Permaculture Food Forest

[canadaseed]

Hey Farm,

I'm stating a food forest next spring and I'm gonna start amending the soil this year. I can't exactly bring in lots of new soil it's not a very accessible area. I can bring in some tho... mostly light weight stuff. Moss and bags of fertilizers or lime or similar.

the area is roughly 20ft by 15ft. but that's just he first spot i'm doing a few. growing veggies fruit herbs and corn. also planting fruit trees and inoculating decaying tree stumps with edible mushroom mycelium. Can i till the soil and add in lets says worm castings and other fertilizer. Is there a mix that might be a good all-purpose mix for foods. I've never really done treated outdoor soil in larger area, you guys know of any good organic nutes??

 

[oZora]

saw a good doco on this called establishing a food forest the permacultur way...mite be able to download it. it's good man, u should defs check it out.

 

[Seamaiden]

Hey Farm,

I'm stating a food forest next spring and I'm gonna start amending the soil this year. I can't exactly bring in lots of new soil it's not a very accessible area. I can bring in some tho... mostly light weight stuff. Moss and bags of fertilizers or lime or similar.

the area is roughly 20ft by 15ft. but that's just he first spot i'm doing a few. growing veggies fruit herbs and corn. also planting fruit trees and inoculating decaying tree stumps with edible mushroom mycelium. Can i till the soil and add in lets says worm castings and other fertilizer. Is there a mix that might be a good all-purpose mix for foods. I've never really done treated outdoor soil in larger area, you guys know of any good organic nutes??

Have you had the soil tested, so that you're not just throwing stuff in without really knowing what's going on? What do you know about cover cropping/green manuring? Do you know how to use weeds? What about also planting things that will do well in your native soil and conditions to start?

 

[canadaseed]

You go as simple as a lasagna layering type idea.. Bring out your compost put in on the ground where you wish to amend. Cover that with leaves or hay or coffee grounds.. and keep on adding layers of stuff. If you want to get fancy you could sprinkly some alfalfa meal, composted manure, etc... but its up to you. I have had good luck alternating between kitchen left overs, leaf, coffee grounds and earth worm castings (vermicompost)... Good Luck and keep us posted!

Thx for the info man... i'm heading over there today to start digging. I live close to an old growth forest were i can gather leafs of all different stages of decay. There was also a bad fire about 100 years ago that wiped out the village. I couldn't believe what i found today!!! tones of ash charcoal still there... 100 years later. some of the charcoal chunks have sphagnum and mycelium growing threw. Perfect i'll do exactly this with the compost and leafs layers and i have lots of organic coffee grounds.

 

[canadaseed]

saw a good doco on this called establishing a food forest the permacultur way...mite be able to download it. it's good man, u should defs check it out.

I'll give it a watch later for sure!!

 

[canadaseed]

Have you had the soil tested, so that you're not just throwing stuff in without really knowing what's going on? What do you know about cover cropping/green manuring? Do you know how to use weeds? What about also planting things that will do well in your native soil and conditions to start?

I haven't had the soil tested... I'm gonna do that actually now that i think of it theres a busy road not far and also a highway. Unitl i just googled the term'cover cropping' i hadn't really been familiar with it. A lot of the concepts i've been learning are along those lines but it's nice to have a name for what the practice is called so i can search it.. thx sea. Don't know how to use weeds gonna look that up.. as far as planting native plants, some will be others not. I'll post a short list of what i plant to grow. Most will be started indoors to ensure good vegetative growth in the outdoors... the leafys will start outside same with root vegies. I'll plant some cane fruit this year if i can. corn tomatoes potatoes carrots peppers (pear plum apple cherry) trees. I'll post the exact list with strains for each plant. Also all the seeds are non-gmo, non-hybrid (most), organic, open-pollinated non irradiated.

 

[Seamaiden]

Get to the Acres, USA site, and also look for... I think it's Permaculture Voices or something like that, they'll have a ton of excellent resources for you. EG, learning how to hugelkulture.

 

[canadaseed]

thx sea!! i'll note those down and check them out. i just got back from my spot and i had a really great experience there today. The full moon in the sky or something has just given today the most awesome feeling. And tomorrow is gonna be really great too i'll get to that in a min tho.
I went to do some more digging and land clearing and also plant a blueberry bush. So as i'm digging i find one area i different soil than everywhere else. So i curiously dug that area and i found some really great fossils. by the looks of it may be quiet old.
sorry for terrible pics. that's just one of many rocks with loaded with fossils cool find for the day :)

The ball is rolling and i've planted one blueberry bush so far. I have a peach tree and one more blueberry to plant this season. I'm so lucky to live in an area where beautiful wild raspberries grow. This year i found acres of wild raspberries.

Permaculture garden:

what it looks like so far.

Blueberry Vaccinium corymbosum

These are pics from plants that are already growing around my town.

Black Raspberry my favorite, amazing tart flavor.

acres of field like this everywhere around where i live.

wild berries about 2-3 days picking.

Just found these last week.. hoping for another flush it just rained for 2 days here.

I found out the area i live in had a fire about 100 years ago.. it literally wiped out the whole village and they had to rebuild. In the forest where i forage these mushrooms is the foundation to the buildings from that time... I've found charcoal still on the ground it's amazing sends chills up my spine when i think wow these folks had no warning a fire just came like that and they left with the shirts on their backs. I've found all sorts of household items in the ground toothbrushes shoes vicks vapur rub bottle. their belongings left behind. it's creepy. But hey all this makes for the extremely fertile land around here and i thank the creator for offering me this land to be part of.


On a side note, through power of manifestation I suppose is the only thing I can call it. Um I posted an ad on one of those craigslist type sites looking for farm land to rent. and just to cut to the chase tomorrow i'm meeting with a farmer to discussing using 5 acres of his land for berry farming. So i'm very excited.

All the best farm,
Love.

Bless.

 

[canadaseed]

@Andy Genesis I went with your suggestion of using the leafs and layering. There's a lot more in there than it looks. Because it's fall, it was perfects i just walked around and picked up fallen leafs!!

 

[Rosenberg]

Great thread, cool find with the fossils. Those berries look so good! Love picking wild berries. Oyster mushrooms on the log?

 

[canadaseed]

thx @Rosenberg they were delish!! i also really enjoy being out in the bush and picking berries calms the nervs. Yep those are oyster, polar white to be specific. Also found lion's mane today and had it for super!

 

[canadaseed]

planted this Anjou Pear tree.. on Tuesday.

 

[canadaseed]

this is the size of the berries.. pretty big for wild.

 

[oZora]

yum wild berries are the best! and those ones are big!!

 

[Gandalfalfa]

You should plant out some other psychoactive and medicinal plants too @canadaseed. :)

 

[canadaseed]

Thx @oZora they definitely are.. always fun to go pick and then eat..!!

@Gandalfalfa I hadn't even thought of that but thx for pointing it out! That idea is actually genius lol.. i wonder if i could make outdoor magic mushroom beds?? I should grow some herbs and tea herbs too i suppose.

 

[canadaseed]

Hey farm...

I'm gonna be throwing in some new trees into the ground before frost sets in...

I have a Mutsu apple tree that will be planted and here's something awesome, i will be grafting a cutting from this apple:

The others are plum and mulberry... also some fall bearing raspberries. got another pear too. fun times in this forest garden lol. Did some more work the other day just removed the sod. I also planted a winter hardy blueberry bush the other day

 

[Seamaiden]

Did I already suggest Gaia's Garden for you? It's another good basic book for permaculturists.

 

[canadaseed]

thx sea omg i just saw the spiral herb garden that is soo amazing.. im always so busy but i will get read this book hopefully my library can get a copy... wow amazing stuff in there...

 

[Seamaiden]

It's an inexpensive book compared to the two Food Forest volumes (you'll drop a couple hundy on those!), and while much of the actual permaculture work that's been documented has been done down under, all the concepts can be used elsewhere.