Comments on The Blog of Jeff Vail - Litigation, Resilient Systems, Risk Management, Sustainability: Nuts & Horticulture

The pinot noir-ists love those jory soils.....it j...

2006-07-08T15:30:00.000-06:00

The pinot noir-ists love those jory soils.....it jacks up the sale price 150% these days

Sounds like there's some pretty good microclimates to play around with...drop a line when you'll be in the area; I'd love to show you the farm.

Rich,It's on a hillside (upper half is flat on the...

2006-07-08T14:23:00.000-06:00

Rich,

It's on a hillside (upper half is flat on the hillcrest, lower half is on the North slope) at about 550' dropping to 500' (I think). They have a couple acres in pinot noir on Jury soil (I'm told that's significant, but...) and a large vegetable garden, but in particular they're thinking of clearing the lowest acre on their property to plant with something (it's flat and fairly damp, currently overgrown with blackberries.) It's the start of a seasonal stream so there's plenty of soil moisture--possible too much. I've also considered a variety of utilitarian bamboo species which might really thrive in that environment, but I think that something that is lower-effort but provides good edible return is their preference. Either way, good chance I'll be out there in a month or so--If they're interested I'll get in contact with you, perhaps we can take a look at your farm?

~Jeff

White clover and alfalfa are stellar as perennial ...

2006-07-08T11:11:00.000-06:00

White clover and alfalfa are stellar as perennial cover crops...the downsides in western OR are that they need summer water (or good summer subirrigation) to thrive, and the gophers have a field day.

Jeff, is your folks' place in the flats (where subirrigation is a possibility), or in the fruit and wine-growing hillsides?

Rich

Jeff,White Dutch Clover (Trifolium repens) and Alf...

2006-07-06T08:16:00.000-06:00

Jeff,

White Dutch Clover (Trifolium repens) and Alfalfa (Medicago sativa)both work well as perennial cover crops for fixing nitrogen. They'll also provide forage for the chickens given you don't have so many that they decimate the crop.

JeffHey, Amity's just down the road from us...we'r...

2006-07-05T17:50:00.000-06:00

Jeff

Hey, Amity's just down the road from us...we're in Yamhill, about 20 miles away. Drop a line sometime when you're visiting your parents.

Goumi, Autumn Olive, and Siberian Peashrub would all be good N-fixing components of your guild. The downside of a cover crop with chickens is that they end up decimating it unless you have less than 10 chickens per acre or so, and even then the area around their housing and feeders gets wrecked regardless.

Once the trees get established, a few sheep grazing the understory keep the greenery in check, and provide for nutrient cycling, as well, keeping you from having to manage the spring flush of growth. Ruminants essentially flatten the boom-bust growth curve of the cool-season crops, which are what most of the cover crops that do well out here are (annual rye, crimson clover, field peas, fava beans).

There's a relevant thread that just started on the permaculture listserv...its only open to members, but is worth signing up for

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/private/permaculture/2006-July/024248.html

Rich,Good luck with your orchard. I am actually l...

2006-07-04T11:09:00.000-06:00

Rich,

Good luck with your orchard. I am actually looking at Oregon specifically (though somewhat abstractly) as I think about Filberts and Chestnuts--my parents have a few acres in Amity, so I'm envisioning how this could be applied to their property. Ultimately I'm envisioning a kind of super-guild that would include a number of each interplanted with fruit trees as appropriate, some kind of appropriate N-fixing shrub and/or green manure cover crop, as well as any supplemental forage required to support a (small) flock of chickens--ideally a complete forest garden anchored by Filberts and Chestnuts. Any thoughts?

Great post. I never thought I would enjoy a post c...

2006-07-04T10:42:00.000-06:00

Great post. I never thought I would enjoy a post containing chestnuts, but I did..

There's a couple of characteristics of this guild ...

2006-07-03T18:57:00.000-06:00

There's a couple of characteristics of this guild that should be taken into account....

-First, chestnut likes a rich soil. I've had some problems with mine (in Western OR) when I didn't amend the soil enough. Now that I've discovered the neighbor's horse stables, I think they'll work out.

-Filberts like a somewhat sweeter soil (again, this is in OR). I've read that you should never lime a chestnut, so soil preferences could get a little complicated with these two.

My chestnut - filbert orchard went in this spring...the wierd spring weather killed some of the chestnuts, but I've found that if you aren't killing a few plants, you're not growing

Chestnuts are very common in the Ardèche region of...

2006-07-02T14:39:00.000-06:00

Chestnuts are very common in the Ardèche region of France, which was very poor. In olden days, chestnut flour was used as a cheaper substitute for wheat flour in bread, in the proportion of 1/4 chestnut flour for 3/4 wheat flour.