We bought the farm in October 2014. I was so excited and ordered fifty nut trees. We followed all the rules: size of the hole, compost, etc. We didn’t know about the quack grass in the farm – the majority of the trees disappeared. Only about ten survived. We also planted garlic; double digging was used to prepare the beds. It was a great success.
Here is the farm (pasture land) in August 2014 and April 2015:
I love growing things. When I was about 10 years old, I got permission from my neighbour to grow vegetables in a small patch of their field. Whenever I have some soil I will grow whatever I can. When I got 10 acres, I went crazy and wanted to grow everything; it was like getting a huge playground.We discussed, learned permaculture principles, fruit guilds, sustainable farming etc.; everything centered around giving back to the land more than we take from it, leaving it better than we found it. After learning growing fruit guilds is a slow process we wanted to fill an area with fruit trees first and then build fruit guilds around them. In 2015 we contracted Whiffle Tree Farm and Nursery to plant our fruit trees. We chose a variety of fruits that is good for taste and to have the longest season possible; June (haskaps) and to October (medlar- ripens late fall when the leaves have turned fall colour) and everything in between; Pear, mulberry, apricot, nectarine, plum, Asian pear, peach, sweet cherry, kiwi arguta, plumcot, apple, gojiberry, grapes, blueberry and raspberry. We also planted four pecan trees and took care of other nut seedlings that survived (one pine and few others for 2014).
Some pictures of the crew and the orchard planted on May 1st:
We didn’t have any infrastructure. Most important; a source of water. There is a creek at the back. I thought it was best to grow vegetables near the creek. Here is my first vegetable patch (all my camping tarpaulines were used to kill grass. Sh, don’t tell him). The creek dried by July.
Our northern neighbour had a dug well close to Trafalgar road. He offered us to use it. This is more than 1000 ft from the vegetable patch. He transported barrels of water where we needed. Fill the barrels in the back of his truck, drive to the location and he will throw it off the truck bed. Only one landed on the side. Even that one we rescued about half the water. I wish I had taken a video when he did it. We installed a pipe from thewell to second vegetable/grass patch. Next Mitchelle showed me the manure patch. I thought great. I don’t have to bring compost. He tilled it for us and using my wheeled seeder we sowed beets, sweet peas, swiss chard, cowpea and carrots. Why didn’t I think grass also like manure? Here is my vegetable patch 600 feet away from the well :
We learned a lot in 2015. Learning to manage weeds has to be the number one if you are an organic farmer. We used a lot of cardboard to suppress weeds. During 2015 winter voles had tunneled under them. This was not a good idea around blueberry bushes. Did you know blueberry roots provide complete profile of nutrients for voles? If they eat apple roots they need other types of roots to supplement. Please see Blueberry Hill.