Hello Desyrae
I'm a natural farmer in the strict sense, meaning no-till etc.
I'm in Mendocino county at the moment, and have been looking for,a land partner interested in a cropsharing arrangement or something like that.
I'm familiar with the area up there and it certainly is
bear country. When I lived on the Klamath river I had a bear that would bring trash nags,from other people's houses up to my place,and tear them open,in my
yard. Every morning I was picking up diapers and whatever else was in there.
as soon as the sun would go down I could scan the perimeter of my yard with a flash light and I'd see his eyes shine in the light. Once he was hiding behind a shed, peaking around then ducking back when he saw,me just like a person might. It was a lot of trouble but pretty funny too.
Beautiful country up there, epic wilderness and very fertile.
I for one love blackberries. As a kid growing up in the redwoods I literally grew up on them, and hold them dearly my heart. Me and,my siblings would pick them and our mom would,make yummy BlackBerry pies. They're a great renewable resource as far as having a constant supply of organic matter.
I've always worked with or around them. They make good
compost and great FPJ not to mention they harbor N fixing and P solubilizing
microbes.
But I have thought of away to get rid of them and other invasive species like scotch broom or pompous grass and that is to drench the soil with a solution that is e i their extremely alkaline or extremely acidic.
We have a pygmy forest here in Mendo county which has the most acidic soil on the planet.Its a flat that is 14 miles,long and 4 miles wide that is hard clay under soil that has a pH as low as 2.5; black berries don't grow there, that's what gave me the idea.
I came to the conclusion that alkaline would be the way to go like using calcium hydroxide (gardeners lye) to bring the pHone of the water up to 11. First knock them back with a weed eater than drench the area, repeat a couple of time until everything dies back, then treat the area with microbes to balance the pH and make it usable, cover it with card board nd a layer of soil and plant something quick.
At any rate in a couple of weeks I'll be meeting with some people and checking out some potential farm sites.
A couple here in Mendo a couple in Lake county, and one place that is also in Willow creek.
I'd be very interested in meeting with you to check things out and to discuss the possibility of farming there.
Let me know if you'd be interested