Orchard thoughts
I spend a lot of time dreaming about how I’d like to set up the new farm. I ran across this sketch and fell in love with the idea of planting the orchard on this order.
I’d love to start with Pecan trees, under storied by various fruit trees, then berry bushes and finally comfrey, as it’s fantastic to shade the roots and provide compost to the plantings. Comfrey is an amazing plant with deep tap roots that pulls up minerals to its leaves, which can then be used for compost.
I told Jim I would like to choose one of the pasture areas, clean it up into a rectangular shape, then plant these groupings in say, eight squares. I’d fence off each square to protect them from deer, and then join all the squares with fence or gates, creating wide paths of pasture between the plantings.
In those I’d run chickens, or possibly a pig or two. They could clean up the orchard windfalls and keep the bugs under control.
Jim and I took a bike ride up on the levee yesterday, and we did end up renting a different RV spot, and plan to move the RV over to the new campground on Friday, and leave it there for a month. They may or may not renew Jim’s contract down here, but RV spots are hard to get and we didn’t want to get stuck at this park just in case.
I hope you will like the new RV spot better than the one you have. I know you have not been pleased with the you are now at. The garden looks fabulous! The way things grow in Arkansas within 10 years you would see your dream coming true.
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Well the new campground is still just a “work park”, and not a whole lot nicer, but it has several features in its favor. Concrete pads to park on, no kids or dogs allowed, and it’s only 15 minutes from the plant instead of 30. We may never actually stay there if Jim’s contract isn’t renewed, but the RV will be parked there anyway for at least a month. We’ll come back down for it later.
Yes trees do grow amazingly fast in Arkansas! So fast, I think we’ll skip the dwarf fruit trees this time and plant semi dwarves instead. Our dwarf trees grew so fast at the house that they tend to be top heavy without a strong root system.
CJ
thanks for the reminder about comfrey. I’m going to try some. We have a pecan orchard and the trees surround the house on three sides. FYI – It is very common here in southern NM where there is so much pecan production that one can get mature, producing trees “plugged in” vis use of a spade truck. They have been pruned back fairly hard for the transport but by the next season you are into light production and almost full production by the second year. We have moved and replaced trees using a spade truck and it is remarkable how well they do.
The rest of the under plantings look very interesting. Did you find this on the web or is it from a book. I would like to read more.
Okay Georgia, you’ve sparked my interest! I’ve never heard of a spade truck but will have to look that up! I would love to start more mature trees than bare root stock to get a nice jump start.
I’m afraid I ran across the sketch on Facebook, I don’t know what book or website it’s from, but most books dealing with permaculture (which fascinates me) will talk about under story planting and its benefits.
Here’s a video of a pecan tree being re-set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDcsmEraVKY
check it out.
Thank you Georgia! Holy cow, I didn’t know such equipment existed! We just use a backhoe, but that is awesome!
Really? No dogs? I thought you still had one, or two.
Really? No kids? Isn’t that where yours and Jim’s hearts are – being kids and riding bikes?
Okay now, go ahead and kick me – you can cause you’re a kid at heart and I can’t even kick you back cause I’m old….
I’m sitting here ROFLMAO
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No, Tanzer passed on last year and we had to put Bellen down this summer. We are definitely kids at heart, especially Jim, but I promise I won’t kick you!
Hmmm….really like your ideas. Particularly about running chickens in the paths. I haven’t had a lot of luck with fruit trees. I planted dwarf but wonder if semi dwarf would be better. The tops always blow out of them here.
Congratulations on the new park. Closer is always better if Jim is still working nights.
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Mary recently posted…Sarah’s Star
It’s fun to think about all the different ways we could set things up Mary! I think we’re done with dwarf trees too, we have great luck with some but not others, and I think it’s because they grow top heavy faster than the root system can develop.