A Decade of Patience
City Transplants Turned Naturalists Dig Deep into Truffles
by Lila Ryan
In 2006, I began looking for property in Mendocino County with my husband, Mike Burgess. We had started dreaming about how to leave Los Angeles shortly after we got married. Mike had grown up there, working in aerospace electronics “forever.” I had been there for more than 20 years, working at UCLA and becoming a psychologist. We were both enthusiastic gardeners in that benign coastal climate, but we were eager for something different.
We found that, with every exploratory trip to Mendocino County, our search narrowed more tightly around Willits. Each of us had been through and around Willits a number of times since the 70s, and we both liked the look and feel of what is now our town. As we envisioned our new home and “retirement” with garden and orchard, along with reading deeply in the blossoming permaculture literature, two big ideas emerged.
First, the Transition Town movement and WELL (Willits Economic LocaLization) came into focus. Since we were already thinking about food security, that connection was natural. We wanted to be able to contribute something to the foodshed that might fill a particular niche. We were drawn to nuts as long term, protein- and oil-rich crops, and we needed a place we could grow trees and be active in community life. Second, the layering element of permaculture design theory introduced us to the notion of the rhizosphere (where roots meet the soil for nutrient exchange). It didn’t take long to connect the dots: nut trees (like hazelnuts) + beneficial fungi for their roots (like Tuber melanosporum) = truffle orchard!
We found our spot in 2009, close enough to town to walk if it came to that, and far enough away to feel “out of the city.” Still living in LA, we started planting trees in Willits—first a dozen pecan trees, then 250 truffle-inoculated hazel seedlings, then a few apples and pears. We were also developing off-grid water and power systems and building the house we would move into.
While we waited for the nuts and truffles, we planted more fruit trees, blueberry bushes, and a few chestnut trees (a 99% fat-free carbohydrate) for balance. We found out the hard way what it means to plant young trees in drought- parched ground. We learned all about voles and gophers. We replaced what died and pressed forward. After graduating the California Naturalist training in 2013, we began developing a water- and fire-wise domestic landscape based on the extraordinary beauty and fortitude of California native plants.
A particularly big truffle
We had designed our house for winter solar gain and positioned it for summer shade from a huge and ancient oak—which fell, missing the house by inches, on Mother’s Day 2015. The wood from that tree heated our house for more than two years, and the loss of it inspired a major effort to protect and propagate oaks on our property, involving an Oak Woodlands Restoration Grant from Natural Resources Conservation Service and the planting and care of dozens of young oaks. Next year we plan to add inoculated native oaks to the truffle orchard.
Occasionally we find time to sit on the porch in awe.
Nuts take time to come into fruition, and so do truffles. Typically 7-10 years pass before truffles emerge, and those are some hard years of waiting and wondering! In 2018, at the same time Kendall-Jackson was announcing their first truffles in Sonoma county, we were rewarded for our patience, too—but saved the fanfare for now. 2019 and 2020 have seen increasingly larger truffle harvests each season, and the hazelnuts are keeping pace. Time to take the next step.
Remember “rhizosphere”? Those truffles are underground, and thus, not visible to human truffle hunters. Noses are needed to find the “black diamond” fungi, noses belonging to trained truffle-hunting dogs.
We would much rather keep these fungal gems in the county than send them all to a distant wholesaler. And we would be very excited to team up with a local scent-trained dog whose owner would share our vision. Just imagine “destination Willits,” with farm-to-table restaurants, visitors savoring seasonal truffle dishes, buying locally made truffled hazelnut oil, and maybe someday joining the fun of the truffle hunt. It could happen!
When not farming and gardening, Mike volunteers at KLLG and Little Lake Grange, where he and Lila are officers. Lila practices psychology and brings her energies to the School of Adaptive Agriculture.
