Pueblo County Colorado permies

Hi folks. Looking to see if there is any interest in getting together an organized permaculture/alternative ag group in pueblo and huerfano counties here in Colorado. Or is there any groups already existing. It would be great to get an "in-person" group going to share equipment, ideas, labor etc. could also start organizing education events and marketing cooperatives down the line. I have some plans and organizational architecture schemes written up to make some of all that happen. So any interest?
Thanks!
Tate

Hello,

We are right in the final stages of closing on a piece of land in Huefano county, and we would be VERY interested.

Charlie,
Sounds great!! Well I guess the best thing to do would be send me an email and I'll start putting together a list of people that are interested and we can start collaborating via email with everybody. So send me an email and I'll save your contact info. tate.smith1@gmail.com

So what types of things are you guys looking at doing? And what type of ground are you buying?

Great to have like minded folks move into the area.

We are looking to build a self sustainable homestead, with organic farm, food forest, and grazing area's.

Here's a couple of pics of the land, 30 acres in all.




https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/W1-zrdaXzKhvU1svkB6r_yTv39r_kECEWSTQT7uBI0g1X8alk3LY4rEsSBGxWj-tqXZXTA=s190[/img.]

I am interested. Our parcel is 6.5 acres of bottom land with creek in Beulah Valley

From a permaculture standpoint, I have focused on a "forest garden"/orchard, which we put in this past Spring. We do have a few acres of good grass, but no animals since we don't live there yet. Most of my time is going into the house right now, but I will order more plants for the spring and maybe even do some more earthwork to support.

I was really really impressed with the hugelswales water holding. I threw in beans, some extra tomato and pepper seedlings in June, expecting them to shrivel and die. They flourished, 50-70 tomatoes per plant and grew to the size of 35 gallon trash cans. And by the way, I did not water once. There is drip to the bare root trees and shrubs, the final photo is last weekend, after all the annuals were mulched

I am on a 7 year plan.

Ryan, I am so impressed with your berms, can you tell me exactly what they are made of? What kind of brush, etc. also, what elevation are you at? I'm at 8700 feet, here in the Westcliffe area. I've been making smaller berms, for erosion control.

Nancy Hedberg wrote:Ryan, I am so impressed with your berms, can you tell me exactly what they are made of? What kind of brush, etc. also, what elevation are you at? I'm at 8700 feet, here in the Westcliffe area. I've been making smaller berms, for erosion control.

where abouts?
we have friend in the cody park area, and we make a few trips to the westcliffe valley each year to borrow a chicken plucker.
it really is a beautiful area up there. we were at one point looking to buy and old ranch near gardner, but couldnt afford to make the jump.

we are nearish to canon city, so ~1 hr away.

Nancy,

I had the backhoe dig ~2'x2' ditches on contour. We then dropped 70% cottonwood, 30% old pine logs into the bottom and followed aged pine and cottonwood slash back to the original grade. The backhoe then compacted the wood and pushed the dirt back over the top. The swales have stayed moist since built last april, the plants love it and so do the moles. We are at ~6300ft in a valley frost pocket. I will say that we are very lucky to have incredible black dirt (old creek confluence I think). My experience so far in Beulah and also at our house in Colorado Springs is that burying organic matter with dirt on contour no matter how small has helped with moisture and long term fertility. I do usually try to include some manure/compost in the mix, but didn't bother in Beulah.

Ryan