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What Is A Food Forest

2/26/2018

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A food forest is pretty much what it sounds like, a forest of food. Sounds pretty great right. Who wouldn't want a forest of food??

A food forest consists of big trees, medium and small trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous and ground covering plants. All the different sizes are planted in a way to produce food on multiple vertical levels, all within a single regenerative system whose goal is to take care of itself, with minimal work and outside inputs. The idea is to mimic a healthy old growth forest like we find in nature.

Image from Clynewood, et al., 2014
Food forest image from Clynewood, et al., 2014
The image above gives you an idea of what the plants look like in a food forest system. One of the big goals is high diversity. This means planting as many species as possible in each size category. Each species has multiple functions. One tree species might provide shade, mulch, fruit and nitrogen for other plants. The more functions a species has, the more it is doing to be regenerative, and the less work you are doing! Regenerative means taking care of itself, like being self sustaining.

If we look at an old growth forest we can see a healthy regenerative system with plants of all different sizes. Mother nature is taking care of the system.  Nobody is watering, pruning, weeding, fertilizing or planting, yet it keeps growning and growing! 

Now lets imagine a traditional orchard or vegetable garden like we see below.

Vegetable garden. Copyright Permasystems
This vegetable garden is growing food on mostly one vertical layer, from just above the soil to about 2 feet above. Most of these plants are the same size. As vegetables are harvested from the garden we need to replace the nutrients that were carried away in the food, like nitrogen. Many people add synthetic fertilizers to accomplish this which can hurt the plants and soil in the long run. However, the easiest and healthiest way is to use high-quality compost. This garden also has bare soil so we are loosing water to evaporation and killing the healthy biology in the soil. Plus you have to replant everything each year! Now I'm not saying annual vegetables gardens like this are bad, but with a food forest you can grow more food with way less work.

Most of the plants we find in a food forest are perennial, meaning they keep growing year after year. This is great because unlike most vegetables you don't have to plant them year after year. Perennial plants, which include some vegetables, also grow much deeper roots enabling them to find far more water and nutrients deeper in the soil. This, in turn, means you don't have to provide them with as much water or nutrients.

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Finch Frolic Garden in San Diego County.
Picture
Melbourne, Australia
In these pictures you can see there is so much growing on so many levels it is difficult to tell what's what! This is a very efficient use of space compared to the traditional orchard or garden bed we described earlier. 

By selecting just the right species for the right location you can mimic the old growth forest. For example, planting trees that produce dappled shade, a mix of shade and sun, allow other plants to grow underneath the tree's canopy. The light shading helps to reduce evaporation which can provide a lot of extra water for the system.

We are currently building a food forest in backcounty San Diego County. With our Mediterranean climate we are able to grow a vast array of different species, but due to our limited rainfall we use drought-tolerant species. You can check out our previous blog post to see how we designed our food forest and what species we planted.

There are tons of food forest all over the world. One of the best ways to learn about them is to visit one. If you are in San Diego County check our Resources page to find a food forest in our area.

If you are interested in starting your own food forest - they can be big or small - please be sure to conduct ample research to ensure you are creating a truly regenerative system. In a future blog post we will get into details of how to design a food forest. Remember, work with nature instead of against it!


Food forest. Copyright Permasystems
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Baseline Soil Testing

1/9/2017

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Soil is the foundation to all life! Not to mention it is where we get our food from!! There is a lot more going on in soil than we even understand today.

Healthy soil can have thousands of species of bacteria within it, many of which have not even been identified. Soil contains many other types of organisms, including, nematodes, microarthropods and fungi. They play critical roles in the soil food web of life and help make food in the soil available to plants so they can grow healthy.

Healthy soil holds far more water than dirt and can provide all the food plants need so you don't have to apply fertilizers or pesticides.

The best way to assess the health of soil is to look at it - under a microscope. Something we have done but have found minimal life in our soil.

In order to provide a baseline for experimentation at our ecological design education and demonstration site we are going to send soil samples to multiple sources for nutrient level analysis. This is the area around our cob cabin where we have the food forest.

We have chosen the following labs based on recommendations and price:

Logan Labs - http://www.loganlabs.com/testing-services.html

UMassAmherst - http://soiltest.umass.edu/services

Texas A&M - http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/webpages/forms.html


Some of the things they will test for include:

pH
Organic Matter
Total Exchange Capacity
Sulfur

Phosphorous
Calcium
Magnesium
Potassium
Sodium
Boron
Iron
Manganese
Copper
Zinc
Aluminum
Lead
% Base Saturation Ca, Mg, K, Na

How to collect a sample:
- Use a spade, soil auger or soil sampling tube.

- Clear litter from the surface (do not remove decomposed black material).

- When using a soil auger or sampling tool, make the core or boring 6 inches
  deep into the soil (3 to 4 inches deep for permanent sod)

- When using a spade:
  • Dig a V-shaped hole and take a 1 inch slice from the smooth side of the hole.
  • Take a 1 x 1 inch core from the center of the shovel slice

- Repeat in 10 to 15 different places. Put in a clean plastic bucket or other     non-metallic container, thoroughly mix and remove a pint (or more if   additional tests are desired) as a composite sample representing the whole field or area.

- Completely fill soil sample bag or othersuitable pint container. Do not use old vegetable cans, tobacco cans, match boxes, glass containers, etc. to submit samples. If more than one sample bag is used, label bags as 1 of 2, 2 of 2, etc.

Hopefully our results will come in soon! We will post them in a blog.

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Barn Owl Nest Boxes - Get Rid Of Rodents The Natural Way

9/15/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
Ever had a problem with rodents?
I bet the answer is yes.
Fortunately there is a natural and safe way to rid yourself unwanted rodents - install a Barn Owl nest box on your property!

OUR NATIVE FRIEND
Barn Owls are a native owl species who like to nest in the hollows of trees and, of course, barns. Unfortunately there aren't many old trees or barns around. Old dead trees with hollows have mostly been cut down for firewood or to reduce the risk of wildfires.


Picture
Barn Owl coming in for the kill.
After years of work, and over a decade of studying birds of prey, we have developed the ultimate Barn Owl Nest Box. The box is made of cedar wood and strong screws so it will last for years and years. It is the optimal size, keeps the owls cool with small vents and we use an all natural bee repellent to be sure your owl box does not turn into a bee hive.
Barn Owl nest box. Copyright Permasystems
Our perfect Barn Owl nest box.
Barn owls nest in spring and usually have between 3 and 7 cute little owlets. Each adult Barn Owl eats about 1-2 rodents per night and a nesting family can eat over 1,000 rodents per year (1995 UC Davis Study).

BARN OWLS' FAVORITE MEAL =
GOPHERS, RATS AND MICE


The owls are also very small, weighing about a pound, so you don't have to worry about pets being injured.

Barn Owl Nest box installation. Copyright Permasystems
Chris installing a Barn Owl nest box in a Cost Live Oak tree.
It is absolutely critical that the nest box be placed in the proper location to attract the owls to it AND keep predators like raccoons from getting into the box and eating the owls or owlets.

Many factors go into play when an owl is looking for a home.
These factors include the size and shape of the box, opening size, mounting height, mounting substrate, sun angle, box door accessibility, relative grade slope to box and many others. After studying raptor ecology for over 10 years we can ensure your nest box is placed in the best way to get owls.

Barn Owl nest box. Copyright Permasytems
Barn Owl box mounted on 16 foot steel pole.
Here at Permasystems we are about using natural systems to solve our problems and lead more efficient lives in balance with nature. There is no better example of this than giving a home for Barn Owls. Whether or not you get a Barn Owl nest box from us, we plead you not to EVER use ANY poisons for rodents. THEY ARE ALL NOT SAFE for wildlife, pets or people!!!

DO NOT USE POISONS - EVER

Even poisons that state on the package that they are safe or do not cause secondary poisoning are construing the truth. Secondary poisoning is when an animal, like a coyote, eats a gopher you poisoned, and then get poisoned themselves. The claim that a poison does not cause secondary poisoning means that once a poison is digested by the primary animal, the gopher in our example, it is no longer poisonous to the secondary animal, the coyote. This is true, however, most of the times, when the primary animal dies, it still has undigested poison in it's stomach and therefore will poison anything that eats it!

Learn more about poisoning from our friends at Raptors Are The Solution

http://www.raptorsarethesolution.org/tracking-poisons/

If you are interested in a Barn Owl nest box from us please contact us at this link. We offer FREE consultations to see if a box is right for your property.

3 Comments
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