Where to begin…
We currently live about an hour away close to where my wife works and I stay home with the kids. I was a chef before we had kids, turns out working nights, holidays and weekends is not great when you have a family. The plan is to put up a smaller cabin on the property for us to spend weekends and summers at the property until the kids go to college( they’re currently 4/
which gives us about 14 years to cultivate the property and build our dream home, barn, greenhouse, etc.
Short term I’d like to get the forester out to help establish a selective harvest of the property, plus clear cut ~10-20 acres where we plan to put the house, barn, greenhouse, and dig ponds. I will use whatever the loggers leave to help establish swales in which I can plant our orchard. In areas that are thinned out by logging I’ll also bring in sugar maples so that eventually the property will produce syrup. I’d like to see how pecans fair as well but I know zone 5 is pushing the limits. Mulberry is another option. We have also considered clear cutting more space on another portion of the property to put in a black walnut grove. The existing understory is mostly mountain laurel and ferns. Luckily since the property is so isolated and in a town with only 600 residents we don’t have any signs of invasive species that threaten to overtake the property. For an understory that will survive with little to no maintenance I’ll begin with highbush blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, Honeyberries, gooseberries, currants, wild strawberries, rosemary, thyme, mint. Between the swales under the orchard I’ll likely start cover crops ( likely daikon) to build soil health for when I can plant annuals once we’re spending more time up on the property. We don’t plan to do much on the front portion of the property where the driveway and brook meet the road. Most of the forestry clearing and structures will be set back 1000-1500 feet from the road. There is one 2 acre meadow near, but not visible from the road that the driveway will pass through that will likely be a great spot for an apiary.
Right near the road I’ll probably put a small pole barn to store tractor and excavator until the larger barn is built, then it would make a great spot to accept larger deliveries where the trucks can’t make it down the half mile gravel driveway to the main barn. The cabin will be built in the northwestern corner of the lot on high ground with the windows and porch facing the state forest and the brook( we have to be 200 ft from it, but should still be able to hear it). The main house will be built in the Southwestern corner which is the highest point on the property at around 1600 ft. Once the trees are cleared the view south should be of the rolling hills of the Berkshires due to the steep slope on the neighboring 75 acre lot ( they have offered to let us buy however much of it we’d like if it would help us out/offer us more privacy). The barn and ponds will be somewhat between the two homes with southern sloped roof of the barn being our solar collection. I’m hoping to have a basement in the barn with root cellar, walk in fridge, walk in freezer and a prep kitchen which will have a walk out double door facing right into the orchard. This should help facilitate processing harvests into canned, pickled, dried, frozen or stored goods. The barn will have garage doors facing north and south giving a view of the ponds to the north and the orchard/rolling hills to the south. The driveway will follow the brook, pass through the meadow, through a break in a stone wall into the woods towards the cabin with the ponds on the left and the cabin on the right, then loop west of the ponds and turn south towards the house. Not 100% sure where the greenhouse will go, I fell like it would be best aesthetically between the barn and the house, but that would mean a north south orientation which will not be ideal for sun exposure in the winter.
We don’t plan on having animals on the property ( beyond our cats and dogs) since we don’t want to ever become trapped( we’re likely going to spend winters somewhere warmer as we get older). We practice a plant based lifestyle so if we ever did get animals it would be horses and possibly sheep/alpacas for wool. There are lots of bears, coyotes, bobcats, moose, deer, turkey, and more already present in the neighboring state forest so we’d constantly be worried about loosing a herd to predators. Before we went plant based I had always wanted to silvopasture Guinea Hogs, but likely that will not be the case now.
When I began dreaming about started my net zero permaculture food forest I had thought we’d be living somewhere in zone 7, a lot of my plans will have to be adapted to make it possible for zone 5. Since I lived in FL for 30 years it’s been an adventure just trying to learn the ins and outs of landscaping my 2 acre lot we currently live on let alone 60 acres. At least I wont have to go scorched earth on the 60 like I did the 2 to rid myself of the never ending invasives that suburban living so kindly threw onto our lot. I’m still ridding the back portion of my lot of Japanese barberry, multi flora rose, bittersweet, knotweed, and burning bush.
I look forward to learning from others here while I stumble cluelessly into this venture.
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