Original Post 4/27/2012 ... Updated as needed ... General overview of our farm ... Disclaimer link at the end ...
The Oregon Truffle Tryst Farm started out with an Aquaponics system that was built from plans obtained from Friendly Aquaponics of Hawaii and housed in a self-designed greenhouse building. The first phase was built to gain experience with the setup and daily maintenance of a vegetable aquaponics system. It consists of 256 square feet of growing troughs and several tanks (4'x4'x4' and 4'x4'x8' fish tanks, a 2'x4'x4' biofilter tank and a 2'x4'x4' vet tank) giving a water volume of approximately 3000 gallons. After a few problems with the newly purchased fish in startup mode, it was functioning well. However, a recurrence of fish problems ensued and our nutrients have continued to fluctuate much more than we'd expect. Overall we are still producing nice quality crops but our production is inconsistent rather than a regular amount each week. Our Aquaponics system has been functioning for over nine years now and we had been selling a small amount of produce nearly every week.
Our farm plan has evolved beyond Aquaponics over the last nine years as well.
We have seen a number of Oregon Black truffles appear in a stand of Fir that was inoculated with truffles over ten years ago. We haven't yet determined if there are a significant number of truffles available as we have only once managed to get a truffle dog out here. We do, however, see lots of holes dug and gather leftover pieces of truffles that the forest critters uncover for us.
We have produced mushrooms on sawdust, straw, and logs over the years but have not attempted to produce them as a crop available to sell. That may soon change once more construction has been completed.
Over the last four to five years, we started to grow a tea crop and that is our main focus at present. We have a reasonable climate, a great location, and great topography for the attempt. Although funds are limited we expect to bootstrap the endeavor. We have bought some live plants (1-2 years old) that are acclimated. We have started a fair amount of tea plants from seeds, and now have about 130 three year old plants in one section, about 100 more in a second flat area, have transplanted hundreds onto a hillside behind the house and further up the hillside, and have three plots started in the fields. In all we have had over 1600 plants in the ground with about 2500 seedlings that can be transplanted out this year, or possibly next year. We managed to harvest about a pound of tea last year with very promising results after some basic processing. But we have had some major problems with voles and, possibly, gophers that have decimated a large number of the tea plants in the ground.
One other idea was to create a "forest garden" in at least a section of our back fields while maintaining it, mostly, as a wildlife 'sanctuary'. We have recently planted about 600 tea plants back there this year (2022).
If anyone is wandering around our area, feel free to drop by to see the bits and pieces we have managed to put together so far. And we would be more than happy to hear your thoughts and suggestions!
Thank you for your time. Have a great day!
Please take note of the disclaimer link below before perusing our website.
Original Post 4/27/2012 ... Updated as needed ... General overview of our farm ... Disclaimer link at the end ...
The Oregon Truffle Tryst Farm started out with an Aquaponics system that was built from plans obtained from Friendly Aquaponics of Hawaii and housed in a self-designed greenhouse building. The first phase was built to gain experience with the setup and daily maintenance of a vegetable aquaponics system. It consists of 256 square feet of growing troughs and several tanks (4'x4'x4' and 4'x4'x8' fish tanks, a 2'x4'x4' biofilter tank and a 2'x4'x4' vet tank) giving a water volume of approximately 3000 gallons. After a few problems with the newly purchased fish in startup mode, it was functioning well. However, a recurrence of fish problems ensued and our nutrients have continued to fluctuate much more than we'd expect. Overall we are still producing nice quality crops but our production is inconsistent rather than a regular amount each week. Our Aquaponics system has been functioning for over nine years now and we had been selling a small amount of produce nearly every week.
Our farm plan has evolved beyond Aquaponics over the last nine years as well.
We have seen a number of Oregon Black truffles appear in a stand of Fir that was inoculated with truffles over ten years ago. We haven't yet determined if there are a significant number of truffles available as we have only once managed to get a truffle dog out here. We do, however, see lots of holes dug and gather leftover pieces of truffles that the forest critters uncover for us.
We have produced mushrooms on sawdust, straw, and logs over the years but have not attempted to produce them as a crop available to sell. That may soon change once more construction has been completed.
Over the last four to five years, we started to grow a tea crop and that is our main focus at present. We have a reasonable climate, a great location, and great topography for the attempt. Although funds are limited we expect to bootstrap the endeavor. We have bought some live plants (1-2 years old) that are acclimated. We have started a fair amount of tea plants from seeds, and now have about 130 three year old plants in one section, about 100 more in a second flat area, have transplanted hundreds onto a hillside behind the house and further up the hillside, and have three plots started in the fields. In all we have had over 1600 plants in the ground with about 2500 seedlings that can be transplanted out this year, or possibly next year. We managed to harvest about a pound of tea last year with very promising results after some basic processing. But we have had some major problems with voles and, possibly, gophers that have decimated a large number of the tea plants in the ground.
One other idea was to create a "forest garden" in at least a section of our back fields while maintaining it, mostly, as a wildlife 'sanctuary'. We have recently planted about 600 tea plants back there this year (2022).
If anyone is wandering around our area, feel free to drop by to see the bits and pieces we have managed to put together so far. And we would be more than happy to hear your thoughts and suggestions!
Thank you for your time. Have a great day!
Bob & Stephanie
Please take note of the disclaimer link below before perusing our website.
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