Revised and Updated Plan for Heart of the Earth Farm

We have bought a farm on the Ohio side of the Ohio River. The mountains in the background of the attached picture are in Kentucky. We are not in the flood zone. The soil here is loamy loess. The only rock I have found on the property is the point of a spearhead. We have 2 acres, a small pond, persimmon tree, chestnut tree, a pear tree, and a old small dairy barn.

I do still plan to do the outdoor kitchen, but it is being put off for a bit.

I am converting the very small dairy barn into a sheep dairy barn, with grain and hay storage and the milking stanchion inside, and a leanto for straw being added on. We only plan to buy 2 East Friesian ewes. We are fencing in the pasture.

We put in a garden, but have low expectations of it. Next year's garden will be 6x the size of this one and will be transitioning to Ruth Stout method for vegetables. I am not yet sure how I want to do my grains (corn and possibly rye).

I am working on the well to get it running for irrigation. The general weather for this area is 3-4 wet years followed by a dry year.

The orchard is already started, but we are adding peaches, apples, cherries, and prickly ash. I am considering timber bamboo and tea at the end of the orchard that is near the pond.

The front of the house is a back to eden herb and edible flower garden on one side and a medicinal herbs back to eden garden on the other, seperated by a paved path to the mailbox. I am trying to convince my grandmother to let me put grapes between this herb garden and the street.

The pond area will have runner ducks eventually, but I have to catch all the snapping turtles first. Word is, they are a local delicasy.

We are doing chicken tractors next year, buff orpingtons for eggs, and red rangers for meat.

Looks like a nice spread, Ryan!  I have a hard time imagining no rocks since they are everywhere here - sounds quite luxurious!

Artie Scott wrote:Looks like a nice spread, Ryan!  I have a hard time imagining no rocks since they are everywhere here - sounds quite luxurious!

I had to dig test holes two weeks ago. Shovel went into the ground like the soil was made of pancakes. In all the soil I have seen here, there are no rocks. Fast forward to a few days ago and we are pulling weeds in the flower bed and with some thistle roots came the largeish piece of a spearhead. The bottom is snapped clean off. It is a bit blunt. I think it broke in use and was retouched before breaking again and being discarded.

Exciting stuff! I'll be following...

About the orchard: traditional orchard? Food forest? Back to Eden? Alley cropping? What's your plan for sustainable fertility in that sector?

Have fun!

hmm...I dare say the application of the Ruth Stout method on these 2 acres will require many large heaps of woodchips.

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Exciting stuff! I'll be following...

About the orchard: traditional orchard? Food forest? Back to Eden? Alley cropping? What's your plan for sustainable fertility in that sector?

Have fun!

Silvopasture. The chickens and sheep will graze there, and the leaf drop will not be moved.

Burl Smith wrote:hmm...I dare say the application of the Ruth Stout method on these 2 acres will require many large heaps of woodchips.

RSM uses straw.

Ryan Hobbs wrote:

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Exciting stuff! I'll be following...

About the orchard: traditional orchard? Food forest? Back to Eden? Alley cropping? What's your plan for sustainable fertility in that sector?

Have fun!

Silvopasture. The chickens and sheep will graze there, and the leaf drop will not be moved.

Might I suggest adding support tree species among the fruit ones?

Nathanael Szobody wrote:

Ryan Hobbs wrote:

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Exciting stuff! I'll be following...

About the orchard: traditional orchard? Food forest? Back to Eden? Alley cropping? What's your plan for sustainable fertility in that sector?

Have fun!

Silvopasture. The chickens and sheep will graze there, and the leaf drop will not be moved.

Might I suggest adding support tree species among the fruit ones?

I was considering honey locust. It fixes nitrogen and has an edible seed pod and supports bees.

Okay, I gave this some more thought and changed my mind about the silvopasture.

Now it is going to be a food forest. I am moving the garden to higher ground, expanding the pasture into the current garden, and converting the silvopasture/orchard into a very diverse food forest.

Trees: apples, pears, persimmons, peaches, cherries, thornless honey locust, chinese chestnut, and prickly mountain ash.
Shrubs: blueberry, blackberry, camelia, lingonberry, viburnum
Vines: hardy kiwi, grapes
Groundcover: strawberries and cucurbitae, spreading and mounding herbs
Nitrogen fixing: pole beans, illinois bunchflower, clover
Bioaccumulators: mustard, asparagus, comfrey, sunflower
Barrier plants: hardy orange
Insect attractants: tobacco, goldenrod, vibernum, sage family, carrot family


Edited to add: the hardy orange is a barrier to mosquitos and deer. The bunchflower is also a hay crop and useful medicinally to remedy addiction according to its traditional use in combination with Nicotiana rustica as a smoked herb.

Ryan Hobbs wrote:Okay, I gave this some more thought and changed my mind about the silvopasture.

Now it is going to be a food forest. I am moving the garden to higher ground, expanding the pasture into the current garden, and converting the silvopasture/orchard into a very diverse food forest.

Trees: apples, pears, persimmons, peaches, cherries, thornless honey locust, chinese chestnut, and prickly mountain ash.
Shrubs: blueberry, blackberry, camelia, lingonberry, viburnum
Vines: hardy kiwi, grapes
Groundcover: strawberries and cucurbitae, spreading and mounding herbs
Nitrogen fixing: pole beans, illinois bunchflower, clover
Bioaccumulators: mustard, asparagus, comfrey, sunflower
Barrier plants: hardy orange
Insect attractants: tobacco, goldenrod, vibernum, sage family, carrot family


Edited to add: the hardy orange is a barrier to mosquitos and deer. The bunchflower is also a hay crop and useful medicinally to remedy addiction according to its traditional use in combination with Nicotiana rustica as a smoked herb.

Woohoo! Now you're talking! A great addition to the"vine" category would be wild rosehips. They're so delicious in the late fall and early winter and packed with vitamin C (and other good stuff). They also produce copiously on complete neglect. Partial shade is fine.

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Woohoo! Now you're talking! A great addition to the"vine" category would be wild rosehips. They're so delicious in the late fall and early winter and packed with vitamin C (and other good stuff). They also produce copiously on complete neglect. Partial shade is fine.

I was thinking of jujubes for the same reason, but they are a tree, not a vine. I only have a half acre tho.

::UPDATE::

the food forest guild has been updated to 12 layers and 45 species. I didn't set out to create new layers, but found that some of the categories needed split up. I will post the full list tomorrow if I remember.

Nice idea! )))))))))

The Food forest will transition to food prairie on one side and aquatic on the other, so all three are listed together.

Chestnut, pear, and persimmon trees are already present.

::Dominant Species::
Apples
Peaches
Cherries
Prickly Mountain Ash
Hardy Giant Pecan
(Note, other trees located under different headings)

::Soil Busters::
Daikon
Mandrake

::Living Mulch::
Summer Squash
Winter Squash
Cucumbers
Melons
Strawberries

::Insectaries::
Culinary Sage
Russian Sage
White Sage
Corriander
Thyme
Oregano
Nicotiana rustica
Goldenrod
Honey Locust

::Shrubs::
Thornless Raspberry
High Bush Blueberry
Camelia japonica
Lingonberry
Pawpaw
Viburnum

::Bioaccumulators::
Asparagus
Mustard
Comfrey
Sunflowers
Mushrooms

::Nitrogen Fixers::
Illinois Bunchflower
Honey locust
Pole beans
Clover

::Climbers::
Grapes
Hardy Kiwi
Morning Glories

::Barrier Plants::
Hardy Orange
Citronella Geranium

::Rhizosphere::
Potatoes
Garlic
Fennel
Onions
Leeks
Wild Alliums
Ginseng
Turmeric
Beets

::Tall Grasses::
Sorghum
Winter Rye

::Aquatic Plants::
Sacred Lotus
Rice

I just created this map of the plans for the farm. I did try to maximize the edges, but on limited space, they kind of have to be straight-ish lines.

Wow, nice big food forest!

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Wow, nice big food forest!

Yeah, it is kind of the biggest piece of our puzzle. That's why I'm growing so many trees. There will actually be a bell curve in height from a low fruit tree canopy (30ft or 10m) down to grass (1ft or 1/3m). I believe the wolf trees on the property line stand at about 25-40ft. It seems to mostly be poplar and maples. I will have to check them after the first cold snap to see if I can tap the maples. It may not be worth the effort tbh.

Edited to add: The FF isn't going to be the most labor intensive area, that distinction goes to the market garden. I actually calculated that our whole household only needs half of that space to supply vegetables for our whole year. The other half is entirely going to be able to be sold. So, lots of veg. My spacing has been fiddled with each time I have had a garden, and the Sq Ft method is the best I have ever used. So, using that method you get double the productivity in half the space. Row Spacing has only ever ended in failure for me, but maybe I'm doing it wrong. The full area in the pink outline can grow about 2k lbs of food or more.

I have Updated the Food Forest AGAIN.



Now we're on version 5.

Nice plan.  Just wanted to mention that blueberries aren't the easiest to get going in Ohio.  The pH is usually too high.  It can be lowered with things like sulfur spread the year before planting.  If you don't want to use sulfur, I think some people have tried pine needles, but I'm not really sure if that works.  An alternative to blueberries are haskaps (honeyberries).  They are actually higher in antioxidants than blueberries and have virtually no disease or pests.  We just planted about 140 in one of our orchards as under stories.  If you want to learn more about honeyberries, www.lovehoneyberry .com has a great wealth of information, links and resources to get you started.  Also, I was watching The Permaculture Orchard a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that Stefan has them planted in his orchard as well.  If you haven't seen The Permaculture Orchard, I would highly recommend that you watch it.  The download version is less than 8.00 on the website.  

T.J. Stewart wrote:Nice plan.  Just wanted to mention that blueberries aren't the easiest to get going in Ohio.  The pH is usually too high.  It can be lowered with things like sulfur spread the year before planting.  If you don't want to use sulfur, I think some people have tried pine needles, but I'm not really sure if that works.  An alternative to blueberries are haskaps (honeyberries).  They are actually higher in antioxidants than blueberries and have virtually no disease or pests.  We just planted about 140 in one of our orchards as under stories.  If you want to learn more about honeyberries, www.lovehoneyberry .com has a great wealth of information, links and resources to get you started.  Also, I was watching The Permaculture Orchard a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that Stefan has them planted in his orchard as well.  If you haven't seen The Permaculture Orchard, I would highly recommend that you watch it.  The download version is less than 8.00 on the website.  

Where I am the soil needs lime to get to the range liked by blueberries. The soil is very acidic.

Good to know.  I hope that you are successful in your endeavors, no matter what you decide.  :)

T.J. Stewart wrote:Good to know.  I hope that you are successful in your endeavors, no matter what you decide.  :)

I'm actually in the process of modifying the plan to not need to rent a backhoe. I'll post the modified plan here when I'm done. ^_^

I have updated the farm plan extensively.

Ryan,  I love the progression of your plan from the simple blocks to the detail computerized rendering.  

Love the detailed plan.  Mine changes to often for me to bother.

Well Dawn and Dan, if you keep an eye on this thread, you will soon see the full species list. I happen to be very sick right now, so have been on the computer a lot.

The following is a complete list of plants, animals, and Fungi in the whole farm sorted by zone and supplier. This list is current to Heart of the Earth Farm Plan version 5 and written in November of 2019.

Vegetable Gardens
All from Baker Creek Heirlooms
Gobbo Di Nizzia Cardoon
Mary Washington Asparagus
Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Beans
Landreth Stringless Bush Beans
Bulls’ Blood Beet
Waltham 29 Broccoli
Red Rubine Brussels Sprouts
Rose Red Soba (Buckwheat)
Perfection Drumhead Savoy Cabbage
Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage
Nero Di Toscana Cabbage (Dinosaur or Lacinato Kale)
Black Nebula Carrot
Chantenay Red Core Carrot
Oxheart Carrot
Chinese Pink Celery
Vates Collards
Country Gentleman Sweet Corn
Painted Mountain Corn
Aonaga Jibai Cucumber
Japanese Long Cucumber
Diamond Eggplant
Bronze Fennel
Bushel Basket Gourd
Southern Giant Curled Mustard
Petit Gris de Rennes Melon
Lincoln Garden Pea
Sugar Ann Snap Pea
Pasilla Bajio Pepper
Poblano Pepper
Doux D'Espagne Pepper
Chinese Red Meat Radish
Champion Purple Top (Best of All) Rutabaga
Costata Romanesco Zucchini
Canada Crookneck Butternut Squash
Candy Roaster Pumpkin
Connecticut Field Pumpkin
Tomatillo Verde
Mortgage Lifter Tomato
Hungarian Heart Tomato
Cherokee Purple Tomato
Carolina Cross 180 Watermelon

Herb Gardens (Some in raised beds, some in Food Forest, Some in Greenhouse)
From Baker Creek
Cardinal Basil
Blue Spice Basil
Genovese Basil
Lettuce Leaf Basil
Siam Queen Thai Basil
Tulsi Holy Basil
Slo-bolt Cilantro
Elephant Dill
Wild Zaatar Oregano
Giant of Italy Parsley
Rosy Rosemary
Broad Leaf Sage
Wild (Creeping) Thyme
From Strictly Medicinal Seeds
Aloe Ferox
Ashwagandha, Vedic
Lemon Balm
Bundle Flower
Burdock, Takinogawa
Cactus, San Pedro
Catnip, Official
Chamomile, German
Chrysanthemum, Chinese - Bo-Ju-Hua
Cucumber, Squirting
Echinaccea purpurea
Geranium, Scented - Citronella
Ginger, Myoga
Horehound, White
Lettuce, Wild
Lotus, American Yellow
Mint, Chinese
Mint, Corsican (to replace lawn)
Peppermint
Poppy, California
Poppy, Flanders
Poppy, Giant Pod
Sage, Sacred White
Saint John’s Wort
Sempervivum
Shiso, Purple
Spikenard, California
Thistle, Milk
Tobacco, Azteca Night Blooming
Tobacco, Desert
Tobacco, Hopi
Tobacco, Huichol
Tobacco, Oneida
Tobacco, Tree
Tobacco, Walker’s
Tulsi, Temperate
Valerian, Official
Yarrow, Official
Maiden’s Wattle
Banisteriopsis caapi
Eastern Red Cedar
Eleuthero, Spineless
Empress Tree
Ginkgo
Pawpaw
Senna, Wild
Willow, Purple
Yucca, Joshua Tree
From Fungi Perfecti
Garden Giant Mushroom
Reishii Mushroom
Lion’s Mane Mushroom
Turkey Tail Mushroom

Strawberry Patches
From Baker Creek
Attila Strawberry
From Stark Brothers
All Summer Long Collection

Greenhouse
From Stark Brothers
Patio Lemon
Patio Key Lime
Patio Mandarin Orange

Food Forest (except wildflowers, bog, and pond)
From Fedco
Ashmede Apple
Airlie Redflesh Apple
Black Oxford Apple
Goldrush Apple
Grey Pearmain Apple
Esopus Spitzenburg Apple
Lowbush Blueberry
Meader male Kiwi
Anna female Kiwi
Black Ice Plum
La Crescent (pollinator) Plum
Redhaven Peach
From Forest Ag
Hybrid Chestnut
Selected Seedling Hazelnut
From Stark Brothers
Purple Robe Locust
Hardy Almond
Hardy Giant Pecan
Koralle Lingonberry
Thornless Black Raspberry
Eastern Redbud
American Mulberry
Norway Spruce
Eastern Redbud
From Murray McMurray
Game Bird Assortment
Broad Breasted Bronze Turkeys
As yet unsourced:
Camelia japonica
Ilex paraguarensis

Bog Garden
Carnivorousplantnursery dot com is supplier of carnivorous plants, other sources as yet unknown
Willow
River Birch
Sycamore
Cobra Lilly
Red Dragon Venus Flytrap
Hardy Sundew
Cranberries
Bear Berries
Turkey Tails
Reishii
Native Rivercane
Hokkaido Rice
Nut Sedge
Cattail
Bog Violet
Sphagnum Moss
Bog Clubmoss
Edible Ferns
Duckweed

The Pond and Vicinity
Bluegill
Crawdads
Snails
American Lotus
Arrowroot
Duckweed
Wild Rice
Pawpaw
Jack in the Pulpit

Wildflower Zones
From Prairie Moon
Forest Edge Mix
From Baker Creek
Titan Sunflower
Mongolian Giant Sunflower
Mammoth Grey Stripe Sunflower
Japanese Millet

The Vineyard
From Fedco
Vanessa Seedless Grape
Reliance Seedless Grape
Concord Grape
From Harvest Express dot com
Gewurztraminer grape
Riesling grape
Pinot Noir grape
From Murray McMurray
Vinyard Duck Assortment

Do you have an update? How much is in the ground now? What have you changed from your original plans?