Hello from the Oregon coast!

Discussion in 'Introduce Yourself Here' started by Oregon coast dude, Jan 28, 2018.

  1. Oregon coast dude

    Oregon coast dude New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    1
    Gender:
    Male
    Climate:
    Zone 8, maritime
    Hi everyone - My name is Rob Krueger. My wife Cheryl and I live in mid-coast Oregon less than 3/4 mile from the sea at about 85 feet elevation. We have a a 5 ac farm and homestead raising mostly orchard trees but also have ponds, ducks (muscovy and Khaki Campbells), and are adopting four Toulouse goslings this spring.

    We've been here now since 2002, so just over 15 years. The wind here is extreme so it has taken a good while for our windbreaks to establish. We use mostly native conifers and N+ red alder as our fast growing windbreak tree, but also use the Elageanus family of plants (Goumi, Silverberry, Autumn Olive, Seaberry, xEbbingei) for companionable plants in our fruit and nut orchards. We have a small nursery stock business, sell duck eggs, ducklings, and muscovy ducks for meat. Our orchards consist of plums, apples, pears (Asian, English), and cherry. We also have fig, mulberry, currants, jostaberry that do quite well. My partner loves herbs, so we have a decent sized herb/kitchen garden.

    We have several home gardens and a 15 x 30' greenhouse where we stack worm farms, propagate cuttings in fall/winter, and grow heat loving annuals in summer. Slugs are a huge challenge here - our ducks have really made a difference in reducing the slug populations.

    We have a 10 ac forest behind us and springs at the very back of our property that keep our ponds full and our irritation tanks topped off. Despite the high rainfall (120 inches/yr) we have a dry season that makes water storage important. We use swales effectively to reduce erosion during our high rainfall months (like now in January) where we can get 15 inches per month at times.

    Lately we have been planting sweet chestnut seedlings (eight different varieties from seed) and set out around 150 of these at about 12' spacing for timber and nut production in what we call our zone 4 orchard. We just harvested some 15 year old sweet chestnut for fence posts, so are starting a chestnut coppice. Working with the chestnut for fencing and building gates (replacing wire fencing) around our main gardens has become a recent time consuming, but enjoyable activity.

    I have not done much in the way of permaculture design consultation as I am busy with the place most of the time. I would prefer to collaborate with friends rather than be the "consultant"....but, that is just my style.

    Our maritime climate limits what we can grow, but generally speaking we are fairly wide ranging with our plant species. At last count we have around 275 different plant species on our five acres. We are always on the look out for new possible plants. We just are starting Pineapple Guava this year from cuttings. It is funny how you can live in a place and not realize that certain plants would be a great fit - so, always travel with a pair of cutters and bucket in case we see a possible plant for propagation.

    That was a rambling post....anyway, we are having great fun here with our place and hope to connect with others who share similar adventures. We wish everyone well and am glad to be on the PRI forums - I look forward to learning more about what others are doing and connecting with people in our region and beyond.

    Cheers!
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2018

Share This Page

-->