Homestead mailing list

[Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>]

Welcome to the season of roadkill and detritus.  My shoes are full of 
sand and leaves at the end of every day, and once a week there's even a 
thorn in my foot.

There's lots of good news.  The best thing to happen is that they 
started work on the new shed.  It's actually a little bigger than the 
previous one.  It consists of a solarium, a storage room, and a small 
area for cattle.  It's fun to walk around inside the frame and envision 
the tool storage area, the hay bales, the seed storage, the sink, etc.

We had the place mowed.  I planted tall fescue and white clover, mostly, 
on the areas left bare by the mowing.  All the berry vines are gone, and 
the cattle are hungry, but things are getting better now that it rained. 
 For a while there the rains failed us, after that first big storm on 
October 1, and since I planted as early as I possibly could, I decided 
to put out the rain bird.  I used up a couple of rotten bales of straw 
as mulch, and deployed some bags of lime that I had.  I think things 
will be all right now, since it just rained over an inch, and more is on 
the way Tuesday night.  It was raining at the moment the new rain year 
began on October 1, and the year's total was a mere 53.59".

Big men with guns came for the lambs, and I really must remember those 
earplugs in the future.  There was a total of 140 pounds of lamb.  The 
weaned lambs were pretty spendy, and so was the processing, but it's 
much more tender than any beef at the same price.  Speaking of beef, 
today a steer got out, but how tired could that old story become?  There 
were no problems, as I retrieved "it" from across the street.  That 
neighbor keeps cattle, and I promptly brought just the right food dish, 
so there was no funny show this time.

I'm on a new quest.  I was researching native clovers for forage, and I 
have to report that none seem very promising.  But the native 
'springbank' clover (Trifolium wormskioldii) has thick rhizomes that 
were eaten by the indians in the winter, and it was even cultivated for 
this purpose.  Today I tried to find some at the tiny China Creek 
wetland near Bradley Lake.  All I found was the lookalike showy pink 
'white-tipped' clover (T. variegatum), and plenty of invasive big 
trefoil (Lotus uliginosus).  I'm sure the non-native "rat" has something 
to do with it.  But I have found a source online, if it pans out, called 
Native Revival Nursery in Aptos, near Santa Cruz (that seems 
appropriate).  Anyway, it turns out that two other plants were once 
cultivated in British Columbia, the Pacific silverweed (Potentilla 
anserina var. pacifica) and the Northern rice root (Fritillaria 
camschatcensis).  I managed to find sources for these as well.  But the 
reason I'm most excited about springbank clover is the project we're 
doing with twig chips.  It requires leaving a bed in legumes for two 
years.  I guess one could rotate winter fava beans and summer bush beans 
for two years; normally the yields of green favas and bush beans are not 
that great (compared to pole beans or peas), so we don't bother with 
them, but this would justify growing them.  Unfortunately this is about 
the only choice among common crops, since even spring peas would leave 
no time for another legume to follow.  Most perennial clovers commonly 
available leave a lot to be desired.  Ideally it would rhizomatous, so 
you could get going quickly from transplants.  But ordinary white clover 
is extremely invasive, and I don't like the idea of making it the first 
thing I ever plant in a bed (maybe one, just to see whether Fukuoka's 
no-till grain rotation can be adapted for this area, with rye and 
buckwheat instead of barley and rice).  Alsike and strawberry clover are 
the only possibilities among commonly available clovers, depending on 
how much water is used.  I think that if the goal is to establish a 
fungal mat, then it would be better to plant a water-loving clover like 
alsike or springbank, as an indicator of when to water.  But best of 
all, after the first overwintered crop of favas, a bed could keep 
generating food without constant replanting, if it were planted in 
springbank clover.

I was amazed at the pictures available online.  The best ones are from 
the CalFlora project at UC Berkeley.  Some, but not among these, were 
even pictures of the impostor T. variegata.  The Peterson Guide has the 
key distinguishing characteristic.  The leaflets on T. variegata are 
minutely toothed.  I couldn't see them on the plant I found today, but I 
could feel them catching on my fingerprints, as I brushed my index 
finder along the edge.  The research pays off when you don't spend years 
watering the wrong plant (like say, Acacia mearnsii).

So here's my attempt at integrating Kwakwaka'wakw permaculture with the 
ramial chipped wood technology of LaVal U. in my new two newest beds:

Year 1:

Fall:  Amend the top layers with sharp sand, lime, phosphate rock, and 
other rock powders.  Dig 1-1/4" of shredded, dormant hardwood twigs into 
the top 2" of soil, and incorporate a handful of hardwood forest litter 
for inoculation.  Plant large favas.

Spring:  Harvest green fava beans.  Compost or feed the tops.  Plant 
pole beans at the back of the bed (the shady, usually north, side). 
Transplant springbank clover (T. wormskioldii) and start watering.


Year 2:

Fall:  Harvest springbank clover rhizomes.

Spring:  Plant pole peas while still winter at the back of the bed. 
Plant silverweed (Potentilla anserina) in the center and start watering.


Year 3:

Fall:  Harvest springbank clover rhizomes and silverweed stolons.  Plant 
corms of Northern rice root or chocolate lily (Fritillaria ssp).

Spring:  Start watering and cover with shade cloth.


Year 4:

Fall:  Harvest clover rhizomes, silverweed stolons, and fritillary 
corms.  Apply first yearly maintenance application of twig chips (1/8").

Spring:  Now the bed can either be maintained, or starts can be 
transplanted out to new beds undergoing the same treatment.


It's not your grandma's organic gardening.  The bed may not yield as 
much as potatoes or parsnips, but it also won't require the compost 
expenditure that potatoes do.  We had already come to specialize in cool 
weather crops, but mainly the crops of the Andes, so having three 
species native to the northwest coast fits right in.  Until now there 
was only camas, but it's indifferent to hot weather because it's dormant 
in summer.  The remaining native root vegetables, like jerusalem 
artichoke and Maxmillian sunflower, come from the Great Plains.

On a remotely related note, I read that the indians used ordinary 
tarweed (Madia ssp.) to season camas bulbs.

I have a great idea for how to design an automatic door, just like the 
ones on Star Trek.  My plan has all the elements of unconventional 
design that I love: block-and-tackles, variable weights on pulleys, 
energy storage in springs, etc.  Our old sliding glass door is just 
trashed, so let's experiment with it.  I can do the whole project for 
under $100, thanks to those $20 bilge pumps and some little relays.

Today it's gloomy and I can't resist the temptation to clear the fence 
line down in the forest.  I'm tempted to take the cattle with me.  If 
only I could get that area opened up ASAP, I could just imprison them 
down there until the new grass grows some.  There's plenty in the way of 
vine maple and such for them.  Later... it was fun to see them enjoying 
themselves.  Sometimes I wonder whether it's so obvious that cleared 
land planted with grass is the way to go, when I see them overjoyed with 
berry vines.  I see that they do eat chittem, our worst weed tree, but I 
don't know if that's good for them.  I made great progress today.  I 
only had to clip huckleberries against the fence, so with only hand 
clippers I went about 300 feet.  I did move some large trees off the 
fence, in various ways, but most of them had started to rot.

It rained and showers are in the forecast so today I'm canning 
Italian-style squash in tomato sauce.  Altogether I managed to make 24 
quarts of pickles, and only 4 were B&B pickles, with loads of onions 
(best to do when they're in their bitter phase, because of the brine 
soak).  I also gave away enough to do 12 quarts more.  And yet I can 
tell you exactly what was so wrong with that little bed, that it didn't 
yield 100 quarts!  A quarter of the plants were Marketmore, and didn't 
contribute to the pickles.  They were too crowded and underwatered.  The 
trellis wasn't bad but it could have been augmented.  They were really 
started too late.  The soil delivered nutrients adequately, but was 
still undesirable in some ways.  Can you imagine 100 quarts of pickles 
from one little round bed?  I think it's definitely within reach.

I really made time clearing the fence line.  I was encouraged by the 
fact that I was able to go over 100' the first day, so I continued 
onward and finished after about 10 hours work, distributed over four 
days.  I used only hand tools, and there really were only three trees 
too big for me to saw that had fallen across the barbed wire.  I'm 
covered in poison oak, but none of it too bad, and I have burning 
scratches all over my hands.

I had a terrible time the other night when the cattle got out and didn't 
moo at me to let me know where to find them.  I had to go to sleep not 
knowing where my babies were.  But they were in the front yard in the 
morning, and I was never so thankful.  Yesterday my worker and I finally 
finished clearing big fallen trees on the fence line and propping up the 
old barbed wire.  The new rolls of wire are moved into position, and 
there's just a little more clearing to be done.  Until then cattle are 
not going for any browsing down there unless I'm actually down there 
working, and even then only in the morning, when there's plenty of 
daylight left.  I really resent some evenings how the daylight is cut 
off earlier and earlier.

So what with scratched up hands, numb fingers from carpal tunnel 
syndrome, poison oak glow all over (like a thousand points of light), 
and leg cramps from the 3-mile fruitless cattle drive through the 
forest, sleep has been difficult lately.  The other night, every time I 
got comfortable a major leg cramp started.  My right knee is basically 
broken, and I've learned to subconsciously tense up on it at all times, 
because if I lift it and relax, it will become dislocated.  So that's 
why the largest muscle in my body is tending to cramp up.

But despite that and the bone spur acting up on my left ankle, 
nevertheless I just have to pour a new cement round today: #24.  After 
this the weather will certainly turn bad, and even clear periods are 
prone to freezes that might crack curing concrete.  It's a good thing 
they're here to put the roof on the new shed today.

Then I really have to harvest 'Hall's Hardy' almond tomorrow, and plant 
garlic ASAP.  After that the race is on to get all the guinea pigs 
(except the males in their outside shelter, the old cold frame) into the 
new shed, and the manure layered with berry vines and garden waste in 
the compost bins.  Then I'll be turning my attention to shredding twigs 
for the newest bed treatment.

They're pouring concrete for the new shed next Friday!

After I harvest huckleberries (a Hallowe'en tradition), that will be 
about it.  In old Ireland, fresh fruits of summer were considered "puka" 
(taboo) after October.  I guess they didn't have Cotoneaster berries.

Set ablaze the Samhain fire,
And begin the season of dreams.
Have yourself a treat to eat,
And a happy Hallowe'en!

Bill