What permaculture techniques have been proven to work in the Cascadia bioregion?

My very (not) scientific experience of one completed small hugel bed and several raised beds filled like hugel beds is that it works very well here in the PNW. Some friends of mine in our neighborhood also have several large "proper" hugels that are doing well for them too.

We built a small 3' hugel bed almost 7 years ago and it has herbs, flowers, and native plants- salal, Oregon grape, ferns, growing in it and a couple trees on the perimeter. I hardly ever water it except in August. And even then I just give it a cursory sprinkling once every week or two. In contrast, the trees and bushes that are in the same area but 5'-6' feet away from the hugel have to be soaked a couple times a week in July and August or they start dying. We went away last summer at the end of July and beginning of August and I lost two trees but the trees with their roots in the hugel were fine. In the winter the first few years, things grew longer because of the warmth of the decaying wood. I had flowers blooming on it in December! That no longer happens.

We had to dig out all the dirt in our raised beds last year because voles were destroying the veggies, literally leaving bare earth in most of the beds, so completely did they eat things. So we dug up the dirt to put hardware cloth in the bottoms. It was painful to disturb all the lovely soil life that was growing in the layers of wood pieces that were left. So much of it was completely broken down and just beautiful soil. I have not seen the same water absorption as in the regular hugel. The wood sides dry out quickly and dry out the soil too.

Other permaculture practices are a little more long distance and I can't say I have positive results yet. We are slowly building up the layers of a food forest in our front yard but it's definitely a work on progress as we figure out which plants work best. Most of the trees are only 5'-6' tall at the moment and I put in bushes that are better suited for shade but are getting too much sun right now until the trees get bigger. Live and learn, right? Plus we are limited by budget so I can only get so many plants at a time so I've been learning how to propagate plants myself but that also adds more time to the equation. It's a great big wonderful living experiment!

Thanks a bunch, Jenny.  IMO, this is the best 'knowledge' to share... time-tested, comparison 'plots, etc.  Great job!  (Now I have to get back to voles' big brother... moles!! in my yard.   I think cat tootsie rolls worked well in the past, but they're back... and I don't have an indoor cat... might be able to drive to Seattle to pick up if a friend will 'save' their apt cat's  or else, it's mint all over the place.... Cisco Morris has a recipe for make large batches by boiling fresh mint, etc.)

Moles are generally beneficial in how they are pure carnivores (soil grubs) that aerate the PNW's commonly compacted and poorly drained soil. So they are solving some problems (balancing soil ecosystem), but you're saying they are spreading mint? I am also old friends with a couple of Cisco's nephews, and he is a delight!

Ben Zumeta wrote:Moles are generally beneficial in how they are pure carnivores (soil grubs) that aerate the PNW's commonly compacted and poorly drained soil. So they are solving some problems (balancing soil ecosystem), but you're saying they are spreading mint? I am also old friends with a couple of Cisco's nephews, and he is a delight!

I think he meant that he will be spreading a mint concoction all over the place to get rid of them.  

Personally I try not to let the moles bother me but it's hard when they have uprooted some of my trees, bushes and veggies on occasion in their tunnel building and I've twisted my ankles in many a hole.  But I liked learning that moles are territorial and so I don't have to worry about hundreds of moles overrunning my property, unlike the voles that multiply and decimate my garden and enjoy girdling my trees.

Hugelkultur works great in the PNW.  Polyculture works great as well, so does chop and drop.  It's a marvelous thing when you really "grok" chop and drop: all weeds become food, and you don't have to dig up every last root of that weed, just come by regularly to chop and drop.  It's making food for your favored plants!
Perennial kales do well for me, I have a big purple one and a variegated pale green and white one that is easy to multiply with cuttings.

Here are some of my experiences:

Polyculture - I planted fruit trees in 2 locations. One has full sun, good soil and grass. The other has some shade from evergreen trees, lots of rotten logs, brambles and bushes. The trees in the second location did much better - none of them was killed by deer and they grew faster. Also surprisingly they were not affected by the cherry sawfly which killed a couple of trees in the sunny area.

Animals - nobody mentioned it yet but part of permaculture is using animals to keep predators in check. My cats keep the moles and voles at bay. Before I had them I had 4 trees just chewed completely below soil level.
Same with "chop and drop" - why should i do it when my ducks do it for me? They also eat slugs.

One last thing - recently I got some mini Nubian goats and I let them free. Right now they prefer to eat the blackberries and the hemlock but  I will have to see if they attack my fruit trees in the spring - anybody has any suggestion?

Triton Nomad wrote:Here are some of my experiences:.

Animals - nobody mentioned it yet but part of permaculture is using animals to keep predators in check. My cats keep the moles and voles at bay. Before I had them I had 4 trees just chewed completely below soil level.
Same with "chop and drop" - why should i do it when my ducks do it for me? They also eat slugs.

One last thing - recently I got some mini Nubian goats and I let them free. Right now they prefer to eat the blackberries and the hemlock but  I will have to see if they attack my fruit trees in the spring - anybody has any suggestion?

I've thought about getting a barn cat from from the humane society for my vole and rat problem. I'd want to teach them to not poop in my garden. Do you think that is possible? Possibly the more I do no-till gardening with plenty of cover cropping and chop and drop mulch, maybe it won't be as appealing as bare and fluffy tilled soil. ???

I'd like to see what people suggest about your goats. My family really wants to get some goats (to eat the blackberries) or sheep (to keep the grasses mowed) but I thought they might go straight to all my berry bushes and fruit trees and flowers. And since I've got all that interspersed throughout my land, I don't have an area big enough to pen them in away from those things. But maybe when the trees are bigger? My friend's goats ate all her trees and bushes to death but they were large goats.

Can goats be "tethered out"?  Can one use portable (electric?) or movable fencing?

In my area, it isn't moles or voles it is ground squirrels and they are smart. They work in community, one on the hill notifying others of predators and they learn the range of gunfire. The only way that I have found to combat the ground squirrels on my property is burying hardware cloth under my garden areas and cats. Everything has to be fenced (at least 6' no climb fencing) with ample other space for wildlife. Our property is all sloped so I employ hugelktultur/swales to provide water. Lots of soil building and soil breakup. We are in a geologic slide zone so biologic soil breakup works better. Plants can work around rocks better than tools.

As I always say, "Hawks in the Orchard; Ferrets in the Garden."

* I don't actually have hawks or ferrets, but it seems like they would keep down the rodent pressure in food growing areas.
** and It would be cool to have a hawk sitting on my shoulder while I hold and pet a ferret... like some Bond villain.
*** also, when I'm gone I want people to think I had Hawks in the orchard and Ferrets in the garden.

As for Permaculture techniques proven in Cascadia...

The Zones, Ethics, and Stacking-Functions things don't work here, but Keyhole beds do.

George Tyler wrote:As I always say, "Hawks in the Orchard; Ferrets in the Garden."

* I don't actually have hawks or ferrets, but it seems like they would keep down the rodent pressure in food growing areas.
** and It would be cool to have a hawk sitting on my shoulder while I hold and pet a ferret... like some Bond villain.
*** also, when I'm gone I want people to think I had Hawks in the orchard and Ferrets in the garden.

As for Permaculture techniques proven in Cascadia...

The Zones, Ethics, and Stacking-Functions things don't work here, but Keyhole beds do.

Your imagery of the hawk and ferret made me chuckle.

Why do you say zones, ethics, and stacking functions don't work here?

Depending on the site and size of the property, reaching out to the local raptor rehabilitators may be a way to introduce appropriate hawks, owls, falcons to deal with rodents.

Day feeders like hawks for ground squirrels; nocturnal ones for those rodents most active at night such as Great Horned or Barn Owls 🦉. Barred Owls are Diurnal, and unlike most Owls are not diet specific - they will happily hunt just about anything, and do so day and night.

We have plenty of owls, hawks, falcons, eagles, vultures and they cannot keep up with the rodent populations. The vultures can't even keep up with all the road kill. I suppose if your area doesn't have these but I've not seen areas like that.

I just tried out Zones and Stacking functions and Ethics again.
They DO work here in Cascadia!!!
I must have been doing it wrong before.
Sorry if I misled anyone.
:)
Just a bit of silliness really.

ALSO,
to the point of this thread...
I have read that the Bullock Brothers (in the San Juan Islands WA) recommended perhaps a bit more spacing between trees and shrubs in a food forest in the maritime northwest, due to our cooler moister conditions. vis a vis preventing fungus disease problems or catching more sun- I can't remember quite what they said.

On my place, I have food forest situations that seem pretty productive, with pretty generous spacing.  Planted about 10 years ago.
For instance I have some SemiDwarfs of Apples, Nashi, Plums at 21' apart x 18'  in row, with Autumn Olives between, and Ribes friends in between those gaps.

The 9 fruit trees in that cluster produce well, no disease problems noticed.
I do of course need to heartily prune back the Eleaeagnus now and then.
So It is 'food forest', but some I have seen in videos from sunnier climates are stacked full of much more plants in the same amount of space.

just an anecdote.

Many of to rocket mass heater innovators hail from Cascadia. Ernie and Erica, Matt Walker and the Approvecho Research Center all live around here. So I think that technique is pretty well proven.

Rocket Stoves!!!
Please include my beloved old teacher Ianto Evans of the Cob Cottage Company in the Rocket-Stove-development pioneers category.

Right! The Cob Cottage Company came to mind. I couldn't remember if they also did Rocket Stoves, in addition to Cob Cottages.

Add Cob buildings to the list of successful permaculture techniques. Just give your building good boots (a tall stone foundation) and a good hat (a roof with long eaves) and you are good to go. Cob Cottages in Britain have lasted centuries with a bit of maintenance.