Suggestions for planned wildcraft forest?

I own 40 acres,most of which is evergreen forest. I'd like to establish sustainable plantings and develop opportunities for ongoing wildcrafting.  Ideally, it would be wonderful to make some sort of harvest each season....  if not monthly.

Suggestions and ideas are appreciated.

I'm not much of a business person--need to learn the art of marketing. Am also opem to suggestions regarding where and how to find buyers for products.

What kind of evergreens? Some are useful unto themselves. If they are not the most useful variety, harvest a few, remove dead ones, etc. and plant nut trees.

Good ones.

Very diverse plant life, which I love. Fir, tamarack, alder, aspen, spruce (rare) and pine.

I have a lot of terrific plants as well... although a couple of years ago when they sent out the noxious weed calendar from the Extension office I could have sworn they'd visited my property! I don't have any particular plants which are running amuk, however, so I'm not concerned about them.

I have quite an assortment of fungi, none of which I recognize with the exception of shaggy manes and morels (only a few). I'd like to promote some established plantings of the morels, as well as chantrelles.

But... I'd also like to plan/manage my forest so that I have some sort of income source monthly/seasonally.

I'm cash shy right now so it makes it difficult to do a lot of investing but any little things I can do now to help for the future would be awesome!

What's your climate like?  That would help with suggestions.

Do you want food crops, or craft crops such as willows for making baskets?  (Hazel could be used for both food and baskets....)

Kathleen

Oops, I thought I sent a post with that info, sorry.

Zone 4, a bit more that 2 hours out of Spokane, WA

http://granitemtnranch.com/Flora.html

Garden setup didn't make it in this year, except for the garlic... and I had hoped to save bulblets next fall for replanting.


I'm up for ANY suggestions at this point and I think that the more the better. That way I'm not putting all my eggs into one basket, so to speak.

I have a lot of really young alder saplings (goat food???!!) two inches in diameter or less, ranging from two feet tall, to .... hmmm... 10 or 12 feet tall (estimated). Was just looking at some sapling trellis designs.... would be to sell, not for personal use. I don't know anything about woods and wood qualities. Would alder hold up for more than a couple of years, or would it disintegrate fast? Any other thoughts on uses for these saplings? They need to go, are on either side of the road, get in the way of the snowplow. If I used them for something like trellis's would it be necessary to peel them? How on earth did people like me get by without the internet and someone to ask!

Wow! I just found some great videos with Skeeter in them on Youtube. Probably everyone knew they were here but me. Looks like they were videoed by Willowrichrd

http://www.youtube.com/user/willowrichrd

I'm impressed, gives me some ideas to shoot for... and I'm still open to more!

Alder has quite a few uses, but if you don't keep it dry, it will rot quickly, so is best for indoors. 

Kathleen

Well darn! Alder has just been reclassified as goat food.

Feral wrote:
Well darn! Alder has just been reclassified as goat food.

Goats like it, but you can build things out of it, just need to be indoor things.  Alder is used a lot for furniture.

Kathleen

You could gather up the different kinds of pinecones and rinse them off and dry them on a cookie sheet in a 150 degree oven for about an hour to an hour and a half. they open up and the pine sap provides kind of a shellac and makes them shiny.  When you go to use them for craft projects they look nice and aren't all sticky.  You can make wreaths, or potpourri or ornaments or sell them to crafters.