Josh Garbo

Hello Diego, I'd consider cutting the Tulip Poplars, as they do not produce food (though their flowers are good for pollinators)  I've found that the mid-size (1-2 ft in diameter) trees pollard very well if you cut them in the winter while dormant; they will regrow as large shrubs basically.  Others have recommended paw-paws, persimmons, and chestnuts, which are good choices.  Black currants are also supposed to produce fairly well in partial shade.  Ramps and ginseng will do well in a forest.

Basically, you are slowly converting a forest into a food forest; you're using the existing shade to prevent weeds and maintain a fungal-dominated soil while planting your preferred trees and promoting their spread to dominate the canopy eventually (in perhaps 10 years or so).

Hello Cat - yes, we did get that initial savings in place that will cover our needs by retirement age.  The question now is do we try to maximize current earnings to allow for early retirement or work more enjoyable, lower-paying jobs that will just cover expenses (and we won't retire until the normal time).  Chances are, I will just suck it up for a while to enable more freedom in the long-term.

We are sort of coast FIRE-ing - wife has a low-stress online job that she's comfortable with working indefinitely, while I am grinding it out on the corporate side a bit longer so I can retire fairly soon and get land.  I think the key to coast is to find a job that you enjoy and are ok working for a long time.

I'm also in NOVA, and would appreciate chatting.  Also, look into Living Energy Farms and Magnolia in Louisa.

Update on figs.  The Brown Turkey actually survived the winter, albeit with several inches of winter damage.  The current project is "low-tech" fig cuttings - clip a bunch of twigs, stick them some potting soil, and hope for the best.  So far 90% of them have rotted and are thriving.

So far, have done well with four Hardy Chicago figs from a big-box store; planted them in Spring 2021 and they survived our winter outside with no protection (albeit in a sunny area near my house).  One of them even got to 9 ft tall last fall and tried to produce figs, though they didn't fully form.  I believe it got below 10F on at least a few nights here during mid-January.  Unfortunately, a Brown Turkey I planted in summer 2021 from Monticello did not survive the winter.  In Monticello they grow on a very sunny and rocky protected micro-climate, which may get more winter sun than my house.

Also have had success this Spring in rooting fig cuttings from a neighbor's tree.  They weren't sure what species it is, but presumably something very hardy, as it's over 15 ft tall.  These got a small cut in bark to expose the cambium, dipped in water, dipped in a powdered root hormone, and then put into potting soil (into a hole poked first with a stick).  They have done great with occasional watering, and moved into the garage during a few nights of 25 degree lows.  These were all cut and planted on 20 March.

This year I've also started three small figs from Edible Landscaping in pots - a Celeste, Conadria, and Long Island.  Not sure yet if I want to plant these permanently in the fall or take them inside for the winter.

I manage about an acre by hand with N-fixers like autumn olive and black locust, and have quite a few bradford/callery pears coming up that I graft over to edible pears.  With more acreage, that's going to be harder to do by hand.  Can you put up a cheap deer fence with paracord, tree posts, zip ties, and deer netting?  I used those (along with with welded wire) to up a cheap fence over about 1000 ft.  So far, I've been able to trim up the black locust and do chop/drop with the autumn olive fairly easily, using a push mower a few times/year to keep the thorns down and promote clover.

You might be able to minimize mowing by planting your fruit/nut producing in lines (perhaps on contour), and then brush mowing around them, leaving corridors between your tree lines that can be allowed to come up with what's in the seed bank.  You could rake up the clippings as mulch around your trees.

Or you could just let it go wild for a few years, and then see what came up, mowing strategically to preserve the trees you want, and then adding your fruit/nut trees where they make sense.

You all inspired me to buy a few hundred Malus Pumila seeds from Sheffield; plan is to plant them naturally throughout the yard to see if any good genetics some up in a S.T.U.N. situation. I already put a bunch of Malus Sylvestri in potted buckets this fall, and will grow them this year in a protected situation with good soil.

I know Akiva Silver from Twisted Tree Farms has also looked into breeding some big ones, but not sure how far along his efforts are.  There's a tallish one near me in VA, about 40 ft or so, that has a lot of light competition from nearby oak trees, so has grown fairly tall.  The fruit is not very good, though, and it is very matted/un-pruned.

I've tried to start these seeds in Virginia in the wild - just buried into the soil, without any prep.  Didn't work so well.  I was hoping it would be as easy to propagate as Autumn Olive, but perhaps it does better in colder climates.