posted 3 days ago
Hi Everyone,
I'm a homesteader in Southeast Alaska. My family and I have been on our land for about 7 years and I'm starting to experiment with integrating gardening, grazing (goats) and agroforestry. I've got a slight slope to part of my land and want to make some huglekulture berms on contour that I plant trees and berries into a la Mark Shepard/Paul Wheaton/Sepp Holzer fusion, but I have a very practical question. Do trees go uphill of the berm, on the berm, or downhill of the berm. What parts of the berm grow what things the best? We're between zone 3 and zone 4. We get about 50" of rain per year, our summers can be highly variable but I find that I usually have to water seedlings for the first year during dry spells before they can fend for themselves. I like to plant alot of trees from seeds though and my thought is that getting them in the right spot in the system I can stop doing this chore and still have some survivability. The berms consist of cottonwood logs, brush and dirt. I'm experimenting with alot of different species: apples, hazelnuts, chestnuts, pine nuts, locusts, siberian pea shrub, pie cherries, plums, maples (cause they're purdy), raspberries, salmon berries, blue berries, thimble berries. Probably more stuff honestly, I plant a lot of things... Thanks ahead of time!
-Riley
