Lee Ann Heath

Thank you both for your responses and advice!

The wind blows from the north/northwest 90% of the time. The bowl and natural drainage runs downhill from east to west. There is no standing water, it all seeps into the ground. The driveway is on the north side of the bowl and drainage and we have cut water bars in it diverting the runoff that usually runs down the driveway, into the bowl/drainage. Otherwise I end up with a 2’ ditch in my driveway. There’s a nob hill that runs approximately 600’ and is about 100’ higher in elevation than the bowl and drainage, I believe that will block most of the wind. Sun exposure is full sun in the bowl/drainage area.

While there are large rock outcrops running on both the north side and the south side where the soil is fairly shallow (3-5’), the soil depth in the bowl/drainage is approximately 15’+ (haven’t dug any deeper). The soil is mostly sand (70%), clay (10-20%) and silt (10-20%) based on a shake jar test. Since the fire in 96, nothing has been intentionally planted, and the area has not been tilled, mowed, or grazed. The wildflowers and native grasses grow during season and are covered with snow (3-4’) in winter for about 3-5 months and the process starts over again with snow melt and runoff beginning usually at the first of April. I intend on adding compost, newspapers, manure, etc to the areas where I’ll be planting followed by straw mulch. Manure and straw are in abundance where I live due to ranching operations. Ponds for collecting water require a permit from the state engineer, etc and I’m happy to not get involved with them. I’ve had the area topo mapped and am considering swales to capture and hold more water.

My canyons on the property are very lush and diverse in the bottoms. I’m hoping to transplant some of the native trees and plants from them up to this area (aspens, elms, gooseberry, chokecherry, etc)

I’m picturing something like the pic below of the Eden project in the UK for the garden. Planting poly culture fruits and vegetables in the bowl, with the fruit trees, flowers, herbs, berries interplanted as a guild/food forest around the garden as a border and then continuing down both sides of the drainage as it gets steeper. So, almost like a keyhole if you were looking at it from above, although it will follow the natural contours of the land so it wouldn’t be straight lines.

Thanks for your help! Please keep suggestions coming. I’m certainly open to criticism of my plan as it evolves, telling me why something would be a bad idea, hidden pitfalls, or better ways to do it, things I might not have considered, etc

Have a blessed day!

Lee Ann

Greetings everyone!

I’m new to the forum and was hoping to get some practical advice for planning my orchard/garden that I will be building this spring. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I apologize in advance for the length of the post, I’m not sure how much information to include.

I live off grid on the western slope of the Big Horns in Wyoming. I’m in zone 5 at approximately 6300-6500’ elevation. All power is solar and I have a water well. The water is pumped uphill to storage tanks and then gravity feeds back to the house.The property is south and west facing and is on a slope of 6-13 degrees depending on which part. A fire in 1996 took out most of the trees except for some of the very large ponderosa pines and cedars/junipers. Nothing has grown back except range grass.

There is a natural basin and the drainage that runs from that across the property (east to west) until it runs off the cliff into the canyon. It’s not a creek or a ditch, no running water, but it does catch the runoff from the snow in the mountains above and seems to soak into the ground. This area (about 150’ wide and 1000’ long) stays green well into  July, filled with wildflowers all summer, when everything surrounding it is dry and brown. It is protected from the north wind by the hill that has the water tanks on it.

I’ve purchased 22 fruit and nut trees 5-7’ tall (apple, pear, cherry, apricot, peach, plum, nectarine, figs and hazelnuts) that should produce this year, and 70 berry bushes (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, lingonberry, mulberry, cranberry, chokecherry, goji berry, kiwi, and green table grapes). They should arrive at the end of April. Anything else I plant will have to be grown from seed.

My idea is to plant the fruit trees and berry bushes throughout the basin and drainage interspersed with each other. This will allow me to tap into the water storage tank and gravity feed irrigation as needed in the later summer months, but take advantage of all the natural resources (windbreak, sun, runoff water, etc) as much as possible. I would like to have a no till garden in this area as well to produce as much food as possible during our short growing season, and do it as organically as possible.

Pests:deer, elk, rabbits, pocket gophers, chipmunks, birds (eating fruit)

The only animals I have are 18 chickens currently.

Questions:
Should I use fruit tree guilds or more of a food forest model?
Should the garden be separate or inter planted?
Should the garden be in rows and companion planted or companion planted in guilds?
Should I plant cover crops and food plots for the deer, chickens, wild turkeys etc outside of this area?

I’d love to hear your ideas and suggestions of what you would do if this was your project! While I’ve read many books on all of this, there is no substitute for experience! Thank you all in advance for your help!

Lee Ann

Pics of the area in summer and winter included. It’s the part between those two hills.

Hi Rick! Welcome to Wyoming! I live off grid in the Big Horn Mountains. I was inspired by your post, so I just joined Permies hoping to connect with others from Wyoming.

I bought this place a couple of years ago and I’m working on turning it into a sustainable permaculture homestead. I’ll be planting my orchard and garden this spring, and hopefully building an earthbag earth bermed passive solar greenhouse for food production in the winter.

Feel free to reach out if there’s something I can help you with.


Good luck on your projects!
Lee Ann