robert campbell

Jami-

Thanks for looking! It's 2400sq ft. We will not provide financing but we can point you towards lenders. We'll be listing it with MLS later in the season but are really hoping first to find some like-minded folks to take it over. It's a very special property! Let me know if you have any other questions.

rob

Hello-

With very mixed feelings we are having to give up our 3bdr home on 7+ acres near Yachats. Family and job obligations are pulling us north, but our loss could be your gain! The land features chicken moat, pond, 75' hoophouse, wood-fired sauna, and more. It is edged by the Yachats River on one side, and miles and miles of National Forest on another. Fruit trees, hops, berry bushes, sterile comfrey, and more are already established. The areas near the creeks are planted heavily with ramps.

If you've been looking for a large canvas on which to practice permaculture, this could be what you've been looking for. Take a look:

http://logy.org/house/

Thanks!

I suffer this curse.

My research indicates that its actually very often hereditary and not as diet-based as people think.  I have maintained an extremely healthy diet for years - one which I believe RanPrieur would respect as a lot of my theories came through him - yet started to suffer attacks anyway.

It is perhaps the most pain I have ever experienced.  Anyone who has had an attack can relate - even the pressure of a breeze in the room feels like an avil falling on your foot.  Its really ridiculously bad.

I've decided it is a case where I will take a pharmaceutical as long as its available - allopurinol.  It keeps the attacks at bay and from what I can determine, not very bad risk of unwanted effects.  Maybe someday I will believe that cherry juice works (I tried it for months before giving in).

I suggest the forums at http://www.goutpal.com/.

some great ideas here, thanks!

I am mostly seeking an attitude adjustment, looking for ways to flow with them. 

The "beating back" thing does not work with salmonberry.  Perhaps if you catch it when its truly young...  These roots have amazing energy stored in them.  I have used cardboard.  Both these plants punch right up through it.  I have my own answers, but I am hoping for philosophies or experiences for others.  Its might be a very unique aspect to my own property, being old farmland in a river valley with just the right circumstances, and tons of birds dropping the seeds literally everywhere.  Any area which is not constantly groomed will have these plants covering it within a year, and then it takes a lot of work with a machets, loppers, and some stiff gloves to get anywhere near it.  Truly a jungle, and made of extremely nasty thorns.  Another sad note is that while it seems variable regionally, the salmonberry here ranges in flavor from awful to wholly insipid.  I am sure that with enough sugar, a tolerable jam could be made, but I don't bother.  The blackberries, on the other hand, are delicious and I don't mind dedicating some pretty huge areas to their growth.  But as above, the land is useless for other plants, animals, and people if its not kept somewhat in check.

Hello-

One thing I have been struggling with as I try to deal with my property in Coastal Oregon is that if I leave undisturbed vegetation to do its thing, it will 99% of the time revert to blackberry and salmonberry.  Both of these are edible and loved by birds, but they also create intensely thorny brambles and the salmonberry becomes extremely woody and difficult to manage.  These areas of the property are totally unusable for even walking.  I have not figured out a way to manage these plants without completely removing them, and that usually involves eliminating most vegetation around it too, in order to get to their bases and remove the frustrating runners and root systems.  Salmonberry especially is difficult in this regard, leaving behind arm-thick root segments that just continuously send up new sprouts as rapidly as they are cut down.

So what is the permaculturally appropriate method of handling plants like this?  I know that some would run pigs in the area until they are gone, but that is not an option for me.  I've been using more or less conventional organic practices; remove the plants as much as possible to create a new planting area, and then dilliegently weed the salmonberry/blackberry starts as they appear.  This does not work well in a chaotic, permacultural style planted area.  Its much more possible with orderly rows, wide plant spacing, and the other stuff we are chastised for in permaculture writings. 

I'd love to hear what other residents of this area do about these plants.

Hank-

To the contrary, he makes it clear that this is a great region for growing vegetables.  Its just that the low levels of light, lack of truly deep freezing (which "reboots" soil in the east), and intense moisture present some special problems.  He also claims that we suffer nutrient deficiencies with a cyclical momentum.  The soil is poor (mostly due to heavy leaching by rain) and therefore animal feed is poor and therefor manure is poor.  So the typical approach of just adding compost and manure doesn't work so well and over time makes the soil rather imbalanced.  So he suggests adding a mild all-purpose mix of lime, cottonseed meal, kelp, and rock phosphate or bone meal.

His other points are that mulch is bad here; it harbors too many pests in the constant dampness and lack of freezing.  He advocates bare soil, constantly hoed and lightly tilled.  He does reject deep tilling.

The parts of his approach which are incompatible with permaculture seem to be the rejection of mulch, the temporary nature of plots (move them each year and let them return to grass every 3, he says), and the addition of outside inputs (kelp, lime, phosphate, bonemeal as above).

I'd love to hear experiences from people who live in the PacNW and what works for them.  I've had an extremely difficult time with nearly all of my permacultural projects.  Between the weather, slugs, mold, and deer, very little makes it here.

In my greenhouse, typical "organic gardening" similar to Solomon espouses has been very productive.  I did reclaim it from a decade of abuse through sheet mulching, but the vegetables grew remarkably better after removing the mulch. 

Putting food on my family's table is the main priority.  I am defintely not using RoundUp like Solomon suggests, and I cannot rotate plots as often as he suggests either.  However, adding some lime, kelp, and cottonseed meal to my plants seems like a sound idea until I can get my comfrey and nettle plantation going.

I guess I need to get over my guilt and be a "regular" organic gardener in my greenhouse, and keep the permaculture to the yard until I have more skill developed.

very well put!  I am also seeking refutations...  I have had limited success with sheetmulching/"lasagne gardening" here in the rainy NW.  I am very tempted to try his "light tilling" approach.  I don't mind the work of hoeing as he puts it, but I also was amazed to see him stating that using less compost is better (provided you use 100s of pounds of cottonseed meal each year). 

I was also alarmed by his talk of needing to rest the garden each 3 years.  I realize this is beneficial, but how many people can really do this?  Similarly, are the Symphlans as big of a deal as he makes them out to be?

Steve Soloman's book "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" is certainly not a permacultural resource, but I wanted the opinions here of permies who have read it.  He makes a pretty compelling case against some practices like sheet mulching, and he imports lots of ammendments (though fairly benign ones).  He has some great stuff to say about how to avoid irrigation when possible. 

I'd love the thoughts on this book from other gardeners in this region who battle the same conditions he addresses.