posted 3 weeks ago
Well- here is some territory where I can throw my weight around. After living in the tropics I got impressed by agroforestry, and then I started making my living and supporting my family with my agriculture so I had to GO PRO. Then I went back to the tropics, met Bill Mollison etc. etc. As I tend to get itchy and host polycultures of invertebrates on/in my body in the tropics I figured I might try to adapt some of the tactics to where I live (where there aren't so many bugs thirsting for my blood)
Cut to the chase: it works. But learn, observe and interact as uncle Bill advised. Ask local extension about what nitrogen fixing plants and trees work best where you are. Learn which are partnering with fungi and which with bacteria.
ANd examine your prejudices: "Scotch* Broom is a Plague! Witches ride brooms! We Burn witches! Burn the Broom! (which is Fire adapted- you'll "expand the stand" if you burn it, eh?)
I had an older friend also interested in Permaculture, a scientist (children's hearing specialist) He owned 20 acres along the Long Tom River in the Coast Range foothills west of Eugene, not far from Oregon Country Fair*. Down at the Long Tom was an old log deck where the previous owner had piled logs 'way back when, to float them to the mill in Junction City
*(if any of y'all want to experience the Fair in it's fullest, lemme know ASAP and I'll see if I can hook you up with the non-profit information/education area called Energy Park: you can't sell stuff but you can pass out information on the educational programs & etc.) It's where I cut my teeth on selling Permaculture. It would mean more or less a week of your life, some bucks, meeting a zillion interesting people, even hallucinations (at the Fair you don't need drugs to hallucinate) And it's no exaggeration: Tribes were living there for millenia before they got shuffled off. The Beavers are back at least.) SO: at this square of bladed-off subsoil Curtin Mitchell decided to plant an orchard: an acre of : (drum roll) SCOTS BROOM! Curtin decided to experiment: he divided the plot in two, cleared the broom off one half, and merely cut a pattern of holes in the other, and planted Apple rootstock on a grid in the whole of it. by the time three years had passed, the apples IN THE BROOM were bigger and happier BY FAR. So what do you think? I thought I should explore Broom culture. I now plant any suitable nitrogen fixing plants in any system I disturb, and I also cut suitable "broom sticks" anywhere I see broom growing, because I had one sprout up at one of the first ponds I built after I discovered permaculture: the farm tractor ran the baby over so it was crooked in 3 years it was big enough to make an interesting cane. So I cut it and seasoned it, barked it and sanded and oiled it. I hardly ever used it. But my father was a polio survivor and altho he was a poster child for surviving polio, by 60 he couldn't walk very well, especially after driving across the country for days w/o exercise. He asked me: "Do you happen to have a cane?" He used it the rest of his life. I have it back now, and I make canes with broom all the time. 1) no one will get mad at you for cutting broom in a National Forest (or wherever) 2) for a legume, it's not very heavy, but still quite strong, and I like the resilience, which translates to more vibratory information about the ground traveling to your body thru your hands. 3) everyone is legally entitled to have a cane or walking stick: around the world there are cases of warrior societies being conquered by stronger empires: there's an Irish song from World War I about having a walk down 'round the harbor and the English recruiter who finds them and pitches them to enlist for the King to fight the Kaiser: the song ends with the recruiter being battered and bloody and running for his life.
Rick Valley at Julie's Farm