Ben Zumeta

Judith Browning wrote:

Ben Zumeta wrote:When I moved, I bought a bag of each of the best 3-4 worm casting and compost brands I could find through Sparetime Supply to inoculate my Johnson Su compost piles and make teas or extracts with to broadcast inoculate. I now make my own, as any bagged product is going to be at the mercy of the distributor and seller (much like beer, which I’ve learned not to judge unless getting from brewery instead of a random grocer in the boonies. Both are living products). From what I have heard by the owner/founder/director of Malibu Compost on podcasts, I think they would be where I'd go to now for your needs. He seems knowledgeable, well intentioned and fastidious in his sourcing and testing.

https://www.malibucompost.com/

at first glance it looks like they only sell in the west....sounds like a great compost though.

I know what you mean about shipping/storage ...another time I was tempted by what looked like good OMRI approved bagged compost at our local feed store but it was sweating out in the sun in their parking lot and who knows how hot it had been on the way there? I didn't buy any.

A very informative podcast, this episode with the aforementioned director of Malibu Compost. It is pricey, but probably worth it for a one time inoculant if starting out. This is also a great reason to join a garden club or permaculture guild, or local school garden work party. I think something benign but akin to toxoplasmosis happens with composting people where we want to help spread those good microbes.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/farm-small-farm-smart/id1271270819?i=1000755380943

When I moved, I bought a bag of each of the best 3-4 worm casting and compost brands I could find through Sparetime Supply to inoculate my Johnson Su compost piles and make teas or extracts with to broadcast inoculate. I now make my own, as any bagged product is going to be at the mercy of the distributor and seller (much like beer, which I’ve learned not to judge unless getting from brewery instead of a random grocer in the boonies. Both are living products). From what I have heard by the owner/founder/director of Malibu Compost on podcasts, I think they would be where I'd go to now for your needs. He seems knowledgeable, well intentioned and fastidious in his sourcing and testing.

https://www.malibucompost.com/

Salvaging Abundance Together: A 4-Part Permaculture Workshop Series with Ben Zumeta of Old Growth Edible Landscapes & the Wild Rivers Permaculture Guild.

Free to participants with the support of Dirt and Glitter—a local art, activism, dance, and design empowerment organization.

Overview: Our Wild Rivers region is a beautiful, bountiful place. The very sources of our challenges–wildfire and flood risk, watershed and soil degradation, unemployment and people in need of purpose–can be each other's solutions. Permaculture is a toolkit of ethics based design methods drawing from nature and ancient cultures to reconnect beneficial feedback cycles to meet our needs while being better ancestors and stewards. This workshop series will help students identify and use abundant–often free–materials to grow food, harvest water, and protect our human habitat from fire and flood, all while helping biodiversity flourish.

Please sign up ahead of time on the Dirt and Glitter Website— dirtandglitter.org/design —or using the QR code on the flyer. This will help us plan and make the workshops as educational and productive as possible. Signing up will also help us plan food, tools, and PPE for participants. Drop-ins are ok, but not ideal. Feel free to ask questions via PM or posting below.


Workshop #1: An Introduction to Permaculture: Planting Seeds of Restoration, Resilience and Community
Saturday, April 4th, 2026 – 12pm-2pm

Where: Taa-'at-dvn Chee-ne' Tetlh-tvm' — Crescent City Food Forest at the College of the Redwoods' Del Norte Campus (at the corner of Washington and Arlington)

Description: This introductory workshop explores how ethics-based permaculture design can enrich our lives as we care for the Earth and people. We will cover:
- planting seeds and trees
- making raised beds, including air-pruning perennial plant nursery beds
- building healthy soil

We will focus on accomplishing the above even if free and salvaged materials are all we have at hand. These activities will be the basis for discussion of other practical steps we can take in this revolution disguised as organic gardening. All skill and knowledge levels are welcome. Already an expert? Come help teach a beginner!

What to Bring:
- Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground. (Rain boots are best in Spring)
- Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea).
- Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)
- Seeds you would like to share or get advice on planting. This can include fruit and nut tree seed.
- Salvaged or up-cycled seed starting containers to bring starts home
- Gardening tools (optional, label so they go home with you)
- An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.


Workshop #2: Salvaging Abundance: Turning potential pollutants into fertility and filtration
Saturday April 18th, 2026 – 12pm-2pm

Description: Many natural resources can become pollutants when over abundant and underutilized. Wood and underbrush in regrowing forests are a classic example. We can help forest and watershed health while turning potential smoke into soil by thinning the overpacked understory and using it in our gardens. This workshop will cover how to do so, including:

- identifying the source species of woody debris and woodchips, and best uses of each
- hugelkulture, a woody debris based raised bed that holds water while also improving soil drainage and fertility
- woodchip mulching best practices
- other uses of woody debris, including animal bedding, biochar, water absorbing and filtering drainage structures, and other watershed restoration uses

Woody debris is just one example of this principle, and we will discuss other abundant materials we can salvage to turn potential pollutants into improved human habitat. This will also be a primer for workshop #3.

Where: Taa-'at-dvn Chee-ne' Tetlh-tvm' — Crescent City Food Forest at the College of the Redwoods' Del Norte Campus (corner of Washington and Arlington)

What to Bring: same as workshop #1



Workshop #3: Fire on the Mountain: Shaded Fuel Breaks for Fire Protection and Biochar Production–Nature's Forever Fertilizer

When: Tentatively scheduled for May 9th, 2026 (finalizing scheduling with Fire Safe Council crew) —10am-2pm, with a lunch break.

Where: Instructor Ben Zumeta's property at 2750 Low Divide Road. 5mi up Low Divide from HWY 197, the last property before 6 Rivers NF road 17n21.

Description: In collaboration with the Del Norte Fire Safe Council crew, we will be working on a shaded fuel break that protects surrounding homes and forms a strategically important firebreak for everything downwind of the Myrtle Creek watershed (Jed Smith, Hiouchi, Crescent City). Participants will learn how to:
- Make a shaded fuel break that protects structures and the largest, healthiest trees while leaving diverse native mosaic areas wherever feasible
- Connect with the Fire Safe Council crew for help or advice doing so at your home
- Use woody debris for making biochar, a soil amendment used by native people of the Americas for millennia. Biochar increases soil fertility, water retention and filtration for centuries. It is also useful for livestock, reducing feeding requirements and bedding odors. Participants will get inoculated biochar from previous burns to take home, so bring buckets or bins to fill.

Participants will get inoculated biochar to bring home for their garden, compost, or livestock.

What to Bring:
- Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground.
- Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea). If you'd like to be involved with burning, cotton or wool clothing, leather gloves and boots are best. Plastic based clothes melt surprisingly easily!
- Water bottle
- Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)
- A bucket or bin for bringing biochar home with you
- A truckload of woody debris (<2” diameter) if you'd like us to make biochar with it for you (no treated or painted wood, nor plywood)
- An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.

We will provide things to cook over the biochar kiln for lunch, and snacks. Please pack a lunch if you have any special dietary requirements.


Workshop #4: Be the Beaver You Wish to See in the World: Water cycle restoration with woody debris, inspired by and in homage to beavers.

Tentatively scheduled for Saturday, May 16th to build upon previous workshop. 10am-2pm

Our continent has been short at least 40 million of beavers since the 1800's. Each pair of these industrious ecosystem engineers hydrated a couple acres of wetlands and forest with their work, stabilizing the water cycle of North America. Now, with less than 1/10th of their historic population, we must do the beaver's work. In doing so we encourage their return to finish the job by giving them a habitat foothold. Our NW California-SW Oregon Wild Rivers region may be the most important to restore in all of North America, as our forested coastal mountains prime the continent’s hydrological pump. We will cover how to use the larger woody debris from fire mitigating shaded fuel breaks to build beaver dam analogues and other water retention-infiltration structures. Doing so can rehydrate forests, mountainsides and aquifers–feeding springs, creeks and rivers through dry summers. This site at the Myrtle Creek headwaters is also strategic inflection point for watershed health downstream and fire mitigation downwind.

Where: Instructor Ben Zumeta's property at 2750 Low Divide Road. 5mi up Low Divide from HWY 197.

What to Bring:
- Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground. Rain boots help working around water.
- Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea). Long sleeves and pants are a good idea.
- Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)
- Water bottle
- An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.
- We will provide lunch and snacks. Please bring something you can eat if you have special dietary requirements.

Thanks for your participation, collaboration, and help spreading the word.

Jay Angler wrote:Not just tires! (but if you're checking yours, don't forget the spare... if your car's old enough to have one)

Hubby believes that changing your oil on the best schedule for your car, helps the engine stay healthy, which helps the mileage not suffer with age.

This too takes some thinking and involves knowing something about the type of oil you use and whether you drive a lot, thus changing based on mileage may be best, or like me, only drive twice a week and usually not more than 30 km, so our oil "times out" before I would ever hit the "change after ~10,000 km". I drive so little, that the "every 6 months" option seems excessive to hubby, but he knows cars, and uses an oil in my car that can last more like 9 months.

As Derek suggested, keeping an eye and ear out for car trouble and dealing with it early can save a lot of gas.

Thanks for the useful post! I drive 4000-6000mi (6-9km) per year with my truck. They are generally hard miles in the mountains moving heavy stuff, but I have always wondered how to balance this for maintenance. Obviously, erring towards caution and longevity seems wise. Any further insifhts would be welcome.

I’d also endorse a day or week with an excavator. I’d also try to keep native mosaic areas as much as possible for ecological services and fertility.

I suppose the interstitial space between round willow gabions could be filled with rocks, or woody debris and a bit of soil for planting wetlands species. I mainly just saw it from a teacher’s POV and how it might get misinterpreted. Still a great post and idea in my opinion.

I agree with Burton. If the illustration showed rectangular baskets like what is on the hillside illustration, it might be more clear. Maybe round willow gabions would work just as well though. If i were doing it, I might place a layer of compost for roots of the willow to establish at strategic points. In my area with 100” winters of rain and 10” days, unless I build a proper pond and spillway, I generally do not try to stop water, just deflect and spread it. This seems to be a nice way to do so that gets stronger over time. I have also made very roughly woven woody debris structures that catch sediment behind them, or form vernal pools in right topography.

I have never raised fish for food, but I have a pond and have kept fish alive even in 5 months of summer drought. Some fish will survive to their ecological limit of density without aeration if they are not fed beyond creating a diverse habitat. Feeding increases the nutrient load from fish waste and therefore oxygen consumption by more micro-organisms consuming more fish waste.

I think the main conundrum with solar pond pumps is that plants filtering the water and providing habitat produce oxygen during the day, but consume oxygen in their dark cycle. So a battery seems necessary if one is going to depend on a pump for increased stocking density, which significantly increases the cost. An alternative to an electric battery is to use a higher water storage as a battery, pumping from the fish pond in the day with solar panels, then gravity feeding. Ideally I’d have a cascade or other aeration design running all day, or just at night if reducing heating of the water is important. Avoiding pulling from the deepest area is also helpful in that regard, as this is removes the coldest, most evaporation resistant water that usually has plenty of O2.

If I want to do a Sir Michael Caine impression, I just imagine I am a very dignified British baby.

I’d agree with Nina’s approach. A couple things I keep in mind:

Fruit grows much better on horizontal wood (but grape vines are flexible)

Cut at an angle for shedding water.

Airflow is paramount for healthy grapes, so cutting lower than trellis branches and ultimately thinning for 1-3 main stems—a left, right and maybe an upright if going for a higher trellis next year.

Cuttings are easy with grapes to expand, give away, or replant if it does bleed to death or die for some other reason. Grapes are generally very hardy thought once established, with most of my losses being due to drought in the first 2yrs.