My homestead forest garden project

Hello! I am converting a chunk of my yard into a Forest garden! I have been living on a beautiful rural 10 acre homestead for 3 years since moving out of the suburbs. The previous owners had a garden in the front yard that has been grown over a bit, and I intend to start the project of converting this garden (and in fact the whole section of yard) into a permaculture forest garden. Maybe the garden will take over the whole property.

Goals:
Low-maintenance ecologically sound food production
Perrenial food and support crops, plus annual polycultures that I can re-seed.
Craft production - basket willow, coppice for carpentry and woodcarving
In the future, will support chickens, goats, sheep, bees
Pleasant place to spend time, work, harvest. Attracts birds.
Supports young kids gardening, playing, relaxing, putting things into their mouths.
I do not like thorns! Rosa Rugosa is too thorny for me. Raspberries are tolerable.

Site:
Zone 4. Big ranges, we get -30s F in the winter and 90s in the summer. Long winters.  
Site is along the crest of a moraine making it a high elevation point of our relatively high elevation town. As a result we tend to get more snowfall, more wind, and more hot/cold extremes than weather reports predict.
Plenty of rainfall through growing seasons. Climate change predicts more.
Very fertile! Everything somewhat healthy I've put into the ground has flourished. Every sunny spot turns green.
Lots of beneficial plants growing natively nearby that I can transplant or propagate. Red clover, vetch, plantain, lemon thyme, queen anne's lace, wild strawberry, red twig dogwood, others

Resources:
Not much time and attention - parenting and full time job take priority for now.
Not much help! I will have to start small scale and do a little year after year.
Knowledge from Edible Forest Gardens books, Gaia's Garden, my nurseries, this forum, and google. No experienced gardeners to give me hands-on help
Small children which will hopefully turn into eager harvesters and helpers. I want gardening to be a source of joy for all of us to share.
Wood! My property has a few acres of woods with plenty of fallen trees. I can haul these to my garden and use them in edging, terracing, hugelkultur, decoration, stepping stones, anything I can think of.
Hay. Part of my property is a hayfield and I can always snag some hay the tractor missed, or ask them to leave me some.

I've attached two pictures - one is a drone shot of the garden as it looks today, with a brief summary of what's in place. North is up.

Second is my planning board - I large printed a drone photo and put it over a cork board so I can plan out my garden. This year I've ordered 3 pears, 3 plums, 3 speckled alder, 1 amur maackia, and 3 highbush cranberry. that I intend to put in throughout the year.

I've got other garden goals, but my first priority is figuring out these planting spots. I've spent a good chunk of the winter looking at my board and thinking about my garden. Now it hasn't turned green yet... but it's about to, and I want to get out there and plant!

What do you think of my garden? Any problems with my plantings that you may see? Thanks for reading!

If it were me I would space the various types of trees so they're not all clustered. That way if one gets a pest or disease it's not guaranteed that all will get it. Preferably not in the line of the prevailing winds.

You have I believe put in the expected spread of some of the trees, maybe put in height as well? Where will shadows fall when the trees are mature?

Lauren Ritz wrote:If it were me I would space the various types of trees so they're not all clustered. That way if one gets a pest or disease it's not guaranteed that all will get it. Preferably not in the line of the prevailing winds.

You have I believe put in the expected spread of some of the trees, maybe put in height as well? Where will shadows fall when the trees are mature?

One thing I've read about Plum trees is that they do really well if you plant a cluster that's only 8-12 feet apart. I'm planting these three relatively crowded, and in a year or two I'll plant a fourth close to the south, playing catch up so shade won't be a problem.

Next to the plum trees are Speckled Alders, which I want close by to provide nitrogen and some mulch. Since the roots are 90% of the reason I'm planting them, I will either prune or coppice them so they don't cast shade on the plums.

The pears... well they might be too close. The circles represent the mature canopy, and I left some space between the pears and plums, but maybe they should be further apart. I do want them to get some of the benefits of the Alders too.

Adding height and knowing the shadows is a good idea. We get lots and lots of sun here, being at a high-elevation high-latitude area, we have plenty of long cloudless summer days.

Once the snow melts I'll get out there with a camera and take a close look at this planting site and the existing trees.

Thanks!

Hello from a fellow Burnett, via my father's family name.  I think you're off to a great start.

Here is a photo of the site I'm planning the plantings. The tree to the right is the Siberian Crabapple, it's 12 feet tall. The pots and rocks near the cedar wall are 10-12 feet from the wall, and 12 feet from each other, it represents where I'm thinking about putting the plums. The owl is 16 inches tall for comparison.

Pears will be about 25 feet away from the plums, and I want to put speckled alders between the pears and plums, keeping them pruned or coppiced so they don't shade out any fruit trees.

Guilding these fruit trees will come another year, first I just want the fruit trees and support trees to get a healthy start.

Riona Abhainn wrote:Hello from a fellow Burnett, via my father's family name.  I think you're off to a great start.

Hello Burnett! Do you have brown hair? Thanks for the encouragement

So this is a map and a photo of where I'm thinking about my plantings this year:

One pear 25 feet from the apple, and another pear 25 feet from that on the same line.

Plums 12-15 feet away from the cedar wall. 25 feet from the plum to the closest pear. I might add on another plum or two to this formation.

Alder between the pears and plums, will be pruned to avoid shading the fruit trees.

Pear about 30 feet from the easternmost plum, alder close by for support

Tree planting day has come! This past Saturday (Apr 20) I picked up all my trees from the nursery. Once I saw them I lost all urge to impluse buy the basswood and black locust I was considering - my new babies need me too much!

I took a drone photo of the area a couple days later. Leaves still aren't out, but you can see how my garden's shadows look at 7:45 AM

The red circles are Pears, expecting a 25ft diameter crown.
Purples are pears, expecting a slightly smaller crown. The off-color one I haven't planted but may add another year.

Greens are speckled alder. The two near the fruit trees I will be coppicing to limit growth, I want the roots to fix nitrogen for the nearby trees.

Blue is an Amur Maackia tree next to my keyhole nursery, it's meant to fix nitrogen and provide afternoon shade to the young plants I will propagate elsewhere.

Orange are Viburnums. Everyone was excited to plant the fruit trees with me, less excited about the alders, and forgot all about the viburnums. Don't worry, I remember you. They will be mainstays in the bird-beneficial privacy wall on the south side of the garden.

All the trees came bare root and got the same treatment, based on the planting instructions I read in Edible Forest Garden vol2:

Trim dead/damaged roots

Dig hole to shape of bare roots, to depth that root/trunk barrier is an inch above final ground line

Scrape the inside of the hole with a cultivator

Place tree and replace dirt

Compact dirt around trunk to a 3ft diameter dish with 1 inch ridge

Hold tree and water thoroughly to settle dirt and make sure dish holds

Sprinkle mineral mix and phosphorous supplement in dish

Add a shovelfull of compost

Add a bunch of hay and tamp it down

Add bark mulch

Water again

I don't have a 'sheet' layer in the mulch, I planned to use cardboard but balked at the last minute based on toxicity concerns, so I will probably be fighting grass in these mulch piles. Oh well, they're going to get plenty of lawnmower trimmings and curious children hands anyway, it was never going to stay clean.

Thanks for looking at my garden!

I just wanted to drop a compliment on the planning board. Very cool!

So exciting to get the trees in the ground! I'm guessing you don't have much wind where you are - I'd have to stake trees that size to stop them rocking around. I like your bark mulch and would probably have liked to put some tree root friendly fungal innoculant in as well. Please let us know how they get on....next step ground cover companions?

Nancy Reading wrote:So exciting to get the trees in the ground! I'm guessing you don't have much wind where you are - I'd have to stake trees that size to stop them rocking around. I like your bark mulch and would probably have liked to put some tree root friendly fungal innoculant in as well. Please let us know how they get on....next step ground cover companions?

Oh we get lots and lots of wind. The tall cedar trees north of all the trees is my property line, and it serves to protect against the brutal north winds through all seasons. Any other direction will be gentle by comparison, so I decided not to stake.

Next step?? Good question! I was thinking I would do shrubs next, then perennial herbs, then ground cover, so by the time I get to the ground cover the larger plants already take up a lot of space and create their shade so the ground cover has a better time establishing.

But I truly haven't thought about it much, I have only been thinking about trees. I don't know all their companions yet. I want to get sun chokes, comfrey, and vetch at the herb later, and I want creeping thyme and red and white clover at the ground cover layer.

Shrubs, I'm thinking of currants and blueberries, but don't want to overload food producing vs support plants, so maybe some red twig dogwood or bee balm to take up shrub space.

I don't expect to get rid of all the lawn between the trees this year.

Thinking more about next steps. I am mulling an idea for replacing the lawn with permaculture ground cover by doing something like this

Collect a whole bunch of seed heads of desirable groundcovers

Order a couple yards of wood chips, a yard of topsoil, a bunch of manure or compost, and a few bales of mulching hay

Pick a warm day and mow the grass as close to the ground as possible.

Unroll the mulching hay right on the ground I want to replace

Add manure or compost

Add wood chips

Mix the topsoil with the groundcover seeds and sprinkle on the woodchips

Water thoroughly

The idea is that the hay and woodchips keep the grass down and give time for the new seeds to grow and take over the ground layer. I like the idea of planting shrubs and perennial herbs after this ground layer is established, instead of having to prepare every planting against the grass which will be looking to take over.

Last year I foraged a few handfuls of plantain, red clover, milkweed, but I'll probably need to get a lot more this year, and make orders for the ones that aren't growing locally. So this will likely either happen late season or next year.

I am open to any advice about this plan! Thanks!

With the trees in the ground and well cared-for, I'm turning some attention to the better of my two Apple trees.

First, a pic of the not-so-good apple tree. I don't know why it's leaning, but it doesn't seem to mind. It probably needs pruning. It has hostas and tulips at the base, and is surrounded by mostly grass. I'm not working on this tree, but it's about how it looked under my good apple tree last year.

Starting last year, I've been shading out the grass with cardboard, newspaper, and hay, and pulling up the big clumps of grass. Then I either put the clump back upside-down or put it elsewhere on my land where grass is desired. I've thrown some clover and wildflower seed on the exposed area which are just starting to sprout.

The next two pictures are how the north and south side of the tree looks. So much dandelion! Is it too much dandelion? I don't think so. The grass is mostly gone, and there's also some Burdock, Bitter dock, Hedge Bedstraw, and Buttercup. Last year there was Vetch, hoping it comes back but I haven't seen it.

I also transplanted one of my blueberries that was too crowded. Now it sits on the southeast corner of the apple tree, just barely crossing the dripline, mostly outside of it. It was on a slope so I added some logs for some very primitive terracing in order to make the planting 'dish' work best for the blueberries. I gave it a bunch of compost, plus a mineral mix, some rooting fertilizer and a half cup of sulfur.

The tarp is down to shade out some of the lawn this year, which I find harder to remove than the big wild clumps of grass.

I transplanted some Hostas around the dripline and laid down some wood indicating the barrier of the tree guild. I plan to spread out these hostas more as they establish, and keep eating away at the lawn inside the barrier. Happy Apple Tree!

That's quite a transformation in just one year Alan - you're starting to get a nice diversity going. You do seem to have rather lush dandelions though! - You'll need to find some good uses for them, but they will be mining the soil for nutrients in the meantime.
Is the bad tree bad because it is leaning, or not fruiting well, or another reason? It has a nice character anyway.
I missed your previous post about lawn to groundcover, and just want to say that plan sounds great. Lots of biomass and get stuff started from seed to get really established well! If you don't mind a bit of chaos :) The plants will compete and will find their own niches but be stronger for it. I'd even experiment with seeds of trees and shrubs as well....if they don't turn out good fruiters then grafting or chop/drop. Alternatively select plants that will naturally give up as they are shaded out, so as to be less competitive.
I'm really keen to see how it all works out.

Nancy Reading wrote:That's quite a transformation in just one year Alan - you're starting to get a nice diversity going. You do seem to have rather lush dandelions though! - You'll need to find some good uses for them, but they will be mining the soil for nutrients in the meantime.

Thank you Nancy! Mining the soil for nutrients - well I don't want to exhaust the soil under the apple tree! We do plan on making fritters from the yellow dandelion heads when they come up, but the greens and roots will stay under the tree, so hopefully they will be able to return their nutrients to the guild. Still, I think that when my indoor seedlings are ready, I'll pull up some dandelions and place the young seedlings in the newly created gaps.

I attached a picture of the seedlings I have indoors - it's a native pollinator / wildlife beneficial blend, plus a bunch of foraged red clover seed.

Nancy Reading wrote:Is the bad tree bad because it is leaning, or not fruiting well, or another reason? It has a nice character anyway.

Lol.. 'bad' is a harsh term. The tree is not bad, but it is leaning, and its apples have been smaller and more pest-ridden the three years I've been here. I'm hoping to correct it by pruning. It's an earlier-season variety than the other tree too, but I don't know how to identify them.

Nancy Reading wrote:I missed your previous post about lawn to groundcover, and just want to say that plan sounds great. Lots of biomass and get stuff started from seed to get really established well! If you don't mind a bit of chaos :) The plants will compete and will find their own niches but be stronger for it. I'd even experiment with seeds of trees and shrubs as well....if they don't turn out good fruiters then grafting or chop/drop. Alternatively select plants that will naturally give up as they are shaded out, so as to be less competitive.
I'm really keen to see how it all works out.

Thanks, I'm glad it sounds like a good plan. The chaos is good, I can always clear an area and mindfully plant larger plants when I want something for my own needs. Tree and shrub seeds is a great idea, especially for the area further from the house. I like the idea of laying down rows year after year, starting north and working south, reclaim lawn into food forest over the years.

So, in trying to design my guilds, I wanted to take an inventory of the plants that are already growing on the yard, since I know they'll do well in this environment and they're completely free to transplant and propagate. Some of these must be native, some may have been planted by the previous owners of the property, and some are edible too.

Groundcover
White Clover
Creeping Thyme (or Lemon Thyme)
Bog Chickweed
Sheep Sorrel
Wood Sorrel
Wild Strawberry
Plantain
Bugleweed
Siberian Squill
Hedge Bedstraw

Herb
Yarrow
Hemp Nettle
Purplestem Aster
Lambs Quarters
Common Comfrey
Bird Vetch (Cow vetch? crown vetch? maybe all)
Horseweed
White Campion
Grass-like Starwort
Meadow Hawkweed
Sulfur Cinquefoil
Common Milkweed
Oxeye Daisy
Black-eyed Susan
Red Clover
Common Wintercress
Creeping Buttercup
Ground Elder (has taken over several areas! Edible but I don't want to propagate!)
Black Medick
Pineapple Weed
Creeping Bellflower
Horsetail

Shrub
Red Twig Dogwood
Red Osier Dogwood
European Cranberry Bush
Black Raspberry
Raspberry
Blueberry
Bitter Dock
Burdock
Goldenrod

Vine
Riverbank Grape
Black Bindweed

Root
Horseradish
Dandelion
Rock Dandelion

There's a lot of grasses on the lawn too, but I'm really trying to eradicate grass from all my forest garden areas. I haven't tried to identify them all, but I know i have Reed Canary Grass, which grows about 5 feet tall and is very easy to cut down with a machete for a quick source of green mulch, so I kind of like that one.

This year I've propagated some red clover to the mulch pile of each of my fruit trees as a quick companion. I'm hoping to use the above list and some purchases to flesh out the guilds a bit more next year. Probably some fruit producing shrubs.

The other idea I'd like to do next year is to plant a dozen or so each of Basswood and Black Locust trees along the half-acre or so that I want to serve as the shady forest garden. These trees will grow and serve as a solid support base for the rest of my plantings (black locust roots for nitrogen fixing, basswood taproot dynamic accumulator to pull nutrients from deep down and distribute them as fall leaves) , and if it turns out to be too many trees for the area, both will take coppicing and continue to serve their support functions just fine.

Alan, so glad its coming along well and you're getting to know the land so well, that will bode to your success.

And yes, my hair is dark brown,

You remind me that I was going to repeat the survey I did in our first year here. I've been surprised since what I missed, or has moved in naturally!

You could consider burdock as a root too perhaps - that's the part that is eaten as a vegetable in Japan. I think you need to grow it as an annual for that though. commonsense home says that the flowerstalks are also considered to be tasty as a vegetable. I tried growing it here (there s some wild a few miles away) but the seeds didn't take.