Tomi Hazel

Hello Slope Holders!

In the Social Forestry book I talk about making brush bundles for filling walls. I also use these for erosion control. They are called brindles, or faschines or faggots. In pond building and roadside slope control we use Jute netting and very specific grasses like Sheep Fescue and Dwarf Red Fescue. There are commercially available bundled straw ropes also called faschines that can be staked just off contour and collect soil and seeds. I have used logs embedded off contour to support access trails and act as nurse logs for perennial woody plantings.

There is my unsolicited advice! hazel

Shari Clark wrote:Welcome, Tomi! Your book looks amazing! I live in a forest and it's been such a journey to learn how to garden in this environment.

Hello Shari! Yeah, I bet gardening is a challenge. I ended up gardening in 150 gallon tubs to keep the gophers at bay, to be very efficient with water and to hold some overnight heat. Last few nights here have been near freezing. I have worked with “climate batteries” which are partially sunken green houses with lots of mass and insulated foundations, that have a solar fan that circulates heat into the soil through a buried plenum. No water barrels to freeze. But there you are in Zone 3.

All the best, fresh greens when you can, hazel.

Ra Kenworth wrote:Hi Hazel

I am really enjoying your book. The style is unique, and I am finding it easy to digest the knowledge you share.

Thank you

Hello Ra. My daughter says young folks can get into this book as one can drop in anywhere and have a bit of a read. hazel

Bronwyn Olsen wrote:Hi Hazel, I am curious to know more about the importance of keeping standing stable snags in the landscape for reasons other than homes for wildlife? Also, the forest around me is pine and cedar. I have distributed ash and charcoal from a central burn pile to all over property in smaller raked out piles. The grasses you recommended. Do these have a better chance where trees are? I want to improve the soil, don’t want to kill trees. The biggest lack is consistent water and organic matter which makes it hard to keep anything else going like elderberries ,Oak or Oregon grape root. Right now, I’m just annoying my husband with the ash everywhere!

Hello Bronwyn! There you are on the ground. And I am coming to you through the ethers. I worry about the ash. It can be too caustic for some soils. If you have sandy loam, maybe fine. If alkaline clay, maybe not good. But the charcoal, always yes. Lots in the book on this. You might leave the ash piles and scatter the charcoal with a shovel throw from your very convenient distribution. Meanwhile I might think about the Four S’s (page 187): sequence, stage, sort and stash. You have done some stage and sort perhaps and sequence might mean high pruning first, to open things up. Yes, trees and grasses can work great together especially in your sort of dry forest. Fescues and Bromes would be a good start. Most Pine and Cedar woods are overstocked and the tree tops (crowns) close to a complete canopy. By high pruning we get ready for cool under story burning which recycles potassium and germinates latent soil seeds. There is a lot to tending a woodlot. Since the Pine and Cedar are pioneer species you may be able to open the tree cover by selective thinning and plant the next forest under the nurse trees. I would want to ask so many questions!

Welcome home! hazel.

Rachael Cart wrote:Hi Hazel,

Lovely to have you here at Permies, and I'd love to read your book. I'm in the UK and have around 3.5 acres of mainly old pasture, totally overgrown, and as well as being bordered by trees there is also about 1/2 acre of woodland which included old oaks and alder and younger birch, beech, hazel, willow and elder. I'd love to get into charcoal making, as well as creating a food forest around what's here. Do you have any tips you can suggest for someone starting out please?

Greetings Rachael! That half acre sounds like it is on its way to being an alphabet grove. See The Gaelic Tree Alphabet” pages 418 -421 in the book. The old Oaks are probably from a previous management regime and the younger cohort is forest re-succesion. There are many stories the land can tell you. Back to the past (Sara Maitland’s From the Forest), back to grazing or backward/forward to woodlot management? I would think that a food forest can be small and very near the dwelling. See my previous post on Food Forests. How much labor do you have? The book tours a few scenarios for finding cultural pathways to tending. See especially Chapter 12: Cultures in Transition. Our Bibliography has many authors who are from the UK. I like Alexander Langlands’ book Craeft for example. Perhaps you could establish a seasonal work camp for semi-itinerant bodgers and charcoaliers to set up systems for tending? I advise starting small and seeing the results before investing in some grand plan. I would hope you can find lots of good advice there where you live. As I quote Naess “Pay attention but don’t buy it!”, meaning that the land ultimately teaches us and the Human advice we get is tentative. Got that?

Into the woods! hazel.

John C Daley wrote:I have not got a copy of the book, I am in Australia.
We have an 18 inch rainfall and very poor soil, so I am wondering if your discussion and text will be relevant in this 'marginal' land by comparison to more congenial locations?

Hello John! That sounds like savanna country. When I worked in South Africa, the Acacia trees were invading complex grasslands from the loss of big browsers (Elephants) and suppression of seasonal fires. So how do you want to go? Grasses are the key foundation layer in “marginal” country like yours . Grasses invite disturbances such as grazing, burning and mowing to stimulate root establishment (your Keyline mate P.A.Yeomans) and prevent senescence (Allan Savory’s Holistic Management). Trees would be scattered but productive and cool regular burning might not harm them as hot irregular burning would. Social Forestry takes on the cultural tending necessary to long frame persistence. Your neighborhood undoubtably holds the wisdom you need. The book does go on about organizing cool burning with community support in Chapter 7: Fire.

All the best, I hope you enjoy my remote speculations! hazel.

Jay Angler wrote:We have approximately 3 acres of second growth forest which appears to be mostly cedar and Doug Fir, along with some Grand Fir and a sprinkling of deciduous trees along the edges and a patch of Garry Oak on some of the rocky high points.

The cedars have been in decline for decades. I can remember when we moved here with young children, you couldn't see light through the dense evergreen canopy and there was little in the way of understory plants. It's hard to notice the change when it happens gradually, but it clearly has happened.

We bought that chunk of land about 5 years ago, but I was more concerned with rehabilitating the disturbed land in the south corner of the property, thinking "the forest will just look after itself". However, the cedars are in decline or dead, and I'm wondering what small things could be done to support them.

English Ivy is a problem in the south area, but many cedars died before the Ivy got there. There isn't fencing, so dealing manually with the Ivy is not a "small thing" and there seems to be conflicting ideas of how to deal with the Ivy once it is removed.

Hello Jay, sounds like maturing forest! Let me throw some ideas out there. Grand Fir, Doug Fir (actually more a Spruce) and (which? Red? Incense?) Cedars are pioneer species on wet side Pacific Northwest forest-favorable sites. Here in Southern Oregon, the White Firs died out in the early 1980’s, the Doug Fir died out last year. All at once below four thousand feet. The second growth, overstocked regrowth pioneers are moving north and upslope. A California forest is our model.

You may have the chance to plant mature species in the understory. Red Cedar, Alaska Yellow Cedar, Yew, Engelmann Spruce, from the northern coastal forests and Redwood, Sugar Pine, and Jeffery Pine from the California Coastal forests are all capable of living in the shade waiting for openings. So you could create some openings by cleverly dropping big logs or you could let this succession take its pace and plant the new forest in waiting. Snags are really useful but White Fir is too unstable and rots fast. Cedar snags and Doug Fir can last a long time if balanced right. Getting big trees down is an art but the opportunity to drop it on contour and to take some limbs down off neighbors in falling opens up a planting zone.

Especially as you note fungii, I would usually recommend high pruning (for fire safety and access), and low slashing: cutting and laying limbs and logs on the ground in soil contact. The back-east forestry standard used to be two feet slash after logging and best six inches slash for quick break down. Laying logs and large limbs on contour or more cleverly on Keyline herringbones is a neat trick: debris swales for soil and water, as well as ground fire blocks where up-down slope wood can be a wick and accelerate ground fire.

Most of my advice implies plenty labor availability. Thus Social Forestry. Meanwhile we can all get at it where we are.

Make any sense? hazel

Sam Haynes wrote:Hi Hazel,
The book looks amazing I'm based in the UK just completed my PDC this Summer and Will definitely be getting a copy of your book it looks amazing. The plan is to get our own permaculture based plot of land set up here after seeing Martin Crawfords forest garden it has just shifted my whole perspective and we are going to be aiming for this kind of approach. Really looking forward to your book and the Extra Inspiration it will definitely give me for this lifelong journey. Thanks

Forest gardens are great small woodlots that can be very productive. When we establish these dense species plots, we are setting up lots of opportunities for harvesting materials for multiple products, fruits, nuts, herbs and berries, as well as firewood and so much more. If all or most of the products of these intense woodlots are used, the processing is a full time occupation. Consider that many forest gardens are over planted and under tended, and can warrant constant attention and interaction. Best wishes in your endeavors. hazel

Ben Zumeta wrote:Hello Hazel, I am so glad to see you on this forum. I am a friend of your son in-law Eric (at least I think I remember that was your relationship), and from him and many others have heard many great things. I also loved several of your recent podcast appearances, and look forward to reading your book. Thanks for your stewardship work for our bioregion!

Hello Ben, thanks for checking in. Yes, Eric is family, and I love my wild grandchildren. Here is an example of stewardship work near Ashland that is in the book.

The work I did with the Wilderness Charter School in Ashland was on US Forest Service roadsides where we reduced fuels, opened sight lines, coppice shrubs for basketry materials and harvested exotic medicinals to favor native plants. More details in my Social Forestry book pages 52 to 59.

Marvin Warren wrote:Hi Hazel, greetings from (downstate) New York - great to see your book getting more attention! I miss getting to learn with you in person, and I'm glad to see you still teaching and honing your craft. I'm making a living, and saving the money our absurd society demands as a precondition to land stewardship,  as a designer and landscaper, thanks in no small part to you.

I already have a copy of the book, so I'm just chiming in to encourage anyone here who doesn't win a copy to go out and get one anyway, it's well worth the investment <3

Hello Marvin, good to hear from you. Thanks for the endorsement. All the best in landing in trees