My main field is about 3 acres, it slopes down to the east into a creek with tall trees and it has a wet spot in the northeast corner. Cut the field in half on a north-south line and I planted on the uphill western half. The southern acre is june bearing strawberries: 4 varieties, sparse on the northeast corner and like an ocean in the middle of the field. The field is covered in grasses and a dozen other pioneer plants. I have a drip line going down each row. The top half acre is a garden where I've had the most success with popcorn, green beans, potatoes, snap and snow peas, and lettuce. I've tried trellising tomatoes but both years I stopped training them to it at about 3 feet so they just drooped back to the ground. Most of my success was with produce that I could take to market before late July. It hasn't rained much going through summer in the last two years, and I think my crops have suffered for it, so a priority is water retention.
My other field is 8 rows in a trapezoidal arrangement with 50 blackberries in 4 rows and 200 rapsberries in the other 4. These are trellised and really grew a bunch this year, but I planted it into a weedy field that was cut for baling the years before I claimed it. It's bordered by 5 apple trees and my aunt and uncle's drive way. It's more their front yard than a field really. I feel bad about how it looks with all the weeds growing up in the rows where I can't mow, and both times I mulched I only did 3" and the weeds grew back after 6 weeks. I think I heard of a farmer planting hazelnuts between his raspberry rows with some success, but that's my only idea/lead with this patch.
I keep bees and collected my first honey this year. Everyone who tasted it said it was the best they'd ever had. I also made some great mead out of it. (now you're distracted from my weedy fields)
Two months ago my plan was to plant guilds under the 5 apple trees next to the field of brambles. That thought was me dipping my toe in the pool. But I guess this is me yelling cannonball and jumping in.
