Every worthy endeavor necessitates research, so I've dedicated myself to the book Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway--which I recommend heartily. Over the last two weeks, I've been evaluating the resources available to us and developing a conceptual design for our food forest. While searching out potential resources on site was not as much fun as imagining what will eventually be planted where, I followed Hemenway's advice to begin with observation and cataloging resources. Wow, the resulting list of resources is not only surprising, but encouraging. Some of these resources I know exactly how to leverage in the food forest; others leave me wondering why I have them and how I can use them. A few have already been put to use as you can see from the before and after pictures below.
The top picture shows how two brush piles have been put to use. These resources did not have to be moved far, and the mounds of brush and logs (shown in the bottom photo) were hiding a marvelous trove of mulch and compost--enough, in fact, to round out a two-foot berm around the boys' play area and to fill a separate nearby planting bed outlined with the leftover logs. The t-posts are part of the supports for soon-to-be planted muscadines, and the berm, which is a hugelkultur planting site thanks to a suggestion from a fellow Steemian, will be seeded with hyssop, borage, nasturitums, yarrow, and dill.
Hemenway also recommends by starting with a map. My initial map is not impressive, and I was disappointed to find Google maps does not include topographical data. Thus, my map is a simple sketch of a birds-eye perspective of our yard with its current paths, one additional path, current fence lines, major zones, many of its existing plants, the major plants we intend to add over the next 12-15 months, and the re-location of the pond. An image of my map will be included in the next post. For now, I'm still trying to decide how to use all of these resources.
Resources:
- 9 volunteer mulberry trees
- Kieffer pear
- Peach sapling dug from around my father's best peach tree
- Golden delicious apple
- 8 mature oak trees
- Heaps and heaps of brick (and every time we start digging, we find more bricks)
- About 20 square feet of old pond liner
- 4 short wooden posts
- 7 tall fence posts
- 9 tall fence posts already set in the ground with rotting panels between them
- About 400 linear feet of unused edging (a mix of plastic, composite, and metal)
- Hundreds of irises that need to be thinned or relocated
- 2 low fences with nothing planted on them
- My grandmother's rather large cast iron sink
- 13 tall metal t-posts
- 100 feet of 4' welded wire fencing
- 100 feet of 3' welded wire fencing
- 2 corrugated metal roofing panels
- 2 very large sheets of glass
- 2 very old windows with glass intact
- 200 cubic feet of mostly composted leaf litter (this has apparently been piling up for the last 20 years or so in the densely shaded area on the unused and forgotten side of the garage)
- As yet uncatalogued posts and building materials peeking through the composted leaf litter
- Several tomato cages
- Iron headboard and footboard from an antique bed
- Logs! Lots of logs from our eight mature oak trees as they have lost branches over the last few years
- Brush!
- Enormous amount of mulch hidden under the brush
- Many sturdy, long branches too thick for the mulcher (most of them elm or pear)
- 2 square bales of straw
- 1 bale of timothy hay
- 2 wooden palettes
- Countless wine bottles
- Bee house
- Bee hive inherited from a friend who was moving and had never put it together
- 2 old cruiser bicycles
- 13 flagstone pavers
- 55 curved retaining wall stones
- Unearthed concrete cap (found while digging a pond) re-purposed as a bench
- 3 tripods made from pear branches and old garden tools
- Many volunteer acacia (I think)
- About 40 feet of 4' antique wire fencing
- 3'x6' panel I built last summer from thick branches intending to use as a gate until I realized how heavy the finished project is
- Wooden ladder from play fort
- Curved top of old wooden arbor
- Insect hotel made from an old rabbit hutch
- Volunteer mimosa sapling (I think)
- Dead pine tree (it's about 20 feet tall)
- Bat house
- 4 bird feeders
- 2 blackberry plants
- countless perennials and evergreens like sage, various salvias, lemon balm, roses, lavender, and rosemary
- 7 decorative metal panels from an old gazebo
- Pump from the old pond
- Wall of wooden posts and wire fencing and old window frames with roses growing across it
- Birds
- Toads
- Lizards
- Volunteer borage
- Ashes from the fire pit and chimnea
- Outdoor seating for 21
- Swing set with attached play fort
- Metal arbor
- The usual garden tools
- Electric mulcher
- Electric chainsaw
- 5 1'x10' deck boards
- Access to three metal or plastic barrels
- Firewood
- Old metal wheelbarrow bucket
- At least 50 volunteer elm saplings (alas, our greatest gardening challenge!)
- Numerous pots of various sizes and materials
- 18 tulip bulbs
- Impressive variety of vegetable and flower seeds
- 7 mature hackberry trees (though I could be misidentifying these; if anyone has hackberry expertise, please share it)
- A neighbor who, at long last, has had enough of the dilapidated "privacy" fence between our properties and is now very generously willing to replace it