Brian Kremer

Update, I've gotten most of my large trees and shrubs in and growing.
Now I'm working on the herb/ root layer while I'm feeding the chicks and taking care of some pretty aggressive weeds.
Here are a few pics of the progression.
The first pic has a prepared seed bed in the front,ready to be seeded and mulched
In the middle the chicks have been moved onto a new weedy patch and are happily scratching about
In the background you can see a patch that has been cleared/ seeded and has about 3 1/2 weeks of growth on it.
The second pic is just a close up of the finished patch.
At thet current rate of clearing and reseeding I'm guessing I'll have the whole food forest herb layer cleared and replanted with useful self seeding/perennial by next fall.
Bk

Did you manage the vineyard conventionally before you went organic? Lots of inputs? Water, fertilizer, tilling, pesticides, herbicides?
Grapes and most plants respond to pampering by being less robust with smaller root systems.
In other words if you want to move to a more sustainable system you may need to replant.
I would suggest stages, stress the vineyard a bit, replant what dies, stress further,replant what dies, etc.

So I bit the bullet and bought 75 grape vine for the north side of my food forest. The plan is to ramp up the height of the plants as I continue to the south.
What I am wondering is if anyone has some ideas for companion plant that would allow the grapes to be the canopy (approx. hight 6ft). Keep I mind I plan to dry farm the grapes, so any companion plant will need to handle prolonged drought. After the first year anyway.
So far the list I have is,
Dwarf pea shrub
Sage
Comphrey
Dill
Garlic
Onion
Cone flower
Goblin flower
Yarrow
Clover
And all the weeds I have on site and wouldn't be able to get rid of any way
Mallow
Bindweed
Dandelion
Plantain
Burdock
Bk

Wit is bullace? Look like its time to fire up google...
Darius, the plan is to use honey for those fruits that need some sugar added, but you only need to add sugar if you believe that "wine" must be a certain alcohol%.

Michael, quick answer do what you know. I'm a wine buyer and fairly talented home brewer.

Longer answer, I think that setting up a permaculture system is a goal unto itself, but if I can plan a way out of wage slavery while still doing what I love, sign me up! Plus in the longer run if things do go to hell, well I'd have one heck of a trade good.
B

Bad harvests from one varietal of fruit/sugar are what I'm hoping to design away from. The vineyards I've been to have all there eggs in one basket so to speak. Even if they are growing grapes organically they have to make sure that they get a harvest.
If we were able to design a Fermentation style around what sugar the forest produce, instead of saying wine is the best and fitting nature to massive production of grape sugar (we could say the same for massive grain fields and beer/ whiskey). We would have a much more stable system of producing a economic viable product, that people are intensely passionate about.
Wine geeks talk about wine changing from year to year all the time, imagine the vintage differences that could be talked about if one year the blueberries failed, but the goose berries had a bumper year!
It would make the organic, biodynamic production of wine/beer look like a marketing campaign.
B

Question, has anyone set up a forest garden with the express purpose of production of ferment able sugars?
Specifically, are there any premies out there that have taken the idea of a food forest and tweaked the species list to take advantage of a value added product like fine wine, cider, beer, mead, or something new?
I am a wine buyer and rookie wine and beer maker, and I have always been disappointed with the "sustainable" vineyards I see on my trips to wine country. For all the marketing they put into it I still only see mono cropping and business as usual.
It seems to me that this could be a niche that would allow some form of financial support while promoting permaculture. People are more open to new ideas when they got a drink or two in them anyway...
I will be starting work on my new property this fall and spring and would love some hair brained ideas. Some of the plants I'm thinking of.
Sugar maple
Cider pears
Cider apples
Hazelnuts
Sea buckthorns (I can almost taste the buckthorn mead now)
Goumi
Grapes
Ribes
Chestnuts

Brian

Thanks, this forum is awesome! The lawn is all different types of grass, the spot that's gonna be the conventional garden has weaker grass. In the past I've had little success smothering lawn, but I have never tried fresh clippings before.

So, based on the advice I have received... I have been taking the waste clippings from mowing the lawn and mulching the future garden space as deep as possible. ADAP? In the hopes of the clippings getting so hot that they burn/smother the lawn underneath. If there is any leftover weed problem I will be using the chickens to take care of it.

I like it, take a waste turn it into a plus.


Has anyone tried this on a big space? I am worried that the grass will come up sooner or later.
B

I've just purchased some new land, it's all lawn. So my idea is...

Can I till the root zone of the grass up and put it in my chicken run with some brown matter (leaves, hay, woodchip) in a deep bed system, and have the chickens clean it of the ryzomes?
The plan is to reapply the bedding to the area it was taken from as a amendment.

Will the chickens mix it all up for me?
Will they eat all the roots?
How long will it take for say 6 chicks to clean a wheel barrel full of sod?

Thanks for the help, I'm hopping to keep the grass from smothering my garden, fledgling food forest, vineyard, and whatnot. I just don't want to be to invasive, and still boost my soil fertility.