Food forest.....

[baymule]

I like to read about pigs on

Sugar Mountain Farm | Pastured Pigs, Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Sheep, Dogs and Kids in the Mountains of Vermont

sugarmtnfarm.com

He has double fences for fruit and oak trees, so the hogs don’t root the trees up. The acorns and fruit fall in the pigs pastures. It’s basically free feed for the hogs that they can harvest off the ground.

 

[Mini Horses]

Shame! I am always willing to go pick, clean up & otherwise help/share. Hoping for a call to pick sweet corn this weekend 🤞

And I share, too! 😁

 

[baymule]

Fruit and nut trees, hazelnuts, they are a bush. Berries and grapes, the options are limitless!

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

I do cardboard down on gardens as well Thank you @Grandmas Porch I will definitely watch the videos!

I appreciate everyone's advice, comments and suggestions.

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

@Phaedra Geiermann I am going to check out Edible Acres, even if I don't ever get a food forest underway here I LOVE watching and learning about them.

 

[The Porch]

This is David The Good
https://m.youtube.com/@davidthegood/videos

If you want to learn how to do a real Food Forest he is your guy

 

[the_whingnut]

David the good does more of what I call a kitchen sink way of permaculture and food forests. Which I like way less stress. As for the extra fruits and vegetables honesty stands and farmers markets can be helpful. Same for food banks. It's cheaper to have food rotting on the vine due to abundance than having nothing and feeding your money into a box store.

Plus bartering is always an option.

 

[flowerbug]

Shame! I am always willing to go pick, clean up & otherwise help/share. Hoping for a call to pick sweet corn this weekend 🤞

And I share, too! 😁

haha! i just gave away a box top of the hot peppers i won't eat. along with some Purple Dove and Beaver Dam pepper seeds. nice delivery guys. also gave them a short tour of the gardens.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

I am in the process of planting more perennial crops. I already do a 'kitchen sink' permacultureish approach to all my gardening. I have several fruit trees already mature 15-20 years old (peach, plums, lemon tree, fejoa tree), and a blackberry I've had in for three years now, as well as strawberries. I've just planted 2 more plum trees this year, as well as hazelnuts, blueberries, tea shrubs, and orangeberry as a ground cover. I pop all sorts of bits and pieces in as they fit into what I'm doing. Lots of clovers, alfalfa, buckwheat, general forbes, wildflowers, sunflowers etc, I put in wherever I'm planning a future garden. I've got a choko vine (in a planter bag) I'm going to let grow up over an old roof frame outside my garden shed, as I'm told choko is super vigorous and i want it far away from anything important! Not sure if I'll keep it or not but figure I'll have a go. Grapes are on the list too but I haven't put any in yet.

In saying all that though, my berries are all together in one spot that allows me to net them. The blackberries are trellised. The grapes will be trellised. I grow whatever ground covers I can in between stuff.

Last year I just dug up a section of lawn/pasture when I needed to expand my squash section. It's back to pasture now. I say pasture as I don't keep a lawn so to speak, I keep my lawn managed like a pasture.

I think it all comes down to what works for you in your own space. And yes, I have a lot of plums, and yes, I do get sick of canning/freezing/jamming/dehydrating them! I don't get sick of eating the efforts of my labour though.

I like the perennials because they are less work. I plant the vast majority of my annuals as transplants, and by the beginning of summer my spring excitement at starting seeds and putting the first seedlings into the ground has given way to exhaustion at potting on yet another round of seedlings. Most of my attempts at direct sowing has been thwarted by slugs. My slug populations are pretty epic.

I love it all though. And I'm always learning new things, every day!

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

Plants, for the most part, need sunshine. Watching my sheep is educational for me. Pretty green grass grows under the few trees that are in the pasture, but they don’t eat it until there is nothing left. All I can figure is that the shaded grass does not have the nutrients that the full sun grass does.

I’d recommend clearing an area for fruit and nut trees, then planting it in clovers. Clover fixes nitrogen in the soil. After it goes to seed and dies back, mow it and plant beans or peas. Southerners love peas, northerners call them cow peas. They would be worth planting for the nitrogen and the vines, to mow and add humus to the soil.

Thank you. Great advice for my starting point, I appreciate it.