very tempting because it is so clear.  But I'm sure under a microscope I would find a lot of life which I wouldn't want to ingest.  However my dog drinks from the pond every day and she has no issues.

Michael Helmersson wrote:Our drinking water filter (biosand filter) is designed to maintain a 1" layer of water above the sand. This is the "bio" layer and it is recommended that, in order to keep the biology in there fed, you add a batch of water every day. I assume that it would be possible to plumb your filter to have the same 1" layer of water on top and that it wouldn't evaporate away in 24 hours.

The plants can probably survive a few days without water.  I'm not sure how long the microbes could survive without water.  Some are probably adapted to living in "vernal pools" i.e. can survive a dry season.  But others may die.  And of course without water flowing, the suspended algae will grow.

I would just give it a try and see what happens.  I'm guessing you don't have power nearby which is why you want a hand pump?  Personally I would set up a solar pump.  I wouldn't want the pressure of knowing that if I don't get out there and pump some water, things are going to die.  I like to spend time doing other things, like going on a vacation :-)

I would also use native plants from a nearby pond or lake.  I used a tall pond grass.

Michael Helmersson wrote:Would it be possible to use a biofilter like this with a manual cistern pump instead of an electric pump? I'd place the pump somewhere that would encourage frequent short bursts of pumping which could feed a surge tank that regulates the flow and smooths out the ups and downs. Conceivably, there'd be long periods with little or no water transfer, so I wonder if the biological layer would suffer. We use a biosand filter for our drinking water and it seems like the same concept. I like your idea, but I feel the urge to complicate it.