Wet Feet Farming Highlight
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Wet Feet Farming is the application of agroforestry practices to wet, marginal farmland in order to increase production.
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Planting Change (& Pawpaws!) at Rooted Northwest
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The seed of Rooted Northwest started small, with just two families. They envisioned teaming up to buy just enough land where they could raise their kids on a farm and teach permaculture. However, when they found a 240-acre former dairy for sale in Arlington, their plans began to change.
Read MoreAgroforestry Practice Highlight: Silvopasture
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Silvopasture is the practice of deliberately integrating trees and grazing livestock on the same land. This typically involves either taking a stand of trees (such as a forest or an orchard) and integrating livestock, or establishing trees on land where livestock are already grazing.
Read MoreThe Science & Beauty of Silvopasture
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When Mark Batcheler was growing up in the Midwest, he swore he’d never have a career in farming.
“Everyone I knew had cows or worked on a farm,” Mark said. “As an adolescent, I thought, I’m never going to do that.”
Read MoreTrack Paddock Highlight with Sarah and Jeremy Vecchi
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Track paddocks are an excellent way to keep your horses moving and interested when they aren’t on pasture. Track paddocks can also help protect water quality by avoiding overgrazing and compaction of your pastures that may become vulnerable to mud and runoff during the wet season.
Read MoreAgroforestry Innovations Benefit Farmers and Habitats
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Since our creation following the Dust Bowl, conservation districts have relied on partnerships with farmers to pioneer new ways of protecting our natural resources—and agroforestry is no exception. For the last several years, Snohomish Conservation District has led the region in agroforestry, working with farmers to integrate perennial trees and shrubs into their agricultural systems. Utilizing land in this way can help diversify income, sequester carbon, and improve productivity, water quality, and wildlife habitat.
Read MoreThe Coexistence of Farms, Fish, and Flooding
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The Sustainable Lands Strategy (SLS) coalition initially convened in 2010 to unite individuals and community organizations dedicated to improving the coexistence of farming and fishing in Snohomish County’s floodplain areas. Snohomish Conservation District has been involved in this collaboration since the start.
Read MoreAgroforestry Benefit Highlight: Climate Change
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One of the many benefits of agroforestry—the integration of perennial trees and shrubs into agricultural systems—is its potential to mitigate climate change and increase resilience. Here are a few examples of how…
Read MorePractice Highlight: Food Forests
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Food forests are designed to mimic a forest ecosystem and are mainly made up of edible and medicinal perennial species, with some annual crops mixed in.
Read MorePersimmons and Patience
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If you visit Niky Schultz’s food forest, you might get the sense she’s planting her own little Garden of Eden, an edible landscape where bees nap in her “Pollinator Paradise” and salamanders swim like little dragons in her pond. It’s hard to believe that she’s spent most of her adult life living in apartments with only enough space for a container garden.
Read MoreFood Security Grows in Snohomish with Help from NACD
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Through an NACD grant, we were able to help underserved areas with their food security through garden installations and other support.
Read MoreAgroforestry Farm Tour Held at Raising Cane Ranch
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Returning to Raising Cane Ranch for the second year yielded a new crop of 28 attendees curious to see alley cropping and other agroforestry practices in action.
Read MorePractice Highlight: Alley Cropping
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Alley cropping is an agroforestry practice where rows of trees are planted wide enough to create alleys where other crops can be cultivated.
Read MoreCrabapples and Camas: Alley Cropping at Northwest Meadowscapes
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Twenty years ago, Eric Lee-Mäder found a strange-looking bottle in a wine shop that would end up changing the course of his life. The French cider inside was unlike anything he’d ever tasted.
“It was much more complex than sweet,” Eric said. “I got a sense of the whole orchard, from the bloom of the apple tree to the fungus growing in the understory.”
Read MoreAgroforestry Challenges (And 3 Reasons Why They’re Worth It)
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Agroforestry can provide major benefits for farms—it also presents unique challenges. Unlike traditional monocultures, agroforestry requires farmers to understand the needs of multiple plants and how they interact with each other. It takes planning, adaptation, and patience to create a successful system. It also isn’t static. Many agroforestry practices incorporate trees that affect shade conditions as they grow. That means crops may need to shift over the years.
So why bother with all the trouble?
Read MoreConservation in Action at “Farm, Fish, and Forest Field Day”
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Last week, we welcomed Snohomish County Council members Nate Nehring and Sam Low, Town of Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin, and Linda Neunzig, Snohomish County Agriculture Coordinator, on behalf of Executive Dave Somers, for a tour of three of our conservation projects throughout Snohomish County.
Read MoreHarvestable Riparian Buffers
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Nick Pate, owner of Raising Cane Ranch in Snohomish, has incorporated several agroforestry practices on his farm. His food forest also serves as a harvestable, multi-functional, or working buffer. The trees and shrubs in the food forest essentially act as a second layer to his native forest riparian buffer, which borders the Snohomish River.
Read MoreRaising Cane Ranch Switched to Solar: Find Out If You Can Too!
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Are you interested in renewable energy for your farm or rural small business? Snohomish and Pierce Conservation Districts have teamed up with Spark Northwest to help farms and rural small businesses apply for grant funds for renewable energy and energy efficient projects through the Rural Energy Development Program.
Read MoreFruit to Nuts: Raising Cane Ranch’s Food Forest
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Tucked towards the back of Raising Cane Ranch, beyond their farm stand and Highland cows, you’ll find a food forest filled with chestnut, walnut, and hazelnut trees, black currants, evergreen huckleberries, and aronia berries.
“It’s one of the most peaceful places on the property,” says farm owner, Nick Pate. “I just love working out there.”
Read MoreCarbon Crushers Series Wraps Up
/During the first winter of the pandemic, our Agriculture Resilience Team brainstormed ways to engage the public when we were unable to physically gather. The result was a Carbon Crushers series of workshops focused on ways to reach “drawdown”—the point when levels of greenhouse gases stop climbing and start to actually decline
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