Doug Piehl

Hi Blake, Thanks for making yourself available to answer some questions. Could you make recommendations for berry plants or other shallow rooted plants that would be compatible with a drainfield area? The obvious ones to me are blueberries or strawberries, as these are very shallow rooted, however I wonder about other berries. Some people say raspberries, though in my experience they have rather aggressive root systems. Others such as grapes I believe have very extensive root systems and might not be good choices.

I know there will be a lot of people that recommend against planting any food crop over a drain field due to toxins, however its a new drainfield I installed myself, so I know everything going into it is more or less organic. Also, the point is to keep the roots at the surface and out of the perf pipes and drain rock anyway.

For us, our drainfield (plus margins and reserve) occupies over 1/4 acre of otherwise prime full sun area relatively near our house.

Thanks!

I wanted to update everyone that we have had a wonderful couple join us. For the time being we are "at capacity", as we need to get to know each other and see how community works out on our farm before adding others. However, we will update this post in the next year or so if we collectively decide we are ready to add more partners or if we are considering the purchase of more land and expansion of the community.

I believe that people living and working together as a community is both more efficient and more moral than everyone having their own private place. While living abroad, my wife and I have experienced communal living and have enjoyed it, provided there was also some amount of private space. Back home we looked into joining a commune but could not find one in our area and ended up buying our own farmstead. Permitting and zoning make a commune difficult, but we could accommodate a few people or a family at our small homestead. We look forward to sharing our place, and could also use the help and efficiency of more persons (plus, a vacation is hard when you have dairy animals that need milking twice a day). For these reasons, we are looking for either a long term partner, or someone shorter term who wants to live rent free on a small farm while saving up for their own place.

Our property is in blackjack Valley, and totals about 3.5 acres. The place was pretty overgrown a few years back when we bought it, but is now a mix of pasture, young fruit trees, and some vegetable garden. We have a pond, and blackjack creek runs through our property. We currently have a couple of dairy goats, a Dexter cow, several breeding pigs, chickens and ducks, and a small greenhouse. A neighbor has a nice field which we graze our animals in at times, and could probably continue to graze or mow for free or for barter. Our local area is a good market for raw milk and produce. Seattle is about an hour away and represents a large, very lucrative market.  Our overall goal is to develop a small grain-free, raw milk diary as the heart of our operation.. Raw goat milk runs $8-20 a gallon around here. The manure is a great byproduct for enhancing the fertility of the land, and pigs and produce would be supplementary income streams.

We offer a place to live (temporarily in our home, then in your cabin/yurt/trailer/tiny home), as well as a garden area, in exchange for 12 hours help per week (families welcome). We can provide meat, milk, and eggs in exchange for splitting feeding and milking responsibilities.

For someone who wants to stay on longer term and start the dairy, we are very open to your plans and ideas and can give you a relatively free hand with the property. We have the place fenced, and have smaller paddocks fenced, as well as portable electric fencing. We also have a small goat barn which can accommodate the milking and housing of probably half a dozen milking goats. We will need to expand our facilities at some point; ownership arrangement of the dairy would depend on who provides capital for operating expenses and expansion, as well as whether we both supply labor.

We are looking for friendly, likeminded people. We have a 1 year old child, and for this reason won’t tolerate drugs or any violent behavior. Otherwise, we are open to most anything.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Doug

Hi all,

There seems to be a lot of information out there on the benefits of hugelkultur and how to build hugelkultur beds, but not much about managing them.

About a year an a half ago I put in an experimental hugelkultur bed, about 5' tall and wide and 40' long. My initial thoughts were that hugels would be best suited to perennials, however I read that raised hugels were not very ideal for trees and large bushes due to settling. I went ahead and put in a couple of fruit trees and bushes anyway, just to see. The trees are doing ok, though no better than any of the other trees I planted in a more traditional manner. The rest of the beds I intended to put into a mixture of annuals and small perennials. The problem I am now having is weeds, particularly grasses.

Weeds are not a problem in my other garden and orchard areas, as I mostly use livestock to control them. I am afraid to give my animals access to the hugles though, because I would probably end up with short wide mounds of dirt with exposed wood in the middle. Even hand weeding seems detrimental, as pulling grass bunches quickly erodes the hugel, and composting the grass in place is out of the question as it would just re-establish. Plus, I though that once built, hugels were supposed to decrease work, not increase it. Am I just in the wrong climate?  I live in the Pacific Northwest, which due to the wet winters and typically dry summers ought to be ideal for the water retaining attributes of hugelkultur.

As of now I have a large mound of weeds that have overgrown everything I tried to establish. I am wondering if I am missing something, or was the hugel bed just a wast of effort?

Thanks!


P.S. I am trying un-raised hugles as well; from my initial observations I think these might work much better in terms of management.