I moved to Orcas Island in 1974 after my sailboat’s 1936 single cylinder engine had blown up. I was headed back to my Alaska homestead, but this event changed my plans.
Almost 40 years later, I am still on Orcas but I have shifted to planting trees in order to cover my share of trees that I use in building projects.
So far, I have planted 7,500 trees of all different varieties. I have planted trees for the purpose of growing food, and some for cash crops.
In my early days I met 3 brothers, The Bullock Brothers, who advised me in what and how to plant using a technique that mimics Mother Nature called Permaculture. Since then, my partner and I have both become Certified Permaculture Designers by the Bullock Permaculture Homestead.
We have done many things on our property to work towards being sustainable. For example, we applied bacterial sprays that helped dissolve rock which makes the nutrients readily available for plants to absorb the trace minerals, and re-established the root structure of mushrooms called mycelia. Mycelia is responsible for a tree’s ability to resist decay. It does this by creating a network of roots that balance a whole forest by transporting nutrients to the trees that are in need of that specific nutrient.
The results of the bacterial inoculation sprays were remarkable. In one year, the grasses in my forest went from 1” to 4’. In that same year, a tent caterpillar infestation broke out. It sounded like a gentle rain as they ate the leaves of the trees that surrounded our property. The trees that were given the bacterial sprays were untouched by the tent caterpillars. There was no infestation on our property.
We also use mycelia to clean up areas where my diesel tractor, generator, and truck drips oil or fuel. I set up settlement ponds that collect the run-off water where the drips collect on the ground and re-directed it to these ponds filled with wood chips inoculated with oyster mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms break petrol chemicals down to their basic nutritive components. The toxic qualities are broken down by the oyster mushroom, and we are able to use it as food. There is a benefit of being able to eat the mushrooms and returning the water back to the earth in a pure condition, which becomes a win-win situation.
Almost 40 years later, I am still on Orcas but I have shifted to planting trees in order to cover my share of trees that I use in building projects.
So far, I have planted 7,500 trees of all different varieties. I have planted trees for the purpose of growing food, and some for cash crops.
In my early days I met 3 brothers, The Bullock Brothers, who advised me in what and how to plant using a technique that mimics Mother Nature called Permaculture. Since then, my partner and I have both become Certified Permaculture Designers by the Bullock Permaculture Homestead.
We have done many things on our property to work towards being sustainable. For example, we applied bacterial sprays that helped dissolve rock which makes the nutrients readily available for plants to absorb the trace minerals, and re-established the root structure of mushrooms called mycelia. Mycelia is responsible for a tree’s ability to resist decay. It does this by creating a network of roots that balance a whole forest by transporting nutrients to the trees that are in need of that specific nutrient.
The results of the bacterial inoculation sprays were remarkable. In one year, the grasses in my forest went from 1” to 4’. In that same year, a tent caterpillar infestation broke out. It sounded like a gentle rain as they ate the leaves of the trees that surrounded our property. The trees that were given the bacterial sprays were untouched by the tent caterpillars. There was no infestation on our property.
We also use mycelia to clean up areas where my diesel tractor, generator, and truck drips oil or fuel. I set up settlement ponds that collect the run-off water where the drips collect on the ground and re-directed it to these ponds filled with wood chips inoculated with oyster mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms break petrol chemicals down to their basic nutritive components. The toxic qualities are broken down by the oyster mushroom, and we are able to use it as food. There is a benefit of being able to eat the mushrooms and returning the water back to the earth in a pure condition, which becomes a win-win situation.