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Looking for Feedback on a Zone 4a Perenial Fruit / Veggie Garden

 
Posts: 11
Location: Milltown, WI
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Mulched Garden Plan

I'm wondering if any of you lovely people would be willing to give advice and feedback (or even encouragement) on my farm's perennial garden.  I'm early in my learning, but have already done some planting--eight semi-dwarf apple trees, two dwarf apricots, 6 raspberry bushes, 5 blueberry bushes, Ramps, Sun Chokes, Ostrich Ferns, and Hostas.  This year I started Good King Henry, Sea Kale, and Caucasian Mountain Spinach from seed.  I'm trying to figure out where to put them.  I'll attach a link to the plan for the seedlings, as well as a bird-eye pic of the entire plan with the fruit and other things marked.  The link is to the site I did the garden plan on--I really recommend it for veggie gardening.  You can easily see the planned placement of the seedlings there. This moon-shaped former veggie garden is what I'm converting to perennials.  It's marked in red on the bird's eye photo.  Thanks SO MUCH!  You people are amazing.  
Filename: Birds-Eye.tiff
File size: 2 megabytes
Filename: Garden-Plan.pdf
File size: 511 Kbytes
 
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Posts: 15505
Location: Northern WI (zone 4)
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Hi Judith, nice plan.  Plus you have a silo!  If I'm reading your satellite view correctly, the belly of the crescent is to the South so the silo will shade a lot of the garden at sunrise?

I'd be thinking about using that silo's micro climates.  The south side should be protected and warmer which could allow for some USDA zone 5 plants.  Arctic kiwis may climb up the silo if there's something for them to twine around.  I think I heard that they fruit better in our climate if they are tricked into thinking spring is delayed.  So maybe planting them on the West side?  Just a thought.

Apricots can sometimes bloom too early up here so if you can locate them in a spot that gets shade in March/April to hold snowpack around them, you can delay their flowering a bit to protect from frost.  I looked around my homestead 3 weeks ago and planned peach and apricot plantings for the spots that still had snow due to shadows from some spruce trees.  In summer they're full sun but now they're still a bit shaded.

Lettuce can handle some shade so that bed could be tucked to the NW of the silo to get half a day of sun and not bolt in the heat of summer.

Hopefully others chime in with more input.  Looking good and have fun with it!
 
Judith Driscoll
Posts: 11
Location: Milltown, WI
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Thank you, Mike!  I have noticed the microclimate around the silo.  Besides, snow melting earlier, my Apricot bushes planted nearby (closer than indicated on the plan) were spared losing their blossoms during this very cold week!  Arctic Kiwis sound wonderful.  I think I'll see if I can order some.  I have the trellises ready to go.  
 
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