What's Happening with the Permaculture Orchard

Getting an orchard started in the woods has been a challenge. This was done a tree at a time as we added only one or two fruit trees each year. For each tree, it took a grubhoe to break through the thin but impenetrable layer of forest floor. Next, a hole was dug, another slow process as roots and rocks had to be contended with. Backfill took a large amount of compost. Each tree typically loved its new place while the roots enjoyed the amended soil. And then, after the first year each one of the trees stopped growing.

Looking down the slope from the grapevines: the fruit trees blend in with all of the other foliage.

So, forest floor between the trees was broken up with a grubhoe, and roots and rocks pried out. Again, lots of compost was worked into the infertile soil. Since, composted manure has been added each year. Using some of the ideas of permaculture, a variety of plants have been put in. 

Bee Balm is looking good.

Different plants are supposed to act as dynamic accumulators, provide mulching materials, or attract beneficial insects. The variety chosen for the area includes shrubs, edible perennials, ground covers, and flowering plants. Click here for a post on the orchard in 2012.

Murphy inspects the orchard from the berm of the swale.

Several years ago I made a swale, click here to read the post. It is now a pathway and a convenient place to toss branches and twigs fallen from nearby trees. Whether it functions as a permaculture swale, retaining moisture from rain and snow melt and gradually releasing it into the soil is anybody’s guess. We can only hope that this happens because it is too far to lug water to the orchard. The trees have to make do with moisture from rain or snow melt.

The pile of rocks from making the swale is now a stone wall.

Happy to say, the orchard is looking better this year. The plants under and around the trees are growing beautifully. No longer stunted, they are now growing to their normal heights. The fruit trees have new growth and their leaves look healthier.

Red clover and catnip look healthy.

Gardening is a process. This year I'm working along the edges of the orchard to try and get some flowers started. More process… there's lots of rocks in the way! 

Comfrey is tall and flowering.

It is a challenge to start fruit trees in the woods. You might think they'd be right at home where other trees grow, but that is not the case. It appears that fruit trees are as fussy as garden vegetables. It took years to get those to grow too. Maybe one of these years we will pick fruit in our orchard. We are looking forward to that! -jmm

Forest to Farm, and Permaculture: What's Happening in the Orchard?

Our orchard is only a handful of trees, one of many ways that it is different from larger commercial ones. We are homesteaders, not farmers, and our goals are less about production than simply being able to grow some healthy trees that will eventually bear fruit. Since we are operating on a very small scale, we have the freedom to experiment with some permaculture ideas. Click here for an earlier post on this. 

A fruit tree and companion plants

A swale is one of many ideas of permaculture, and last year I dug one, click here for the post. The fill has settled in; branches, rotting logs, leaves, and raked-up forest litter, and the swale now serves as a pathway. Beneath the surface, decaying organic matter absorbs water from heavy rains and winter snowfall. The moisture then leaches gradually into the soil to benefit the fruit trees.

Last year I planted some aromatics and bee-attracting plants; lemon balm, lemon catnip, feverfew, anise hyssop, bee balm, and some comfrey and daffodils. In the berm (raised edge) of the swale I planted yarrow.

This year, I’ve added two shrubs; a highbush cranberry, and a red twig dogwood. These, along with the aromatics are intended to encourage birds, butterflies, and beneficial insects. Biodiversity is a concept of permaculture that is largely unknown in commercial orchards.

A new Red Twig Dogwood shrub

The shrubs create a new canopy layer. Canopy layers are a permaculture idea about mimicking the different heights of plants in the forest. The flowers, the shrubs, and the fruit trees create three distinct layers of vegetation due to the differing heights of the plants. The sixty foot tall oak tree in the center of the orchard is a fourth canopy layer.

The orchard was fitted into an area in the woods, and there are signs that the soil is trying to revert back to forest. Ferns are doing their best to take over, and much of the ground is becoming unworkable after all of my hard work with a grub hoe. It’s a struggle to get the forest to back off. The forest and cultivation appear to be two wildly different habitats.

The comfrey is flowering

To help condition the soil I tossed out sorghum and Canadian field pea seeds, which I had done last year also. This year I also seeded some Dutch white clover, and some going-to-seed dandelions. And planted some clumps of day lilies. I added a few food plants: chives, perennial onions, some asparagus, and some turnip seeds. Which of these will thrive is a guess.

Lime is essential for converting the acidic forest floor into an environment that is sweeter and more friendly to cultivated plants, and has been liberally applied, as well as wheel barrow loads of organic cow manure.

There’s lots going on there. Who would have thought that forest to farm is such a tough proposition? More on this as things progress... -jmm