Harvesting 800 pounds of food in 50 days

What an amazing experience this project has been! 50 days ago I set myself a target of harvesting, processing and storing at least 5lbs of food a day. Whether it was something grown in our garden, meat birds or something foraged. 

My target was to store 250lbs of food in 50 days, but by the end of the first week it became obvious that I would achieve that volume of harvest fairly easily and quickly, so I increased the target to 500lbs.

And, shortly after the midway point I realised that I could increase my target once again. Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined that this plot could yield so much food in such a short space of time.

I have, in fact, harvested more than the list below, because for the purpose of my 50 Days of Harvest project, I didn't include any food that we harvested to consume that day and it didn't include anything harvested prior to the start date. I will, in due course, calculate the total amount that has been harvested from our smallholding this year, but for today, I am celebrating that I have been able to harvest such a fabulous amount in seven weeks and a day.

Here's today's vlog, or if you can't view it on your device, you can watch it on YouTube here

The harvest included

317 lbs apples (cooking apples and eating apples)
85 lbs winter squashes
22 lbs beetroot
30 lbs dwarf beans
44 lbs courgettes
57 lbs tomatoes
3 lbs cucumber
9 lbs plums
48 lbs runner beans
8 lbs savoy cabbage
31 lbs borlotti beans (net weight)
9 lbs blackberries
75 lbs chicken and duck
16 lbs raspberries 
19 lbs sweetcorn
3 lbs Greek gigantes beans
23 lbs pears
1 lb parsnips.

Our cupboards are filled with jars of apple sauce, plum sauce, green tomato chutney and raspberry jam. Demi-Johns are filled with country wines nicely fermenting away, the freezers are filled to bursting with produce and our hearts are filled with joy.

The whole project can be found on YouTube here

July Homestead Tour Part 1

As it's the first day of August, it's time to look at the progress made by the crops and animals during July. To stop this being a very long vlog, I have split it into two, so the second part will be published tomorrow.


If you can't see the video on your device, you can watch it on YouTube here.

Food Forest Fruit year one

The Food Forest is starting to take shape and offering an abundance of fruit even in its first year. In this video I have a look at some of the fruit that is growing well at the moment.

It you can't play the video below, you can see it on YouTube here.

Aspirations for 2017

 Happy New Year!

I'm not going to do a look back over 2016, I feel as though I've documented it enough already and reviewed our first year on the smallholding during November and to me the best part of the new year is the possibilities that lie ahead.

So, for 2017 my hopes include

To learn more
I'd like to take more courses, read more and research more. By continuing to learn I'd like to not only increase my knowledge, but to keep my brain engaged and alert. I've been looking at a variety of courses including a Permaculture Design Certificate, a horticulture certificate and practical skills like charcuterie, cheesemaking and woodworking.

To start driving again
I haven't driven a car on the road since September 2015 and while Mr J is more than happy to drive me anywhere I want to go, not having the independence is irritating. I stopped driving when I became too ill to be safe on the road, after all it's no good to be behind the wheel when you keep falling asleep, your ankles are too swollen to be able to move your feet properly and your legs jerk uncontrollably. The decision to stop driving was entirely my own, I just wanted to keep myself safe and respect the safety of others on the road. Both the jerking and falling asleep are now as good as gone and the swelling has reduced far enough to have almost full movement in my feet, so it seems to make sense to start getting myself back on the road.

To raise our own ducks

Early last year we bought Frederick and Mrs Warne, the ducks that we weren't going to name. We hatched two ducklings from eggs laid by Mrs Warne and we also hatched a further five ducklings from eggs brought via eBay. We enjoyed raising the ducklings, we were surprised by how endearing they are, but when the run up to Christmas arrived we said goodbye to five of the ducks. Frederick, one of the two and three of the five were despatched. This leaves us with one of Frederick's sons (whom I've imaginatively named Frederickson), Mrs Warne and two girls from the five as our breeding flock for 2017. Mrs Warne has continued to lay eggs throughout the winter, she had a short pause during early autumn and is now back to laying around 5 eggs a week. The two younger girls haven't started laying yet, but I don't think it will be too long before they do and Frederickson has started practising treading on the girls, although nothing is actually happening as yet other than a lot of noisy quacking and some fairly inelegant balancing tricks.

To increase the flocks of Australorps and White Jersey Giant chickens
We have seven white Jersey Giant chickens of varying ages. Little White has been renamed Big White as he is huge and he shares a house and pen with three females, one of which is at point of lay and two are a month or more away from laying. A younger male now lives with the 'spare' cockerels, young males destined for the table that I have separated from the flocks to prevent fighting that could lead to injury. The two youngest Jersey Giants were hatched late in the year and are now eight weeks old. Normally at eight weeks I would integrate the chicks into life with the older birds, but because of the lockdown, the chicks would have no escape from (possibly unwelcome) attention of bored birds and I will wait a while longer before the integration process.

There are six Australorps, two females, four males. Two of the males are separated and now live with the other young cockerels. The older female (hatched in late June) is just coming into lay, at least I think she is and the younger female is about a month behind her. I'd very much like to hatch several more Australorp chicks, the boys make good meat birds and they are all very affectionate and more girls would give us a constant supply of Australorp eggs. What I can't decide is whether to wait and hatch eggs from the birds that we have or whether to find some eggs from another breeder to widen the gene pool of our flock (we currently have birds from two different lines).

To complete the raised beds in the annual vegetable garden

In 2016 I created seventeen raised beds and there are still five more to be created to fill the annual vegetable garden. Together with the pumpkin patch and food forest, we should then have enough space to grow just about all our vegetables and herbs for the year. This level of self-efficiency would be very pleasing.

To plant more trees
I still have masses of trees waiting to be planted. There are approximately two hundred hedging trees and shrubs for the west perimeter of the smallholding and around 12 larger trees waiting for their permanent positions. I planted fourteen fruit trees in the late autumn and have selected some other types of tree that I'd like to add to our food forest to give us an even wider choice of fruit in years to come.

To expand the Food Forest

The main part of the food forest is now laid out, small trees and fruit shrubs have been put in place, perennial plants and ground cover plants are planted and should romp away this year. I have decided that I would like to extend the food forest into the chicken fields, so that although there would be fewer fruit bushes, there will be some fruit trees, herbs, flowers (for the bees from next door's hives) and berry canes will be able to scramble up and along the netting that divides the chicken fields. The herbs will provide an additional source of food for the chickens, the trees will provide some shade and the windfalls will give them rich pickings and no doubt the chickens will share the berry crops with us. The chickens' manure will continue to add fertility to the soil and their pecking and feeding activities will help to reduce the pest population.

To install a large duck pond

View to behind the piggeries

We have identified two areas that would be ideal for a large pond. One is behind the piggeries which would be a good use of the space and the other is within the existing duck enclosure (an area about 150 feet by forty feet, so plenty of room for a decent size pond). This second site is the one that I'd like to complete this year. By digging out a large pond, we can use the soil from the excavation to create a mound for a swale. The pond would be dug out of the highest point of our land (which is not quite, but almost flat) and the mound would encourage rain water to move more slowly through and across the ground, it would also give me a raised area to plant another hedge of currants, berries and nuts together with wild roses for rose hips. This hedge would then act as a wind break and reduce the damaging impact of the winds that whistle across the whole smallholding. This particular hedge would help to protect the vegetable garden a little more.

To offer volunteering opportunities
We would like to offer a chance for people to come and experience life on a smallholding built on organic principles. For this to happen we will need to find a suitable caravan for volunteers to stay in and I think installing a composting loo on site would be a smart move too (some comforts are important to establish early on!). In exchange for their volunteering effort, we will provide accommodation and meals and share what we've learnt. We aren't by any stretch of the imagination, experts in any of this, but we do have some experience, our trial and error has taught us a huge amount in a short time and I'd be delighted to share some of that experience with other like-minded folks.

I have no doubt that as the year goes on we will find other projects and activities that we want to tackle. The back of the piggeries needs work if it is not to become a tangled mess of brambles and weeds, the piggery buildings need attention to prevent them from rusting and collapsing, sections of the stable roof need mending and gutters need replacing... the list goes on and on.

Right now I need to go and complete the project that I've been working on for a couple of weeks, but as it's jolly cold outside first of all, I will make a cuppa!

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Food for winter

Vegetable Garden August 2016

After Storm Angus and Jack Frost had thrown their worst at the garden, I took a walk around the vegetable beds to see what had survived and was pleasantly surprised. Although the vegetable garden looks less than orderly or pretty at the moment, there is still plenty of produce to put on our plates for the coming months.

Here's what we have in the garden
Leeks
Oca
Dwarf kale
Purple curly kale
January King cabbage
Red cabbage
Swiss chard
Perpetual spinach
Parsnips
Swede
Beetroot
Lambs lettuce
Red oak leaf lettuce
Purple sprouting broccoli
Herbs

Stored in the freezer
Borlotti beans
Runner beans
Broad beans
Purple French beans
Patty pan courgettes
Tomatoes
Rainbow chard stems
Celery
Carrots
and fruit that includes
Apples (windfalls from our neighbours' garden)
Blackberries
White Currants
Rosehips
Elderberries
Plums
Mirabelles
Grapes (a gift from a friend)
Herbs

And stored in the larder
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Herbs
Plus a collection of sauces, jams, jellies and syrups.

Given that this is our first year, I am delighted with the range of vegetables and fruit that we have to see us through until the next crops arrive.

We have had to buy a few vegetables, but not very many, since the garden starting being productive and it feels quite strange to go to the fresh produce aisle. We have, of course, had to buy fruits like bananas, pineapples and citrus fruit. 

Since starting to plant the food forest I have discovered that we should be able to grow peaches, nectarines and apricots so I will be ordering trees very soon, to join the apple, pears, plums and cherries that I have already planted. I have taken hardwood cuttings of red, white and black currants, tayberry and loganberry. Although I don't eat nuts, Mr J does, so I have planted several hazel trees for hazelnuts and will be ordering a sweet almond tree too.

With all this abundance together with the eggs and meat from the chickens and ducks, I feel as though we have much more food security than we could have hoped for and, being able to buy meat from our friends, like the pork from Martha, means that we can be more certain of how and where our food is produced.

As Christmas is now only three weeks away, I have started to think about what we might have to eat over the holiday period, one thing that I can be sure of is that a large portion of it will be coming from our garden.

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Moving gestures

 Our new friends James and Dee of Happy Homestead are due to move house very soon and because they are moving to a remote croft on the Scottish islands of Orkney, they have decided that taking their chickens on the long journey north would be too much for the girls. So we are giving them a home with us.

Yesterday afternoon they brought the girls to our little smallholding to start the next phase of their lives. We have put them into a house of their own in a section of the field away from the other chickens for a week or two to allow them to settle in before they join the main flock of layers.

As it was dusk when they arrived, the chickens were put straight into their temporary house, so we didn't really get any time to spend with them. They also brought with them a selection of fruit bushes that they are kindly giving to us. The plant pots were put on the edge of the shrubbery for ease of storage until I had the time (and daylight) to move them into the food forest.

I am so excited by these gifts, James and Dee's generosity should give us years of harvests and I feel touched by their kindness. They were going to give us the water butts that they have been using to collect rainwater, which we could definitely do with more of.

 But over a cuppa yesterday, I suggested that they took these bulky items with them and filled them with items that they are taking to their croft, so that the smaller items were protected by the plastic and they could save on the cost of having large items delivered to their new home.

As sun rose this morning, I let the birds out of their houses for the day and spent a gentle half an hour or so moving the new fruit bushes to the food forest area. Placing them where they might eventually be planted and then repositioning each one until I was happy with their placement.

James and Dee returned this morning with a second car-load of plants for us as well as some bags of potting compost and ericaceous compost. We talked some more about chickens and ducks, about how easy the different breeds are to care for and they told us more about the new life upon which they are about to embark.

So in a blink, the food forest has a dozen or so additional bushes which include raspberries, gooseberries, currants, honey-berries, a loganberry, rosemary, mint and several varieties of blueberries. Growing in one pot, below the blueberry, is a cluster of strawberries, which I'll use as ground cover.

Earlier in the week, we had more new arrivals. Three little chicks hatched on Wednesday and Thursday. One is the offspring of Big Red and either Jack or Diesel (we aren't sure which one yet) and the other two are white Jersey Giants to add to our small flock of these majestic white birds. The Jersey Giants are from a different breeder (and different line) to the ones that we have here already, which means that next year we will have a breeding flock and will be able to offer hatching eggs for sale.

I also had another nice little surprise on Thursday. 

When this month's Country Smallholding magazine arrived in the post, I found that I had been included in an article about the first few months of smallholding. I'd been asked to write a short piece about three months ago, but didn't know whether it would be included in the magazine. It was equally nice to see that our friend Helen had been included too, with her pigs, the Swanbridge Porkers. 

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been posting a three-part review of our first year on the smallholding. There has been a lot happening here and it has left me feeling quite tired. The tree surgeons have been to remove the spindly trees behind the piggeries, I've raked up and moved several cubic metres of leaves to make leaf mould and I've also been busy studying. 

I've enrolled to take an online course with Oregon State University and have been engrossed in reading, researching and absorbing information from the Introduction to Permaculture course. It's been useful to confirm that many of the practices that I've used (in the garden) fit perfectly from a permaculture perspective and I've learnt in more depth about using the natural lay of the land and water flow to make the most of the space we have. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will have completed the course and done well enough to be awarded a badge, which I will proudly display on my blog page.

So this evening's plan is to watch a couple of gardening programmes that I've recorded and then get back to studying. But first, it's time for a cuppa!

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Year One part 3 Permanent Planting

   The Shrubberies were put in early in the year to make a colourful welcome as we drive along the lane into our yard.

 Our friend Jane gave us several shrubs and others were lifted from the area next to the piggeries and stables.

  I planted the perennial shrubs along the length of the border and have added a few more since. 

 After a few months of growing the long shrubbery has filled out and has given us some colour every month. Some of the plants in the shrubbery have uses in addition to looking attractive. The buddleia has attacted many butterflies and other pollinators as have all the flowers on the shrubs. I've harvested the lavender flowers, dried them and I will use them to make lavender bags, lavender sugar and to refresh the pot pourri in our home. The roses will produce rosehips which I will add to the rosehips gathered from the hedgerows and other sources (read about rosehips from my sister's home here).The fushia bush should provide us with berries, although as yet it hasn't produced very much and having never tried fushia, I'm keen to find out whether the berries from this particular hardy bush are sweet or have a bitter aftertaste.

The short shrubbery is still only half completed but is already starting to look good.

 We brought with us several pots of raspberry plants that had been lifted from Mr J's parents' home, together with shrubs, herbaceous plants and a couple of small trees.

Jane helped me to dig the turf from the area that would become the herbaceous border (actually Jane lifted the most of it) and we planted it with the plants that she had given to us and some that we had brought from our previous house. Over the year I haven't weeded the area anywhere near as much as was needed and as a result we've had a display of weed and wild flowers amongst the cultivated perennial plants.

The Food Forest

I decided that creating a permanent planting area filled with edible plants and supporting plants would be a good use of a large space. The more I explored the ideas behind permaculture and the way to use the land in harmony with nature, the more I realised it fits exactly with our thinking and a food forest should work really on this site.

I've had to make some compromises with how to start the food forest, but I'm happy with how it is coming along. Wood chippings have been poured onto the area and composted wood chippings used to make planting beds. It was a bit tougher than just pouring wood chippings, because finding a source of wood chippings took me several months. My budget for the garden is close to zero and it was important to find a free source of materials, but luckily I have now found a local tree surgeon who brings a trailer load of chipped wood on a reasonably regular basis. It gets dumped in the front garden and I then move it one wheelbarrow load at a time to the place I want it. 

 We made a small wildlife pond using a butyl liner that was already on the smallholding when we moved in. It's not very pretty, but as the planting around the edges grow, it should hide the liner and attract beneficial wildlife.

We've recently bought 17 fruit trees which I am in the process of planting and below them I've put fruit shrubs like currants and raspberries (lots and lots of autumn fruiting raspberries), herbs and ground cover plants like strawberries. I've been researching perennial vegetables to include in this area and in the meantime, for the next couple of years at least, I will use some of the food forest area to grow annual vegetables that will act as good ground cover (like some of the squashes I'd like to grow).

 It will take a few years for the food forest to establish and there will always be some maintenance tasks to do there, but it should be more productive in relation to the effort put in as time goes on. 

Hedges and boundaries 

There is very little hedging around the boundary and whilst that gives us fabulous views across the adjacent land, it also gives us no protection from the wind that whistles across the area from the Severn Estuary.

In early spring, Jane helped us to plant a hedge around the east and south sides of smallholding. It is mixed native hedging, that will be good for wildlife, pollinators and food and although still very small, it has started to fill out over the year and I'd imagine that by their fifth year, the hedge plants will be around shoulder high and knitted together to form a thick wind shelter and a good place for birds and other wildlife to live. I used weed supressing membrane and planted through it in an effort to slow down the invasive weeds coming through the stock fencing that surrounds the smallholding. 

I've put up some wind break fabric on the stock fencing to reduce the impact of the wind on the plants in the garden and as some relief for the chickens who were getting blown around by the wind. Much of the winter and spring brought winds of 30 to 40 mph and a few times it reached up to 60mph, which, if you are a small chicken (or a large human) is pretty miserable to be in.

We still need to plant some hedging along the west boundary and I've ordered some more native hedging to put in the ground later in the year together with some elderberry trees that we can lift from below our trees. I'm also going to add some fast growing trees like eucalyptus which I'll keep cut back so that they are large bushes rather than tall trees.

Now that we have divided up the paddock and are happy with the area designated for the chickens, we've put in a more permanent fence. I've started to plant some fruit canes along the fence that can be supported by it, offer more protection for the chickens, look attractive and be productive.

I've written further blogs looking at the vegetable garden and our animals . The best way to ensure that you don't miss them is to subscribe to my blog, which you can do below!

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Covering up

What a blessing it has felt to have such mild weather at the end of October. I have spent a part of each day this week in the garden, some days more than others, but I've enjoyed every moment that I've been outside.

A local tradesman has been applying rendering to the external wall of our bathroom this week. When we bought the house the previous owners were going to put cladding on the small extension, but as it would have been the only part of the house with cladding on it, we asked them to leave it as blockwork and agreed that we'd get it rendered. Moving in during the stormy winter months, it didn't get done for the first few months, but we were keen not to let it sit exposed to the rain and wind for a second winter. So a couple of weeks ago, I got several quotes for the job and the local plasterer completed the job this today. And it looks great!

What surprised me about the rendering task was the difference in the quotes that I received. I asked four local tradesmen for a quote for the job, each was given the same information about what we wanted done, but the quotes were wildly varying. Three of the quotes were for over £800 and the last quote was for a little over £310. Needless to say, I declined the higher quotes and saved us well over £500. Normally at this point, I would rant about why tradespeople feel it's okay to charge so much for a job when clearly it can be done for less than half the price, but I guess I must be mellowing as I don't want to waste my energy getting cross about it.

Outside I have continued to move wood chippings into the young Food Forest to cover the pathways and build up layers on the planted areas. 

 The planting beds have now had the weed suppressing membrane cut away from them, cardboard placed on the ground and composted wood chippings and topsoil put on top of the cardboard. 

 I've placed wood around the edges of two of the beds which should rot down over the next few years, but in the meantime will provide some definition and support for the wood chippings as I build up the depth of the beds.

 I also placed some sticks in the body of this planting bed, they will add to the compost in time, but it was a useful way to dispose of some of the larger twigs and sticks that we have lying around.

Then the fruit and herb plants were planted. I had intended to leave the membrane down for a couple of years and then lift it around the plants that have been planted through the membrane, but I changed my mind and decided that doing this process now would stop the plants from being disturbed after they have put down a good root system. The Food Forest area is now about 30 feet by 70 feet and I'm very pleased with how it is beginning to look.

I've started to plant the trees that we bought last week. I've put in two cherries, a plum and three apple trees and have decided where the others will be planted. The soil is so poor and the ground highly compacted, so digging the hole for each tree is taking far longer than I'd like it to. I've also discovered two self-sown plum trees, one of which I think is a mirabelle (because of where it is growing). I'm using RootGrow mycorrhizal granules on the roots in the hope that this will help the trees settle into their new places more rapidly. The trees that are planted through the membrane and have chippings around them won't have to compete with weeds, but those planted into the other parts of the paddock are at risk of being swamped by clover, thistles or stinging nettles. So I have placed cardboard around them and covered it in a deep layer of wood chippings (taking care that it isn't touching the stem).

I've also continued to build up the layers of material on the most recent raised bed in the vegetable garden. Today I have added a layer of composted straw and brewery grains which have spent the summer in a compost bay with some summer squash growing on the heap. They aren't completely rotted down yet as I can still see some of the grains and the straw, but they are mostly decomposed and can continue to break down on the raised bed. The last layer to go on to the raised bed will be some topsoil, but the heap of topsoil got very wet in the rain last week and I've found it very heavy to move, so the final layer will have to be moved little by little as I have energy or will have to wait until Mr J can help me.

Elsewhere on the smallholding, the young chickens and ducks continue to grow but the chickens have all but stopped laying. Diesel is still laying around five eggs per week, Jack stopped laying some weeks ago and is now in full moult and starting to look rather sad for herself. The Cream Legbars have also stopped laying and are just starting to moult. For the winter period we have moved the Cream Legbars back into the main chicken field so that they can sleep in the large shed with the rest of the birds. This has two advantages, that more bodies in the shed will help keep it warmer and that there will be fewer houses for me to muck out. 

The Australorps will stay in their own section of the field until they are less in number. We currently have one female and six young males in the Australorp field and over the next couple of weeks Mr J and I will decide which two we will keep for breeding and the others will be our meat birds for the next couple of months. The young female and two males will either join the flock in the main field or we will move them, together with the older female Australorp to a new site on the smallholding.

Next week we are due to have some leggy trees cut down and removed from behind the piggeries, which will give us another area that the chickens could move into. I am quite keen to let the Australorps run through the area behind the piggeries because they have proved to be excellent at clearing weeds and scrubland. In the meantime, I will spend a little time over the next few days clearing some of the debris that is behind the piggeries. I haven't really done very much in that area since we moved in and there is plenty of rubbish that needs to be taken away from the back piggery before any chickens live there. 

I am looking forward to a weekend of pottering in the garden and with luck we will have another evening like today, when I can sit outside with a cuppa and watch the sun go down.

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Rooty fruity

As part of our plans for the garden we want to surround the plot with native hedging and plant numerous trees. Although the smallholding is not very big, by careful planning and planting we will have space for plenty of fruit trees in the Food Forest.

Today we headed to a supermarket that had bare-root fruit trees for sale for £4.50 each. I expected to find small trees or whips, but to my delight they are healthy looking plants around four feet high. The roots are wrapped to keep some moisture around them and as yet I haven't inspected their root systems, but the top of the trees look good. They are grafted onto M26 rootstock and other semi-dwarfing rootstocks, so the eventual height of each tree will be around ten to twelve feet. For us, this is an ideal height, not so short that the trees look out of scale in the available space, but not so large that we'd need ladders to reach the fruit (or not for many years at least).

The fruit trees that I selected are

1 x Apple Cox's Orange Pippin (which were my father's favourite apple)
2 x Apple Elstar
1 x Apple Jonagold
2 x Cooking Apple Bramley

1 x Pear Doyenne Du Comice
1 x Pear Conference

3 x Plum Opal
1 x Plum Victoria

2 x Cherry Stella
3 x Cherry Morello

All these for a little over £75!

These will be the bulk of the fruiting trees in the food forest together with an apple tree from my neighbour (not sure what it's called but the fruits are delicious) and a mirabelle tree that I lifted from the root system of a mirabelle tree in the duck enclosure. I'll also plant some young hazelnut trees and elderberry trees moved from behind the piggeries. I'd like to find some quince, mulberries and a medlar tree, but those will have to wait until I find them at a reasonable price.

Tomorrow I will start to prepare for their planting by digging holes and incorporating plenty of well rotted wood chippings and garden compost, I will add a very little granulated organic plant food and prepare a mycrorrhizal fungi gel which should encourage root development and give the trees a good start. Where I can't dig down into the soil, I will build Heugelkultur mounds, piling old logs onto the ground with smaller branches on top, then cover them with a mix of topsoil and composted wood chippings before planting a tree on top of the mound. The mounds will be ideal on the areas where there are gentle slopes, so that water naturally gravitates towards the tree mound and the woody material will absorb the water, giving the trees access to moisture when they need it.

I plan to under-plant the trees with comfrey that has deep roots to draw up nutrients from the lower levels of the soil and leaves that can be used as a chop-and-drop mulch and also strawberries which will wilt quickly when they are lacking water and give me a hint that the trees may need a drink too.

Hopefully by next spring the trees will be settled into their new positions and will reward us with a lovely display of blossom.

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Starting a Food Forest

Friday 2nd Spetember. I've been researching ways to increase our harvest whilst also improving the land on which we live. Time and time again I come back to a permaculture idea of a food forest. It seems to me to make absolute sense to work with nature, not against it and emulate it as it is so successful at being self sustaining.

The idea of a food forest is that just like any forest there are several layers of growth from tall canopy trees to root crops, each layer is comprised edible plants of some sort and as leaves drop from trees and annuals die off, the forest floor becomes richer with organic matter feeding the plants for the next year. This is a long term plan. We can't plant fully grown trees and shrubs, so we will plant young trees and plants and over time they will grow to provide the layers.

Image source: Permaculture a Beginner’s Guide, by Graham Burnett

 By recreating a forest with it's multi layers of growth I can have a highly productive area of edible plants that doesn't need constant tending and planting each year. It will become more productive as years pass and will build better and better soil. We want to leave this small space in better condition and with more trees and vegetation on it than when we arrived.

 So I've identified an area that would be ideal for a food forest. Ideally I would lay down a very thick layer of cardboard and cover it in around 30 - 40 cms of wood chippings, but I don't think we will have access to that volume wood chippings and so, to start off with, I am going to put down a weed suppressing membrane and a 15 - 20 cms layer of wood chippings and then in a couple of years remove the membrane disturbing the soil layer as little as possible and let nature take over.

 I ordered some membrane which arrived yesterday and to keep myself distracted from the latest hatch that was happening in the incubator I started to lay the membrane.

This first section of membrane is six and a half feet (2 metres) wide and approximately 40 feet (12 metres) long and it seems to hardly make a dent in the area that I've earmarked for the food forest. I am excited by this project, I like the idea of creating something more permanent on this land. It won't replace the raised beds which I will continue to use for growing annual food crops, cutting flowers and herbs, but it should add a new dimension to the smallholding.

 As luck would have it, on Wednesday evening the tree surgeon delivered another load of composted wood chippings. This is by far the most well composted material that he has dropped off. Much of it is a rich almost black colour, just like the soil found on a forest floor, so will be ideal for the food forest area as well as being used to enrich the soil in the raised beds.

Once I had lightly pegged down the membrane I loaded a wheel barrow to overflowing with wood chippings and tipped it onto the membrane. As you can see, it hardly shows on this large space and this sheet of membrane is only the first of many. It's going to take an awful lot of wheel barrow loads to cover this area! I thought that I'd cover the areas that I want to put plants in first and leave the pathways clear until later. As we are having some tall but spindly sycamore trees taken down from just behind the piggeries before too long, I will use the chipped upper branches to cover the pathways as these don't need to be composted chippings.

I already have some fruit shrubs and perennial herbs that I can plant in the food forest and will propagate as many more as I can from these small plants.

I've recently started reading the blog of a couple who live not too far away from us who have outgrown their garden and two allotments and are taking the plunge to become even more self sufficient and are buying a smallholding in Orkney. James and Dee's blog about their adventure to self sufficiency and living in a more environmentally friendly way can be found at Happy Homestead. It's well worth a read. 

I've been chatting with them via social media and invited them to come for a cuppa and to have a look at what we are doing here (what this really means is that I'm going to pick their brains and ask them for lots of advice). To my delight they have offered to give us some of their fruit bushes and herbs that they have growing in tubs and that are too large or too many to take with them to their new home. They will be ideal for planting in the food forest and I am extremely grateful for their generosity.  We are also going to rehome their chickens which they feel would be too stressed by a fifteen hour car journey to their new homestead.

Saturday 3rd. Yesterday I continued to add barrow loads of composted wood chippings to the first stretch of weed suppressing membrane and planted it with a tayberry and loganberry given to me by my daughter's father in law. I also put in some autumn fruiting raspberries which came from Mr J's mother's garden, a rowan tree that my daughter gave me for Mother's Day, some herbs that I grew from seed and some currants that came from the local garden centre. I am starting to think that the food forest will be filled with plants that came from, and therefore remind me of, friends and family.

I've identified a small area that is lower than the surrounding soil and it seems to be a perfect place to have a small wildlife pond. In heavy rain it fills with water and creates a puddle about four feet by three feet and around four inches deep. If I line the base of this area with waterproof membrane, it should fill up in no time which will give us a pond that ends up about seven or eight inches deep. It won't be very big, but it would be nice to have an area that attracts frogs, toads and other wildlife. There is a large sheet of bitumous liner at the back of the piggeries, I think it is what was used to line a large surplus water store as I can see a circular outline on a concrete base by the rear piggery and the liner seems circular, so I will use a piece of that as a liner for the small wildlife pond.

As I am creating pathways through the food forest area I will make sure that a path goes around the potential pond and that I leave some space for planting around the edges of it. The good thing about the location of the pond is that it will be away from the chickens and the ducks so that the wildlife won't be a sitting target for their beaky attentions.

It is very wet today, I have tried laying out the next section of weed suppressing membrane, but the wind has picked up and is blowing it all over the place. Instead of working outside, I am doing more research and firming up ideas about the food forest and catch up with reading a few of my favourite blogs. I'm looking forward to an afternoon curled up on the sofa under a quilt reading. It must be time to make a cuppa! 

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If you want to know more about food forests, this article on the Permaculture Research Institute is useful.