Salutations from Redwood Country

Discussion in 'Introduce Yourself Here' started by Ben Zumeta, Feb 10, 2017.

  1. Ben Zumeta

    Ben Zumeta New Member

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    Hello wonderful permaculture people! I am a fledgling permie and for the past 3 years have been diving into permaculture projects on the 1/2 acre I bought as well as on welcoming neighbors' and friends' properties of up to 20 acres. I have been a backcountry, interpretive and education ranger for Redwood and Olympic National Parks and have a master's in adventure education with my thesis on wilderness service learning. My place is relatively small but in a remarkably abundant area, just ten miles from the redwood grove with the highest biomass on Earth. While that forest receives 125" of rain a year, this is a place of many microclimates. It is much like the SF Bay area but wetter. We get about 60" of rain a year here, 95% of which is from late October-June. I am 5miles from the ocean but inland of a large lake/lagoon chain that warms and dries my spot even more, and we almost never freeze. The winter low in 3yrs has been 25, and the high is in the low 90s in the summer. It is a wonderful climate if you can handle rain. We do get a lot of that, with 4" last night after another three 5" days this fall-winter. This is on the edge of a temperate rainforest, and I think my roof water catchment is over 125,000gal, which I have channeled to a french drain and 3000 gallon drainage basin/pipe/pump system as the water levels would get uncomfortably close to my house. Most of this was dug by hand. In addition I have built about a dozen hugelkulture beds where I get sun between my many trees and snags. These include plum, pear and apple trees as well as maple and three ancient redwood stumps between 9 and 16ft thick (I did not cut them!). I have ducks, chickens and a turkey in the upper/northern part of my property for eggs, fertility and meat. I hope to get swales and a small pond dug for them as soon as the soil dries out enough to move, as right now the ducks have only a series of small plastic pools to bathe in. I have found this water to be ideal fertilizer, and it would be great to get it seeping into the ground in a strategic pattern. In general my issues of too much water, fertility and life seem to be good problems to have, but it can be a lot of work.

    Thanks for all you folks are doing and teaching me!
     
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  2. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Hi Ben,
    Welcome to the forum.
    Wow! You have been busy. Apart from all that digging, it sounds idyllic.
    I havent heard too much about people who are using the hugelculture method and am very interestedin hearing how you get on with this.
     
  3. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Welcome Ben,
    Between the Redwood and Olympic parks, you must have a thing for rain! Looking forward to hearing of your progress on swale/pond systems. What a beautiful area you're living in!
     
  4. Ben Zumeta

    Ben Zumeta New Member

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    Thanks for the welcome. I think what I have a thing for most is when you can see snowy mountains from the coast and the ocean from the mountainsI think we have evolved to find abundant places beautiful. I do not quite understand the desert and desert people though, even after a year working on the Southern California desert restoration corps and a trail crew in Pinnacles National Monument for a year and seeing some amazing beauty it still seems like I should not be the tallest living thing in a place for as far as I can see. At least not if I like the whole hydration thing. That is one of the things I find most amazing about Permaculture, how it can take the incridebile potential energy of the desert and harness it towards abundant life. I am in place where water is over abundant for 8 months and then in the summer (June-September) we get 1-2 rains of less than an inch. The PAC NW is actually in the lowest 3% of rainfall worldwide during the summer. So I have a lot of harvest potential and a long dry season to store water for. In our old growth forests we have giant nursleogs holding 75% of the water left by August, so I have been using hugelkulture to emulate this, and last summer got my 2nd year beds down to once a month watering. I am also putting in swales and a pond to tie into my French drain as an overflow when the weather allows.
     
  5. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Ocean and mountains ... love it. Chile has always called to me in that respect. It's funny how throughout my life I've always been attracted to the ocean's edge, but ended up here in dry old eastern Washington building an oasis in the near-desert.
    Perfect use of your French drain output into swales/ponds!
     

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