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Turning your food forest into a U-pick

 
pollinator
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I am in the beginning stages of establishment of my permaculture food forest. I have 31 trees in the ground and by spring I suspect I'll have hundreds more coming. I order as funds become available. So the dream is to open a U-pick orchard. We do not have any in my area. In fact we don't have much of anything here. So I hope to open in 5-10 years and offer my area an education and opportunity it's never seen before.

So do you think a U-pick is incompatible with the ideas of permaculture?
 
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I don't think it would be incompatible but I would be slow about it at the start. Maybe by appointment only. Since a food forest is about all the parts working together, it would be good for visitors to be aware of this. Maybe a short information session before they head out to pick, if they are new to the forest.
You might also consider signage in the forest to identify plants people wouldn't necessarily recognize as food.
 
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I believe Stefan Sobkowiak does a U-pick in his orchard. He has some interesting idea regarding how to arrange things so that you get rows that each have stuff ripening at a specific time which is much more conducive to U-pick.

Regarding whether or not U-picks and orchards are conducive with permaculture, it would seem that would depend on the flavor of permaculture you are talking about. The "no-grafting" and "natives only" camps would probably say it is incompatible, while other camps would think it's just fine.
 
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I would just be careful of one thing. I do personnaly not like to have people in my gardens, because they do not know where to put their feet!
"Please do not walk on the salad!"

I people come and pick their fruits, then it means you cannot have and plants growing around your trees.
People will not be able to respect them.

I can tell you some years ago about a girl in my pedagogic farm, she came back with the children and what she thought were "zuchini".
She had picked unriped pumkins. She just thought they were strange!
As she said "you have so many strange things that I thought they were zucchinis."
 
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I will be looking for someone to pick certain crops eventually. Rather than inviting random people, I will seek those who want to harvest and market produce or those willing to harvest on a split basis. By turning them into employees, it should be easier to manage behavior.
 
elle sagenev
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John Wolfram wrote:I believe Stefan Sobkowiak does a U-pick in his orchard. He has some interesting idea regarding how to arrange things so that you get rows that each have stuff ripening at a specific time which is much more conducive to U-pick.

Regarding whether or not U-picks and orchards are conducive with permaculture, it would seem that would depend on the flavor of permaculture you are talking about. The "no-grafting" and "natives only" camps would probably say it is incompatible, while other camps would think it's just fine.



Thank you for sharing that. I'd love to intern for him and learn. I love his membership concept too. Not something I'd thought of before. I've got so much going on. I'm doing animals on 5 acres so I've got that. Then I've got the 35 acres of trees with the nut forest separate from the fruit forest. Nut forest will be pretty small I think. Then I'm doing a super dwarf orchard for elderly and disabled patrons. I'm doing the berms and swales which has given me amazing results so far. I've go the trees. Next year I'm planting my entire veggie garden amid the trees. This year it was separate because I got my trees in late. The bees are a plan but I don't think I'll get them until 2016. I was going to get them next year but my trees won't be in bloom yet so no point. I want to do a pagoda and a pond and I want to build benches and tables for picnics. I need to fence the entire 50 acres with field fence and electrify it to let the dogs roam when we aren't home. I've already caught deer eating my trees which was AMAZING since in 7 years of living here I've never seen a deer once. Build it and they will come......
I'm blathering now. I just have such big plans and such great hopes for my contribution to our area but I also have 2 toddlers and I work a full time job. So I'm limited. I'm limited with my time and my resources. Hopefully I'll be transitioning to staying home but then that limits the resources more. So I really want to get all the trees, fence and animals bought before I quit my job. Too much going on. I should stop talking about it, overwhelming myself.


i suppose before I proceed I should look into the insurance and legalities of having my trees planted in berms with the swale on one side. I'd really like people to not fall and break legs.
 
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