edwin hugel

I'm about a year late to this thread but...

We are using our own variation of Mark's mass planting STUN system in middle Tennessee. In one area we have planted with swales or berms and basins and in another with brush berms. The land was logged so we have done random planting of natives in other areas as well. The distance between the trees is about 2 feet apart, sometimes closer. We are also using it to create enosculated fedges, hedges, living fences by planting even closer. We have planted over 3500 bareroot trees and shrubs this way using the same quick method that is used by foresters and have gotten pretty dang fast at it!

If you want to find inexpensive bareroot whips and seedlings look to Warren County/ McMinnville, TN "the tree nursery capital of the world" as they call it. There are over 300 nurseries there, some good some not so good as we are discovering. 12inch bareroot seedlings average around .60 cents each. The more you buy the cheaper it gets.

We bought from our state nursery this year as well for the first time and I'm impressed so far. When we picked up our bareroot trees we got to see the seed orchards that were planted in the 1950s and 1960s which was pretty cool.

Warren County TN nurseries have a terrible, incomplete website but here it is anyway:
http://www.tnnursery.com/

The highest berm and basin system we have (top of the hill) is pictured below right after it was made and planted. You can kinda see how close the plantings are for the hedge here (mainly hawthorn, mimosa, bush clover and some plum and crab apple). To the left there are some more berm/basins. This is all on the top of the hill to slow the runoff on this huge surface area and sink it before it really starts to slope off. Then below that, out of frame on the hillside, there are 3 long swales wrapping around the contour of the sloped hill with mass plantings.



Sorting trees for planting, Spring 2015:

Good review of a good book!

Have you Stanley Diamond's In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization? He was an anthropologist with a heavy critique of civilization (not to be confused with author Jared Diamond). S. Diamond's writing was really influential on Jensen's work as well as the philosopher/poet Gary Snyder (The Practice of the Wild is great!) John Zerzan is another interesting thinker you might consider if you like Jensen.

I have read a lot of Jensen and listened to a lot of his lectures and interviews online and appreciate his insight. I keep hoping that he will get into and start integrating permaculture into his ideas!

google books excerpts from In Search of the Primitive

One more with the dog and a little more growth:

Nice we did the same! We bought our property after it was logged and all the slash was left everywhere. We spent several days with the chainsaw in certain and laid the slash as contour brush berms to control the erosion. We planted useful tree saplings on either side of the berms and groundcover in between. The wild muscadines like growing on the brush since the trees are gone (poison ivy too). The plan for this area is minimal management so we call it the "wild orchard" as opposed to the area where we have put in actual swales and earthworks.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:We have muscadine vines in the woods too.
My biggest problem with those is that they are in too much shade to fruit well.

I should clarify... our land land was logged, before we bought it 2 years ago, so there is plenty of sun getting in the areas of clearcuts and selective cuts (the poison ivy is loving it too).

I would love to hear how your air layering goes! We have been trying to figure out how to best use the wild vines and propagate them. There are vinters and wineries in our area so I will have to talk to them and see if I can get some regional tips.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:the Vinters I know have all told me to let my vines struggle, the grapes will be sweeter and so make better wine. So, I have them planted in my poorest soil, on the windy slope just like they told me to.

Thanks, this is good to know! We are in a similar climate zone in middle TN with wild muscadines all over the property. They are so much tastier and intense than than the muscadine vineyards we have bought grapes from. Maybe because they have had to compete and struggle in the forest rather than in carefully tended and watered vineyards, I don't know.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/05/dry-farming-california-drought-wine-crops

“The hardest part about dry farming is actually convincing people it works,” Bucklin says. “But in places like Spain, France and Italy, pretty much everybody dry-farms because it makes better wine.”

“Irrigated vines have roots that live in the top 20 or 30 inches of soil. Dry-farm vines can have root systems as deep as 20 to 30 feet,” Bucklin says.

That is pretty impressive!!

The article in the Guardian also talks about dry-franing quinoa, tomatoes, etc.