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- April 22
- Forest Food
Forest Food
- By Coquille Valley Sentinel Editor
- Published 04/21/2009
- Front Page , April 22
- Unrated
Mountain Homstead offers first in series of educational seminars
Forest Food
by Ish Shalom
Ish Shalom and guests at Mountian Homestead
photo by Ryan C. Deuschle
Forest Food
I love trees. I am passionate about growing trees. My favorite trees? Trees that feed me, as well as providing material to build with, firewood to keep me warm, and ever-changing, evolving beautiful structures, that keep growing year after year after year.
I love the idea that I could plant trees today, which would feed me, the next generation, and the generation after that, all from a single seed planted in the ground. What brought me to Coquille, back in 2005, was Mountain Homestead, founded by Clara and Chip Boggs in 1989. They’ve devoted their land to research and education of low impact, low cost, and long lasting systems designed to sustain the needs of resident forest stewards. Growing food, gravity flow water systems, solar & hydro electric systems are all integrated with forest restoration and maintaining forest health.
Hundreds of volunteers have come out here over the years, to exchange work for the learning opportunity. In 2001, Cob Cottage Company started a parallel research center, on the Boggs’ land, focused on developing and teaching natural building techniques. The land, 365 acres, is protected under a conservation easement with the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, who has a chapter in Bandon. Following the study of several perennial food growing models in Florida and Georgia,
I moved out here, to work on developing models of perennial horticulture here. The mild climate, ample rainfall, and diverse topography of the Coquille Valley, allow for some of the most varied and forgiving combinations of crops and growing techniques. Why perennials? I recognize that we don’t all have the time and energy to grow gardens every year.
Some years we do though! Wouldn’t it be great if we only had to plant certain crops once, and they would just keep on producing, year after year, sometimes generation after generation! Fruits, nuts, vegetables, shoots, roots, tubers, greens, can all continue producing food, with minimal maintenance. Perennials crops, in contrast to annual crops, are design-intensive, rather than labor-intensive. Most of the work is figuring out which plants to plant, where to plant them, and how to most easily maintain them. Most of these plants grow best in polycultures, or plant communities, which increases total yield per area.
I have 4 different plots that I’m working on. Each one has different combinations of crops, and different maintenance strategies. First 3 are all fenced from deer. 1. The oldest plot, named “The Berry Forest”, now includes 30 different species of berries and small fruits, most of which were planted in 2007, as well as a dozen different perennial vegetables amidst the berries. 2. “The Bamboo Forest”, will produce bamboo shoots amidst other delicious shoots of shade loving plants, all growing underneath the tall swaying culms of bamboo overhead. 3. “The Food Forest” is broader scale than the above plots, spanning about an acre, or half of our deer fenced area. It has been landscaped, cover cropped and has buried irrigation throughout. Here, the canopy will consist of fruit, nut and nitrogen-fixing trees.
A shrub/vine layer will also produce fruits, nuts and berries. Beneath will grow perennial vegetables as well as otherwise functional plants, as well as having mushrooms grown both logs and woodchips. 4. The most recent plot, “The Nut Forest”, is focused on nut production as well as wood production, for posts, lumber, and firewood, as we’ll thin out the planted
Forest Food
by Ish Shalom
Ish Shalom and guests at Mountian Homestead
photo by Ryan C. Deuschle
Forest Food
I love trees. I am passionate about growing trees. My favorite trees? Trees that feed me, as well as providing material to build with, firewood to keep me warm, and ever-changing, evolving beautiful structures, that keep growing year after year after year.
I love the idea that I could plant trees today, which would feed me, the next generation, and the generation after that, all from a single seed planted in the ground. What brought me to Coquille, back in 2005, was Mountain Homestead, founded by Clara and Chip Boggs in 1989. They’ve devoted their land to research and education of low impact, low cost, and long lasting systems designed to sustain the needs of resident forest stewards. Growing food, gravity flow water systems, solar & hydro electric systems are all integrated with forest restoration and maintaining forest health.
Hundreds of volunteers have come out here over the years, to exchange work for the learning opportunity. In 2001, Cob Cottage Company started a parallel research center, on the Boggs’ land, focused on developing and teaching natural building techniques. The land, 365 acres, is protected under a conservation easement with the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, who has a chapter in Bandon. Following the study of several perennial food growing models in Florida and Georgia,
Some years we do though! Wouldn’t it be great if we only had to plant certain crops once, and they would just keep on producing, year after year, sometimes generation after generation! Fruits, nuts, vegetables, shoots, roots, tubers, greens, can all continue producing food, with minimal maintenance. Perennials crops, in contrast to annual crops, are design-intensive, rather than labor-intensive. Most of the work is figuring out which plants to plant, where to plant them, and how to most easily maintain them. Most of these plants grow best in polycultures, or plant communities, which increases total yield per area.
I have 4 different plots that I’m working on. Each one has different combinations of crops, and different maintenance strategies. First 3 are all fenced from deer. 1. The oldest plot, named “The Berry Forest”, now includes 30 different species of berries and small fruits, most of which were planted in 2007, as well as a dozen different perennial vegetables amidst the berries. 2. “The Bamboo Forest”, will produce bamboo shoots amidst other delicious shoots of shade loving plants, all growing underneath the tall swaying culms of bamboo overhead. 3. “The Food Forest” is broader scale than the above plots, spanning about an acre, or half of our deer fenced area. It has been landscaped, cover cropped and has buried irrigation throughout. Here, the canopy will consist of fruit, nut and nitrogen-fixing trees.
A shrub/vine layer will also produce fruits, nuts and berries. Beneath will grow perennial vegetables as well as otherwise functional plants, as well as having mushrooms grown both logs and woodchips. 4. The most recent plot, “The Nut Forest”, is focused on nut production as well as wood production, for posts, lumber, and firewood, as we’ll thin out the planted