Kim Wendt

Welcome Ginny! We are super glad you are with us!

I’m curious, what usda zone would you be you think?

Post 3...

We started with native overgrown forested areas... about 45 out of 68 acres. we didn’t really have to plant a forest so much as clear some areas back to stone walls, clear an old road, clear the old fields... along the way create a more varied habitats: old growth forest, regenerated areas, deer areas, snowshoe hare and lynx, fisher and mink, margin areas. Deer are very prevalent as are bear, coyote, fox, owls, bats, frogs, etc. so our hugel work is merely returning the brushed out material back into the forest in a way that doesn’t cause a fire hazard. We do leave some downed trees and the occasional wolf tree for habitat. We just had so many overgrown areas, we had to figure a better way. The forested hugels get native grass seeded, or clover, or even field peas or buckwheat. Usually a mix. Overtime the mound sections will have witch hazel, bear berry, aronia depending on high up on the ridge they are. Some already have teaberry (wintergreen) the shady areas or alpine strawberries in sunnier spots.

The orchard plan calls for a more formal approach. We have an old orchard area that was abandoned over 25 years ago. The trees are morE or less in a series of lines along old field margins. The wild forest has grown up around the trees and out into the field. When a crop tree is surrounded by overgrowth, you cannot release the whole tree at one time. The sudden shock of full sun, full winter will kill it. So each year, we cut back a portion of the overgrowth and pile in hugel mounds about 30’ or so away from reach of the trees. (30’ outside the drip line). We transplant saplings to other parts and occasionally leave special trees in place (black walnuts). It will take about 6 years to fully release the apples (all standard sized trees about 50 years old, huge). The hugel sections get covered with the dirt from the next section we dig to lay the next hugel. We have found a lot of abandoned horse drawn farm implements, sections of fiddlehead glens, an old farm pond with overflow, all kinds of things. We also found a lot of cherry saplings with black gall disease. Those we carefully uproot and take to the dump to be burned. The hugel mounds are making great water retention areas on our ridge sections that have thorndike soil, the apples are begging to thrive again. It’s a huge labor tho... some of the red osher and huge thickets of choke cherries we have to take out by hand So as to not disturbed the fruit tree root systems too much. We have 58 apple trees in this orchard (the farm dates back to 1700’s). We find more valuable medicinal plants, bushes and trees every year and re work our plans accordingly.

We did a hugelkulture In a Forest and have plans for an orchard.

The first thing we had an area were a field had reforested. Loggers has come thru years earlier with skidders and crushed the culvert and bridge on our property (before we bought it. The logs were dumped and left in piles. The stream, was diverted and washed out a large area of former field. That was what we had. We knew we had to replace the bridge and culvert. But we watched to see what happened over the seasons. Cut to the chase: we had the culvert replaced with a fish ladder culvert, much bigger. We redug the stream bed, the overflow area to return the water flow. We knocked down the old piles of rotting logs and piled the Soil on top, making undulating, more natural banking. Depending on the location we planted spruce, birch willow, hemlock, white pine, maple and balsam. We also planted hazelnuts, Aronia, and other native bushes (mostly transplants). We are in Maine, zone 4! We are making snowshoe hare habitat in that section.

Welcome Anne, we are super glad to have you. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

Joshua LeDuc wrote:  I have been trying to get wood chips delivered from loggers somewhere, but have been unsuccessful so far because we are in a fairly rural area.

Joshua, we are in a rural area too. For wood chips, check with your electric company/public utility. They have to brush roads and clear trees from power lines. Means they chip a LOT of brush and trees into large dump truck... but have to drive all the way back to their place of biz.

Our electric company covers most of two counties... and they are happy when a land owner gives them permission to dump a load of chips so they can save gas and time.

I would caution everyone tho... it’s a LOT. Better to make a huge compost pile, let it cook, (add nitrogen grin) then have some great compost.

We’ve never tried putting it directly down as mulch. (The tree trimmings round us are 60% pine/fir and 40% maple/oak.). Been thinking about Hugel mounds using it, but HM needs hardwood logs, then branches then chips so it breaks down slowly...

But yeah... chat up your line trimming crew chiefs and see what they say...

Hi all, a little late coming to this thread. I'm in zone 4 in Maine but up on a ridge, so we get frost pockets that can harm our fruit trees. Really important to site where you plant them carefully. We have some 50+ apples that we've discovered so far on the farm. Some are obviously planted, some naturalized. We have crab, pippin, duchess and some wonderful yellow transparents. The yellow transparent are great pollinators for the rest. They make for good eating if you let them hang on the tree. A cold snap or two in the fall really sweetens up apples, as it turns the starches into sugar quite naturally.

I'm interested in the links provided, and will follow them. The University of Wisconsin also has some great info online re growing apples in colder zones.

Great thread.....

steve bossie wrote:im in zone 3b here in n. maine. the most successful apple tree up here is the russian variety yellow transparent. its a old cultivar that fruits very early and is cold hardy to -45f, which we hit occasionally up here. these apples have naturalized themselves up here and are found growing wild in old farmland. there are a  large white apple thats very tart till ripe. makes the best sauce and pies. its a soft apple that dosent keep long but is very easy to process. i love this apple better than cortland and macintosh for flavor. lodi is a new cultivar of the yellow transparent that is more readily available today. its more disease resistant but still the same cold hardiness and flavor of the yellow transparent. these are very fast growing, vigorous  trees! i planted a 5ft. lodi this spring and i got 5 apples on it already! I've had seedlings grow 5-7ft in one summer then flower and fruit the next!  check them out ! they may even survive outside for you with a little TLC ! good luck!