You've all been teaching me SO MUCH that I thought I'd give back a little. This
thread will be an ongoing showcase of the progress (or sometimes lack thereof
) of my Florida Food Forest Farm located in zone 10a. However, we occasionally get down to 28 degrees here in the winter so that 10a is a little off.
I am a
permaculture and food forest rookie. I have never taken a
PDC and probably never will. I am making a ton of mistakes and quite ok with that. The way my mind works is I jump in with two feet and a cinder block chained to me and try to swim. I am a terrible planner, mostly because I don't try as DOING is what I enjoy. So the way I'll give back is in many ways showcasing my mistakes
As you read this, I am absolutely open to suggestions and constructive criticism.
Our Food Forest is about 1.5 acres. Much smaller than many of you but I'm finding it difficult to keep up with at times so it's PERFECT at present. Maybe one day I'll need to buy the property across the street. Anyway, on to the tour:
This is what our property looked like when we first purchased it almost one year ago now.
And quite quickly I made my first ENORMOUS mistake. Instead of working with all that wonderful biomass, I brought in a brush hog.
The more experienced food forester in me now realizes that was quite stupid. And I have been paying for it big time because once that shading biomass was gone, the Bermuda grass (oh god so evil) invaded and it has been an ongoing battle ever since. Lesson learned! Don't make the same mistake as me
That picture lets you see what I'm working with though. I have a
canopy of giant, majestic pine
trees and an additional story of palm trees. This is actually beneficial as I want to plant a lot of trees and plants that wouldn't do well when it gets down to 28 degrees those couple days each winter. The big canopy helps me create micro climates. The soil is mostly sand with a little organic material mixed in. I have a lot of work to do to improve the soil but that's an ongoing
project.
Work progressed at a reasonable pace. By February of this year this was my progress:
As you can see, I have some raised beds in the foreground. At least for now while my food forest is developing, I want a place for annuals. The raised beds simply make that easier. I'll be interspersing annuals in the food forest but I wanted a freezer full of veggies and I knew my skills with raised beds and was unsure of how the food forest would respond with annuals. I may remove those raised beds in time as the food forest develops but I'm not sure. You'll notice more
concrete beds in the background. I had the idea to plant trees in the raised containers for micro climates. That idea didn't last long as you'll see in future pictures
A few months later May rolled around and I took another picture. While I had been working hard, you can't see a huge difference. The all important hammock was placed though
And that brings us to the pictures I took today. As you can see below, progress has been pretty good. I am now at 27 raised beds for annuals which is where I'm staying, at least for now. The hot, wet summer here has helped really green up the place.
How about some closer in shots, hmmm?
At left is a low chill peach that is doing really well. At right is a very young citrus that, like my other citrus, is struggling a bit. You can see the grasses I'm battling though. In time, I hope to have all of that gone and filled in with amazing forest
A starfruit is at left which is now starting to fruit and a papaya is at right.
Below is one of my first guilds I'm starting to work on. It's hard to see, but it includes a blood orange, black mulberry, edible cranberry hibiscus, garlic chives, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and sweet potatoes.
Here's a shot from the other side. My citrus are having trouble with citrus leaf minor, I hope to have that under control soon. Poor little trees
Straight ahead is another papaya with HUGE papaya on it. At left used to be a
fence until I planted a few passion fruit vines along it. They're going crazy and flowering up a storm. I'm hoping for fruit soon. I plan to send vines up just about all my pine and palm trees as well.
Peaking its head up at the very bottom of the image below is a Moringa tree. I use Moringa EXTENSIVELY and just purchased another 100 seeds for even more. I LOVE these things and plan for them to play a very important role in my food forest. It's incredible how fast they grow and they're so healthy. I use them in everything from smoothies to soups. In the middle of the image is an avocado. I have seven avocado trees planted thus far
If you look to the left of the avocado on the mulch you'll see a comfrey plant. I have about 20 comfrey around the forest and hope to be able to separate them into many more plants as they establish themselves.
Another avocado with papaya in the background and a moringa tree off to the right.
A very happy banana clump to the right and avocado to the left.
That's a breadfruit in the background with a rock wall I'm building as I find rocks in an effort to create a micro climate for her. A moringa in the foreground and another to the left.
And finally, another avocado to the left with sweet potato planted in an effort to shade out the grasses.
There's a lot more, but that's
enough for now. At present I have 60 fruit trees planted. I'm currently focusing on understory and guilding. I'm having so much fun and thank you all again for all the knowledge and wisdom you share. It greatly reduces the amount of mistakes I make and is so inspiring. I'll continue to update this thread in the future.
4
