Starting fullsized garden

Hi everyone,

I have just bought a home in zone 3a/b in north/central Canada. I have quite a bit of forested land and a smaller section of grass that I want to use for A) a garden, and B) chickens but maybe a few pigs or goat or sheep in the far future. The few things I have to contend with in the cleared section are
A) circular driveway
B) Septic Field
C) Deer- Lots and Lots and Lots of deer
D) Well
E) cold winters.

I have added an ariel photo with these elements marked to give you an idea of the land. The entire cleared area is roughly 1 acre but that includes everything including the house and garage.

The chickens will be pretty simple but I am wondering, has anyone ever had their chickens on the septic field? is there an issue with the contamination of the eggs and meat?  

The garden is a lot more of a question. the internal area of the driveway is about 5500 SQF but that includes the bank along the north and east edges that slope from the driveway. the area to the southeast takes all the runoff so it can get quite mucky as we are seeing right now. As I have to deal with the deer, I don't want to fence the entire area in and the ideal would have a mix of a completely fenced section, a hightunnel for season extension, and an unfenced section. I would not be against doing a raspberry/rose/thorny bush "hedge" along the entire outside to help reduce the deers want to entre the area if that would be beneficial.

I am completely open to what to grow in the space, but want to mix elements of permaculture with traditional agriculture. I still want my tomatoes and squash, but would like to start working with Walking onions, sunchokes, asparagus, etc. any suggestions on how to set up the garden space for maximum yield and ease of use?

Lastly, anything you feel would do will on the sloping section that would be somewhat deer resistant?

I would encourage you to rip out the Northern part of the driveway, its superfluous.
Then the possibilities increase

Thats an interesting idea! I was planning on keeping it for ease in the winter (it sucks to always have to do a turn in 3 feet of snow) but that does cause issues in summer. so i will keep that in mind!

I wouldn't necessarily rip out the north driveway. Use it during the winter for turning around like you said. In the summer, you could very well use it for things in pots. I currently use a good portion on my driveway for things in pots that I want to keep an eye on and be able to easily move around. Or if you did want to use that space more permanently, raised beds with well on gravel drives. Most of my annual growing beds are on top of former gravel parking/driveways.

The question about chickens on septic- I've never had issues with it except I wouldn't put a permanent chicken structure on your septic drainfield. We moved our chickens every other year and by the second year we had them on the drainfield, they had dug pretty far down in areas that it made me a little nervous they were going to do something to mess up the drainfield. A drainfield works best when it's not just exposed dirt. I felt better about it when we had their coop moved over off to the side and they were able to get out and forage on the drainfield but were not contained there, if that makes sense.

I think your center area looks like a great place for your main garden area. It has so much sun exposure! Where are you at? If you don't get a lot of rain in the summer, the soggy area would be a good place to plan for summer annuals.

Here are a couple more ideas...
What if you make a high tunnel on moveable skids and in the spring and summer and fall you slide it to the north driveway and put any heat loving annuals in pots on the driveway - tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc. South of that in the lawn, you could grow more cold tolerant things and when the season starts to change, slide the high tunnel over to the lawn to cover them and keep them growing into the winter- things like broccoli, kale, spinach, lettuce, and so on.  Then you use the driveway in the snow. And in the summer you get the extra heat from the driveway and the tunnel to grow things that otherwise might struggle. Then plan your more permanent plants around that section.

There's lots of discussion about deer and fences and so on. The jist is deer don't like to jump where they cannot see but they are creatures of habit so if it takes you a few years to grow a thick, tall hedge, in the meantime they will have learned where you grow the tasty food and will just keep jumping it as it grows taller and thicker. So I'd look into different double fencing ideas.

Another solution is getting a dog. But if it's a friendly dog, the deer learn to ignore it.

I've found that chickens are effective. We have less deer presence when we have lots of chickens. I do not know why, just that our deer don't like them. They also didn't like it when we had turkeys and geese. Maybe because the fowl attracted more predators to our land and that scared the deer away? We haven't had chickens for over a year or two now and have a ton more deer visiting now.

One more thought- don't spend too much money on any permanent plans the first couple of years if this is your first big gardening your first time growing in this climate. You don't want to spend $100s on planting fruit trees that die because they aren't suited to the location or that you have to try to move because that spot is the perfect spot for some other thing.

Make a grand plan on paper. Draw it all out. But implement it at a modest pace and redraw it each year with the lessons learned from the previous year.

Also with such a good size place, learn to propogate the perennials you want from seed and cuttings (get what you can free or cheap), start them now in pots, and keep them protected from the deer by keeping them right next to the house. By the time they are big enough to plant out in a few years, you'll have a better idea of where to put them and if the deer munch them down, you'll have the skills and knowledge to cheaply replace what the deer destroy.

I think that inner part of your circular drive looks like a great place for a garden. You will love driving up your driveway and seeing your garden every time. And there's nothing wrong with growing tomatoes and squashes! Perennials are great, but it's also important to grow things you actually like eating.

As far as deer, I can only tell you what is working for us. We have a 5-foot perimeter fence along the front of our 3 1/2 acres and a 4-foot fence along that back (the shorter fence was here when we moved in, and we haven't needed to replace it). Yes, deer can easily jump these fences, but we have 2 dogs inside our fence, so the deer give our property a wide berth. The fence is more to keep the dogs on  the property so they aren't running the countryside chasing deer. So if you like dogs, that might be something to consider. One dog would probably do the job. We just happened to have a second one show up, and no one claimed her, so we kept her.  

I also cross-fenced off a portion of that for our garden, because our dogs happen to be digging dogs, especially if they are after a gopher, and they also just trample willy-nilly over garden beds.

I'm having a hard time envisioning the exact dimensions of that area inside your driveway, but I read about a cool idea with gardens and chickens that I always wanted to try, but haven't yet. This would be for an annual garden. Basically divide your garden into two fenced sections, and put a chicken coop in the center, with a chicken door going out into each side of the garden. For the first year, you close one of the chicken doors, giving chickens access to one side of your garden. You don't plant anything there the first year (or plant chicken pasture there if you have time before you get chickens). On the other side of the fence, the part the chickens don't have access to, you plant your regular garden.

At the end of the growing season, you open the chicken door on the other side of the coop, and give chickens access to the part you just gardened. They can clean up crop residues, scratch around, eat pests, weeds, and weed seeds, fertilize with their poop, etc. You close the door the side that they were on before, and that will be your garden for next year. You keep switching them back and forth from year to year, and they continuously improve the soil, while also being close to your existing garden for you to toss them stuff as you work in the garden. I would throw all of my compost materials, fall leaves, etc in there too for them to scratch around, poop on, and compost. Remember the chickens will be in each side for a full year, so things really have a chance to break down.

I had fully intended to do this at my new place. Just the cost of the extra stretch of fence, and building a somewhat more elaborate coop for this is what stopped me. But something to consider. This would not work well if you have perennials in there that chickens like to eat.

As far as a thorny hedge to keep deer out, I'm pretty sure that you'd have a hard time getting blackberries or raspberries established without doing extreme protection on those plants themselves. Deer love them and will eat the young plants right down. I'm sure there are deer-resistant hedges you can plant, though. I'd personally rather have a fence than a thorny anything... such a pain to deal with if you ever change your mind or even just want to trim it back. And deer are probably harder to deter with thorns than one might think. I've seen them standing right in the middle of the meanest, thorniest wild blackberry patches, just munching away.

Good luck! Your place looks beautiful!

Derek, that is a beautiful property, congratulations.  

I also like the circular drive.  Later on, if you find that the land is needed for other things then it could go away.

I would not be against doing a raspberry/rose/thorny bush "hedge" along the entire outside to help reduce the deers want to entre the area if that would be beneficial.

I love this idea though like Lila suggested the deer will eat the plants.  My suggestion would be to make a rosemary hedge.  My rosemary is about 3.5 feet tall X 5 feet wide.

If that was my plan I would use electric fencing inside the hedge for the first few years while the hedge gets established.  Once the hedge gets established then the electric fencing can stay or you can try taking it away.

We use wire similar to how a barb wire fence is installed as this is relatively inexpensive.  The fence charger is probably the most expensive component.

There were a whole parade of deer when we moved in. The sole presence of a dog reduced this problem by… I’d say at least 75% then a couple of kittens showed up and well, we kept them. My lawn is a baby rodent graveyard but I never need to worry about anyone I don’t want eating in my garden. We built a very simple fence with t-bars and deer fence netting. This keeps the chickens —since they free range most of the time — and whatever deer would still dare to come to the heart of the property, out. Initially I thought I’d replace it over time with deer resistant species but now I know I actually like having a fence and it simplifies animal management so, when we can, we’ll just replace the deer netting with a pretty fence.
Last year was my first in the garden… we built 6 4 by 8 beds in the center of the garden and I focused on that. Considering it was my first year I think I was successful… I think it’s important to be able to harvest food asap, for motivation, to remind you why you’re doing all the work… this year we built beds around the first beds that I’m using for more permaculture-like things — berries, herbs… and I am building my first ground level bed— cardboard on top of the soil and 6 inches of manure compost on top. I’m gonna use that for 3 sisters, which seem to need something I couldn’t provide in the raised beds. I did have a couple of thorough consultations with “eminent” permaculture consultants initially, but eventually I realized a general idea of what I wanted to do and lots of time out there, observing, is what I really need to keep going. Oh, and just knowing I make mistakes galore. Good luck!

About the driveway… after a couple of winters here I realize access points and an ability for cars of all sizes to circulate is really super important. I think a circular driveway is great and I wouldn’t change that in any way. The space that you have is more than enough to keep you busy for several years and if you were to expand, you’d probably do it with animals to adapt the ground — sheep, goats, pigs?

I agree about the circular driveway; wish I had one! My parents live with us and my mom has a really hard time turning the car around. Also if you have kids or grandkids now or in the future, these are great for bike-riding, roller-skating, skateboarding, etc. Maybe someday you will need to extra space to garden, but you have a lot of space to work on already.