my seed mix is better than Sepp Holzer's...

my seed mix is better than Sepp Holzer's... for my needs (weeeeeeee!)

Im on the border of zone 3 and zone 4, likely zone 3, so my focus was on perennial, cold climate plants.

This is for a fruit tree paddock system that will feed my chickens (and possibly pigs/goats). If goats come into the system I will add more dynamic accumulators that pick up copper.

Fruit Tree Guild
Dynamic Accumulators
Nitrogen Fixers
Green Manures
Parasite Repellants
Beneficial Insect/Bird Attractors

Dynamic Accumulators: cabbage, comfrey, horsetail, stinging nettle, two-groove milk vetch, eastern brackern, garlic, devils bit, sarsaparilla, dandelion.

Nitrogen Fixers: Siberian pea shrub, new jersey tea, silverberry, sea buckthorn, lupine, red clover, alfalfa, hog peanut, sweet vetch, American vetch, wood vetch, northern bayberry, Canadian buffaloberry

Green Manures: fodder vetch, sunflowers, birdsfoot trefoil, sainfoin, rye/wild rye

Parasite Repellants: wormwood, mugwort, rue, catnip, horsemint, tansies

Insect Attractors: yarrow, chicory, eastern gamma grass, perennial wheat, anise hyssop, borage, sweet goldenrod, white clover, new England aster, rattlesnake weed, cow parsnip, honewort, osha

with lavender and nasturtium added as theyre reported to go well with fruit trees.

There should be close to 50 plants here. I didn't seek out many Bird Attractors as the fruit trees should cover them.

Many of these plants can fit into multiple categories:

Additional accumulators (lupine, clover, alfalfa, the vetches, sunflower, tansy, yarrow, chicory, borage). The listed accumulators above is the fewest amount of plants needed to cover most, if not all, minerals that can be possibly picked up. Dandelion was not needed, but it is great for this purpose as well as being a spike root (I need them!).

Additional Tap/Spike roots (sweet vetch, lupine, alfalfa, dandelion, red clover, cow parsnip, osha, chicory)

Additional Insect Attractors: too many to list. But most were generalist nectary plants, so the focus of the above Attractors are Specialist Nectary Plants with a few added for overwintering.

I can add a reply later for the latin names, Im not 100% sure about the horsemint (for those damn mosquitoes).

Enjoy!

Sounds great. Is this something you have developed and are using? Or are you in the process of using it now?

So can I ask where you purchased all of your seeds and did you do them in bulk?? I'm finding the cost of bulk seeds to be about equal to the cost of 20+ trees and I struggle with which I should get first.

I am in the process of purchasing the seeds now. Last summer I threw around 25 lbs of clover (red, white, alsike) and they went nuts. The bumblebees are happy little teddy bears.

You can go online and find anything these days. I found a site that lets you sign up for about 70 or so free seed catalogs. Its like xmas all over again: new catalogs every day. No toilet break is boring now!!! I also joined the Seed Saver Exchange to find the old varieties suggested by Sepp in his book.

Tree seeds seem to be less expensive than herbs. I think I bought 1500 tree seeds for less than $80.

cabbage: B, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, N, K, S, Zn
comfrey: SiO2, N, Mg, Ca, K, Fe
horsetail: SiO2, Mg, Ca, Fe, Co
stinging nettle: Na, S, N, Ca, Fe, Co
two-groove milk vetch: Se
eastern brackern: K, P, Mn, Fe, Cu, Co
spurges: B
garlic: F, S, P
devils bit: I, Mg, Fe
sarsaparilla: I
dandelion: Na, SiO2, Mg, Ca, K, P, Fe, Cu

Andrew this list is amazing - Thank you! I'm intrigued by your statement that if you bring on goats you'll add accumulators that bring up copper. Why is that? (I know nothing about goats.)

Coincidentally, I've been researching how to prevent leaf wilt on my peach trees and only find recommendations for an expensive copper amendment. But now I wonder if cabbage and dandelions in those guilds would solve the problem permaculture style?

Have you experimented with some of these seeds and what were the results?
I am curious because it seems that germination varies wildly amongst these plants - e.g. rye being prolific and buckthorn being notoriously difficult to germinate. How will you prevent the more vigorous plants from dominating?