Through
the winter of 2011-12 I did lots of reading and planning. I started
understanding a concept called key hole gardening so I restructured my beds to
take that shape. I also realized that I needed to hold off on any other
plantings and focus intently on building up the health of the soil. I also
started learning about making swales; which I am still looking for a good
resource on because I am missing something :).
I
left to visit my family just prior to this year’s leafing out of the plants;
when I came back three weeks later, I was pleasantly surprised. My peach and
apple came back, my grapes came back, and my three mystery trees were lush and
vibrant. Six of my eight comfrey plants I planted came up too. All of my
strawberries made appearances. Even though nearly all of my mail order plants
died and my cereal seeds never came up I still felt a great sense of
accomplishment that my important plants, important to me that is, all made it
through their first year and were happily establishing themselves.
This
year, I took a more proactive approach to my weeds rather than the love/hate
bipolar relationship I had before. I decided to trim them down as a general
ground cover so I would not have bare soil rather than letting them rule until I
had enough of them. This approach of
cutting them has been much more effective control than last year where I was
trying to hoe them up. It seems my cutting them back is keeping them in check
whereas hoeing seemed to encourage them. I am starting to understand a bit of
information about succession and thus I have noticed that the variety of my
weeds is slowly changing. The first year I had a ton of milkweed. The next year
I had milkweed mixed with grasses. This year I have more grass and fewer
milkweeds. I also have another weed which I am not sure what it is; but it
provided good mulch. Like I said, the weeds are more manageable this year. This
could be due to my perception shift of having them work for me rather than
trying to have a love/hate bipolar relationship with them. This could also be
due to maintenance on my part. It could be due to the land recognizing my
intentions. I could be due to succession. It could be due to all of that or
none of that, but the weeds are not as much of a problem.
I have
made sure that my main plants are well clear of weed invasions that could choke
them out. I am not too concerned with the weeds competing with the tree roots
because many weeds have deep taproots which go much deeper than the shallow
tree roots. I do know that the grasses may be competing, however, so my goal is
to eventually have the beds so well mulched and properly planted that they are
not a concern. I know they are nature’s attempt to start succession; however, I want to control the direction of
her succession in my garden and perhaps speed it up.
I
still irrigate my plants because I have not built any water storage into the
soil; like I said I am trying to figure out how to do that. I have noticed,
though, that my plants need less irrigation and when I irrigate the water does
not run off like it used to. This is not just my imagination. In the areas
where I put the leaves this last fall, the water just soaks in; the areas that
did not have the leaves the water quickly runs off. So I guess I am doing something
right; increasing the soil fertility by giving it dead plant materials is
helping increase the soil drainage. From what I understand then, I can deduce
that I have probably increased the earth worm population through my mulch which
in turn aerated the soil. During the winter I was also regularly adding my
extra water kefir grains and their juice; I am not sure if or how that helped,
but I was just following my intuition that perhaps they would add to the soil
microbial level.
A
surprise I was not expecting this year came from my trees: they set fruit. My one
year old apple and peach both set fruit and so did my three mystery trees. It was
hard for me to determine the identity of these mystery trees because I had the
paradigm that they came from the roots of the grove of trees behind my house;
it never entered my thought process that they came from the roots of some trees
that were on the property. Last summer I finally figured out that they bore a
strong resemblance to two trees I never took much notice of; two trees that I
thought were both apricots that had been forced to grow under the canopy of a
purple tree which I am told is a plum. I was also told that the two trees were
different: one was an apricot and the other was a different variety of plum. I was
not convinced because the two trees were nearly identical; or so I thought
until I got better at observing them. When those trees set fruit this year I
had my last piece of evidence to show me they were different and which one was
the parent of my trees: they belonged to the green leafed plum tree. Their
fruits were smooth and not fuzzy like the apricots (which had fruited before);
so I guess they are plums. Their parent or the purple tree they grow under have
never set fruit; this year both set a few fruits so this helped me in
identifying the mystery trees.
Now
that my observation skills have improved, I have set myself to assisting the
highly stressed green-leafed plum; I believe it sent out its runners because of
the stress. Unlike its partner the apricot, this tree had never reached the
light. The apricot fruited because it was in the light; this one never fruited because
no sun ever reached it. Whenever it sent out side branches it was immediately
pruned. I took it over this year and kept those side branches and pruned out
the top ones that were growing up into the purple-leafed plum in their vain
attempt to reach some sun. I also tied a particularly long branch I found over
to my arbor with the hope that if this branch was in the sun that it would
encourage others to follow it too. I did this only four days ago, but I could
swear that the tree looks fuller on the side and certain branches seem like
they are taking more effort to reach for the sun. Another interesting event is
that the apricot has found my arbor and has taken a fancy to it. Now my arbor
that was originally for grapes and kiwis will now host apricots and plums
growing over the top.
This
is an interesting observation for me to illustrate an important concept in the
canopy of the forest garden. From what I read, the trees should be placed in
such a way that some sunlight is still able to penetrate to the garden floor. The
edge of the forest, where it meets a field, is usually the most productive
place of the entire forest; the interior of the forest is the least productive.
While many plants do quite well in deep shade and many perennials grew up in forests
originally, they were always more productive where they received dappled sun.
The lesson that this tree showed me was that some sun is still important; I
will keep this in mind so I do not plant too densely. I think this may be
another reason that I have intuitively held off on getting more plants.
My
comfrey are other plants I want to discuss. The comfrey plant that is the
biggest is in dappled sun, but high shade. The next biggest one is near that
area too. Both of these plants are in my arbor area for the grapes and kiwis.
One grape is also growing in this dappled sun but once it grows up a bit it
will be in full sun; just the floor is quite shaded. Four other comfrey plants
emerged last week; two on each side of my peach, one by the apple, and the
fourth in an area I was going to make a bed but later decided against so it is
out in the middle of an area with no companions except the grasses. All four
are in full sun and they seem to be struggling. Frankly I am surprised that
they are still growing and preserving. I did not realize that they needed
partial shade to grow so the full sun is probably quite taxing. The ones under
the peach and the apple will eventually be shaded but their trees are still
very young and quite sparse. I am interested to see what nature will do with
these plants; if they will live or die or die back and come back when there is
more shade. Next to the comfrey under the peach are some onions growing so this
combination is probably greatly helping the fertility of the soil around the peach;
I wonder if this will be enough to keep the peach pest free. I heard from Paul
Wheaton in his latest podcast at http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/1777-162-berms-and-cherry-tree-intervention/
that fertile soil, which leads to healthy plants, is enough to keep most pests
away. Time will tell I guess. This little interaction along with how the
comfreys develop should be interesting to observe. In part four, I wish to espouse
some of my goals for this year and I also want to show you some pictures of
what my garden currently looks like and a picture of a scale, but not exact, drawing
I did showing the dimensions and the placements of my plants.
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