Jeff wrote:
> Web pages talking about mixing pasture and trees.
I spent some time thinning apple trees today, one of my favorite orchard
activities. I find it meditative, allowing myself to move along the
branches feeling, not thinking, about which apples want to stay. While
doing this I also thought some about the information on the web sites Jeff
mentioned and what our property is turning into. Some of this I've written
here before and it rambles quite a bit, but I thought it was appropriate
anyway.
I see our property as an apple savanna (a new way for me of looking at it
from ideas on the web sites), mostly mature apple trees 30' on center and
sunny spaces in between. The last couple years we have patiently allowed
the soil to regain some structure after years of annual disking. I have
tried planting out a variety of plants to see what will grow without care,
especially water. Year by year the variety of plants volunteering also
gives me clues as to what could grow here. Mediterranean herbs, not
surprisingly, do very well. Fruit trees of quite a variety seem to do well
once established. (Our area grows unirrigated apples and grapes, because
of the soil type there is moisture, but not water, below the surface.) Dry
farming seems quite possible, and with our 6 month annual drought it is an
appropriate strategy.
We have not decided to have livestock at this point, but a friend might be
interested in having her sheep in our orchard at certain times of the year.
We have no fencing, so this would take some preparation. Some smaller
animal would do well between the trees, and the trees are mature enough to
withstand some company.
One corner of our two acres has been set aside to become a food forest with
a large variety of plants naturalizing and finding there own balance, a la
Fukuoka and Natural Farming. If I find that it works well, I'd be tempted
to do a lot more of it and have less area in intensive garden beds. I'd
like to increase our numbers of perennial vegetables (recommendations
appreciated) since I think they would fit in well. Self seeding and
naturalized annual food and fiber are also in the plan. These could be
grown in between the apple trees. I also plan to continue to add to the
variety of food trees, possibly replacing some of the apples. Chestnuts
are, in my opinion, a very valuable food tree. At this point I am working
on propagating trees as well as directly planting tree seeds (chestnut,
oak, acacia, plum, pear, loquat, olive, fig, etc.). I am also letting the
birds plant their favorites; so far these seem to be walnut and valley oak.
Underneath they have also planted blackberry, and coyote brush is
volunteering . I have also been growing a variety of things to go in
amongst the trees. Berries have done well on their own. Next I'll grapes
and a few other species.
Our garden / propagation areas have slowly been growing, but we have had
little time for them since we are still putting most of our time into
building our house. We had a cold spring, so the fact that we started our
garden late was probably a good thing. Since our soil wicks moisture up
from below, a good layer of mulch does wonders. A properly prepared bed,
once planted, is not much work. It's the preparing and starting and
planting that we have not made much time for.
Jeff's ideas about alder have feed a similar idea I have had about finding
species that produce a lot of bio mass that could be used for mulch.
Currently, one of our grass species (velvet grass, a bunch grass, and
exotic I'm sure) has proven to be a very good mulch. I was thinking of
something more bush or shrub like, possible a tree, so the vertical space
could produce more. Fennel is another possibility, but I'm being cautious
with it for now. We currently produce more "mulch" than we can use, so
it's not a problem now. I just see that the more carbon / organic material
we can put in our sandy soil, the better.
So, as I see it, our main limiting factors are time and water, in that
order. When our house is done (another month?) we will have more time.
This will allow us to propagate and plant more, be less neglectful of the
plants that are around us, and do more experiments to find what works. We
have a well, so we _can_ water things, but as I said I'd like to avoid that
as much as possible. So being creative about water conserving planting
methods and species is where most of our energy will go for awhile.
Rambling as usual,
Eric:
