First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

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First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby George Collins » Sat Mar 10, 2012 1:28 pm

I was giving a couple neighbors a tour of my forest garden and while doing so told them about the walnut grove. They expressed an interest in doing something similar to each. I offered to lend them any needed assistance in a sort of off-handed way thinking that they would do like most folks do, and lose interest before the sun went down or shortly thereafter.

Well, so far it looks like they haven't lost interest and have requested assistance/consultation in developing a ~2 acre forest garden/walnut grove. A meeting is planned for Sunday afternoon to walk over their place, determine as many particulars as possible and make a very large order from Willis Orchards Sunday night with an emphasis on establishing the canopy layer. The canopy layer of the forest garden is likely the only thing we will have time for this year given how late in the season we are getting started with their project and the size of the garden/grove they want to establish. Following the Martin Crawford recommended spacing, an acre of standard sized fruit trees planted at 1.3x the recommended spacing will require 90ish trees per acre (if my quick mental abacusizing is accurate at this early hour).

Their property joins our own. They are starting in their back yard as we did but are about 1/4 mile away. It might be really cool to one day have our gardens meet up in one continuous, whole-ish sorta-thingy.

I will keep everyone updated as the project proceeds.
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Mar 10, 2012 3:07 pm

That is a wonderful thing George. Having a continuous forest garden would be a Great thing for your neighborhood. My neighbors have started to think about some of the permiculture ways but have not really started to do much along those lines. Starting a Hugelbed is about as far as any of them have gotten and that is just going in this spring. We did attend a 2 day class on Permiculture last year, but it was in Pittsburgh and was more geared to people in the city with small yards. It was helpful to give us some direction, but no real particulars that work on larger acerage like we have out here in the country. I copied pictures from Google Earth that showed the instructor our propertys, she seems impressed by what we had growing already. I would hardly call it a food forest though. I did not hear about that concept until last year, and I planted my fruit trees 30 years ago.
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby matt walker » Sat Mar 10, 2012 6:37 pm

Very cool George, how fortunate you are to have neighbors of like mind. As they are to have you, and your knowledge. Like you said, what a cool thing that would be to eventually transform the two into a larger continued forest. I would imagine things are blooming where you are. Can you still plant bare root trees? How are yours from a couple weeks ago, are they budding?

Guy, what did you plant 30 years ago? How are they doing, and what would you do differently knowing what you know now?
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:01 pm

I planted apples and pears, a blueberry patch and some cane fruit. I would space things differently to allow more light in around the trees so that other things could grow there. Several of the apples are grown together so much that no grass grows under them. I did however pick a bunch of morel mushrooms last spring. A fair trade off I think. I don't mind having less grass to mow, I have enough grass already. It is a regular orchard, not a food forest, no inter-plantings, no guilds just a mono culture orchard of sorts. Thirty years ago I wanted to plant 4 apple trees, it was late in the season and the Nursery was stuck with a bunch of bare root stock. He sold me 20 trees for $5 each, it was a bargain even then. I was like George, I didn't want to plant that many trees all at once, but I had no choice. I had 3 Baldwin apple trees, they all died. I just figured that God didn't want Baldwin apples on my hill, so I replanted the next year with mcIntosh and yellow delicious and they have done fine. I also lost 2 pear trees. I did not replant those. The trees are very mature now but they still produce. I go with the, If it aint broke don't fix it theory, so I have not tried to replant young trees yet. I tried to plant 5 peach trees, they all grew for awhile, I got a bit of fruit for awhile, then they all died. I planted some Gage trees last year that a friend gave me. They were from the root. None of them made it. I hope to try again this year if he can get me any more. I would like a plum and some yellow gages for variety. Cherrys all get eaten by the birds around here, they are a loosing proposition. Some of my friends have tried them but they get no fruit. The birds are happy though. I am adding 2 kinds gooseberrys this year, and I would like to plant some yellow raspberrys, I hear that they are wonderful.
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby George Collins » Sun Mar 11, 2012 12:41 am

Matt,

The world is rapidly becoming beautiful once again.The coral honeysuckle, red buds, dogs woods, wisteria, peaches, plums, pears, May apples are all blooming or have already bloomed and most of the hardwoods are leafing out. The live oaks are going through their nappy stage as they do loose their leaves but only do so simultaneous with new leaves budding out.

The only forest garden trees that have not yet shown some signs of life are the Japanese persimmon, the two cherry trees and the Bartlett pear. Everything else has leaves at some stage of development. Even my little figs that were nipped so hard by our most recent frost are budding out in the case of one and sending out new shoots from the roots of the other.

I love this time of year.

And as for it being too late to plant bare root trees, I'm not sure. I would imagine that even though we had an uncharacteristically early spring even by our standards, truly hot weather is still a ways off. As long as the trees receive water every couple days, I'm guessing they should be ok.

Do you have knowledge along those lines that suggests otherwise?
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby matt walker » Sun Mar 11, 2012 1:34 am

No George, I certainly don't. Just that I'm feeling the season already starting to turn up here in the cold north, and I am feeling a bit pressed for time myself with regards to tree planting. I just assumed your window for bare root planting will probably be ending soon.
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby George Collins » Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:11 am

If all goes according to plan, we will order tonight and they will plant next weekend with what help I'm able to give them. I recently learned that Willis orchards has three low-chill cherry varieties which I didn't even know existed until after I made that most recent order. Since learning of them, I now really, really want to try them out so I'll be ordering those today as well. That is to say, if we are too late, my fate will be the same as theirs for I'm about to pull the trigger one more time.
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Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby George Collins » Sun Mar 11, 2012 3:11 pm

Guy,

what spacing did you use back when and what spacing would you use if you were to start anew?
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
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Location: South Central Mississippi, Zone 8a

Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby George Collins » Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:55 am

Well Alrighty then! The neighbors really weren't just talking smack.

I met with the member of their family that is heading up the forest garden project. We walked around in their yard for a couple hours until we had a Martin Crawford style canopy layer laid out with marking flags. He decided on planting of 23 standard sized fruit trees for the initial planting. The actual layout suggested the number of canopy layer trees should be 33+ but we left some intentional holes. The rationale being that having too few trees and having to place an additional future order was preferable to ordering too many and having to force-place the excess.

After we were satisfied that the plan as laid out would work, he came to my house and made the following order from Willis Orchards:

Fuji Apple
Ein Shemer Apple
Comice Pear
Beurre D'Anjou Pear
Perdue Pear
Hood Pear
Seckel Pear
20th Century Pear
Shiko Pear
Black Jack Fig
Santa Rosa Plum
Methley Plum
Tanenashi Persimmon
Brooks Cherry
Coral Champagne Cherry
Tulare Cherry
Mason's Superberry Mayhaw
GA 866 Jujube
Sherwood Jujube
Persian Mulberry
Black Beauty Mulberry
Orange Quince
Arbequina Olive
Wonderful Pomegranate

Total price of the order: $380.80
S&H: 95.20
Total $476.00

Hopefully the order will arrive before next weekend. Hopefully the other irons in the fire will not preclude me from being able to help him out for a few hours with the shovel work.

With his permission, I will keep a photographic record of his progress (unless I can convince him to become a contributing member here). Their yard is very mature and pictures from his place should be quite beautiful even from the earliest stages.
"Solve world hunger, tell no one." "The, the, the . . . The Grinch!"

"If you can't beat them, bite them."
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Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:57 pm
Location: South Central Mississippi, Zone 8a

Re: First(?) Forest Garden Consultation

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:48 pm

I put them in a grid and used 7 steps between trees each way. That is 20 to 21 feet apart. If I was planting a food forest I would want alot more light to get to the ground. I would say 30 to 40 feet apart depending on what you wanted to grow under and between the apple trees. I planted semi dwarf trees, they are about 30 feet tall now. Standard trees will grow alot higher and maybe let in more light, but there are apples, good apples, that I don't want to climb up and get at this hight. If they were 10 or 20 feet higher I do not care how good they are, this old man is not climbing up there to pick them. That is something to think about. My spacing has allowed the trees to mature and not cause each other alot of troubles, but there are several places that will not grow grass between the trees because there is not enough light. I do not think I can plant much under the trees and have it grow, I did plant some Daffys some years ago. I love them, they have such a pretty yellow flower very early in the spring and they grow befor the trees bud out so the shade is not such a problem. They are my favorite flower, I plant them and forget them. I have planted 2000 to 3000 bulbs around the property. I normally get 600 to 700 blooms each year. This year it looks like alot let blooms, some of them are getting in grown and need splitting, but oh well, they will survive and I will get more blooms in a couple of years with out any work. I do believe in the no work theory of gardening. Exept that I am double or triple digging the garden by sections. It is a make work project for me, something to do since I retired. I enjoy it, and I need the exercize. I mulch heavy around each apple tree so that I do not have to trim close when I mow. I mow everything sitting on my be-hind, I don't like to trim. I read that heavy mulch will delay the bud swell and blossom by a week, maybe even 2 weeks in the spring. This far north a week can be the difference in getting apples or getting them frosted and haveing no crop at all. I have had a few years with out any apples because of a late frost, not many, but a few.
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