posted 3 years ago
S Bengi, Thank you for your clarifying questions.
To start with we will be doing this on just 2 acres. This picture shows it a bit but the slope is roughly 40%. We plan to make one access road through the middle acting as water redirection swale style just a few % off contour. The other lanes will not be used as tractor lanes, just animal grazing or holding bee hives. We plan on having animal shelters in line with the crop row that can be used as a pass through for people on foot, animals, animal's shelter, and arbor for viney things.
I like the idea in Regenerative Agriculture where there is a plan for plants that will give back forage/fruit in the short term while waiting for the second wave of more productive/profitable/easier to harvest plants get to their optimum production. Even if that means cutting down or thinning the first plants/trees. (Great theory - I have a hard time solidifying what that means for me)
We plan on building a swale, of course, as part of each planting.
We have 1 other acre planted this way. We have had lots of trees die, and have random ripening times and I have missed out on the human 30% harvest on many plants. When replacing trees at random, other than trying to not have the trees that share the same pests beside each other, I just plugged in whatever. I'm observing that if the plantings were more intentional, to ripen within the same 3 weeks or thereabouts, it'd provide lots of benefits as I mentioned. For example: One tree is dropping fruit and i'd like to get the pigs in there, but whoops the bees are still in there and the peaches are just coming on and drop easy if the tree is bumped. But If I wait until the peaches are done there are the seaberries that are hanging down and i bet the pigs would eat them before we could get to them. Just a made up story to show how it goes. In the end the pigs go into that area after everything has fruited and miss out on all the food because it has rotted on the ground, the pests burrowed where ever they go to bug us next year.
The idea of this being more than human food was my entry way into lane cropping. I had, long ago, looked into and put into action fedge (food hedge) that was just for animal food and medicine on the outside of the fence line. Having a human crop is an added bonus with the right planning!
I'm ok with having more standard size fruiting trees for just this 1/3 for me, 1/3 farm animals, 1/3 for wildlife reasoning. I'm also thinking to plant my 'most likely to thrive, with predictable fruits', store-bought trees on a grid like you mentioned within the 60 feet, as you nicely mentioned, and plug in seeds or started from my seeds trees that may or may not be worthwhile just for the fun of it, to see what happens. If the tree grows healthy but the fruits are tossers, I can always graft. If it's all bad I can just cut it down and inoculate it with mushroom spawn if it is big enough. If it's too crowded, I'll have to make choices..
I've had a nursery area of my yard for the past 8 years that I have planted favorite plants and helped them to propagate with the layer method till now I can do larger plantings of the same things. Plants such as Black and other Currents, Grape, Black Locust (where I want future fence posts or building supports), blueberries, and Garlics, Rosemary, Artemisias, Sunchokes, Lots of herbs, I'm missing some, but you get the drift. I have a stash of 4 different types of hazelnuts for doing this same layering to get more plants, but it hasn't been done yet. I know when these fruit, but I'm missing the variety to make harvest times in a wider range. I likely need not only different species, but wider varieties of plants in what I have.
Some other details:
Rainfall 65 inches total per year, July - September gets very little rainfall. Temperature average in summer is 80 degrees f. Winter average in January is 33 degrees f.
Soil is clay with very little topsoil. Wet and boggy in any low areas in the winter and dry as a bone in the summer. Because of rotational grazing the last 10 years we have seen improvement and a move of natural vegetation move away from thistle towards grasses. Someone came and did a grasses analysis some years back and I remember them saying we have a good wide variety of grasses, they are just small.
So, I get this far and then I stall. I'd really love to find the right apple/nut/shrub/vine/herb/annual/mushroom that all 'fruits' say..... early june, another set that is ready mid July and other set that is early fall.... And such. Then I'd like to have that on map plus a huge timeline in my barn to have it obvious to first myself, then to others what would be available when.... ( I know each year it can vary, but have it be the closest possible)
I haven't even started mentioning about the same plant having multiple harvest times, such as an elderberry that you could harvest flowers in spring and berries in the fall..... Or some plants that flush again with growth with the start of the fall rains.
Another detail that's worth mentioning is that it is the dream and therefore a major part of my design plan to turn this farm operations over to a non-profit that we will be starting for our disabled son who has deaf/blindness and a bunch of other stuff and his 'friends'. For the purposes of vocational training, employment, camps, respite care living, and live in. I need to make it as easy as possible for someone, in time, to be able to pick up the reins and have it make sense.
Just being forced to write all this down in a more concise manner for someone else to understand has been enlightening for me, things like this usually are.
In appreciation of anyone giving this two thoughts.... Carma
It's about becoming like granny.
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