Breaking ground

We have finally started!! I don't remember when I first heard of forest gardening, but I have wanted to plant one of my own ever since. Forest gardens are based on organic and permaculture principles. Basically, you want your garden to work just as well as nature does. Nature grows up, and builds layers of canopy and mosaics of different species. Traditional farming does not work this way- crops are susceptible to disease, drought and pests in ways nature is not, because crops are grown in ways that nature does not grow things (in rows, in monocultures, and with synthetic fertilizers). Forest gardens take time and initial investment, but over time they require less and less maintenance. Just as natural forests provided food for humans for thousands of years before agriculture was invented, your forest garden will provide an abundance for you that rivals traditional organic farming methods.

To learn more about the future of food, energy issues, and forest gardens, watch this documentary: A Farm for the Future.

With the help of Bountiful Backyards we started Thursday, September 17th.

Here are a couple photos of what the area looks like now. It is probably about 2 acres:





And here is what it will look like eventually, according to Bountiful Backyard's plans:



There are little yellows flags all over the field, representing different trees:



First we had to sharpen our tools. This pick-axe is about 40 years old. Note the lack of safety gear...



Day One:

Three of their people and two of our people dug two swales and a vegetable bed by hand (we used pick axes, shovels, hoes, and rakes). It took 5 hours! A swale is a ditch that runs across a slope. It slows and collects water as it runs perpendicular to the swale and down the slope. The swales helps the soil collect and store water. Trees are planted along the swale so they can be self-watered.

The vegetable beds were dug using a method called "double-digging". First we scraped off the grass where the bed was going in. Then we covered the whole area in a layer of the top soil we bought. We dug one shovel's-length down in one section of the bed, placing that dirt in a wheelbarrow. Then we moved the dirt from an adjacent section into that hole. We continued this pattern all the way down the bed, until we put hole number one's dirt into the last hole, from the wheelbarrow. Confusing, I know! This mixes all the dirt really well while also aerating the soil, making it easier for our plants to grow.

Here is a photo of the vegetable bed we double-dug. It looks so dry because of the lack of rain:



Here is a photo of a swale and my dad:



We also saw a pretty black rat snake, but I didn't get his picture. We called him a good omen. I saw dozens of large brown spiders too. I think they were funnel web spiders because I saw tornado-looking spider webs in the grass before we mowed.

Day Two:

My husband and I are joined by my father. No Bountiful Backyard workers today. First we got all of the cut grass into what will be compost piles. Then my husband used a weed-whacker to mark where the next swale must be dug, and where the holes will be dug for trees. We use my dad's Kubota tractor and attachments to speed up the job that took 5 hours by hand the day before. The front loader was very useful for hauling hay around. My dad also used the front loader to scrape away all the grass where the vegetable beds are going. Then we hooked up the post-hole-digger and made a series of holes that we shaped with hand tools, like the pick axes. It's amazing how much time it takes to do simple tasks when finicky machinery and large-scale things are involved. But it certainly takes much more time to do by hand.

Well, we spent most of our time trying to dismantle the old garden bed, as seen in the photo bellow. The metal posts were totally stuck in the ground, they almost tipped the tractor when we tried to use a chain to pull them up:



Here is a photo of the swale being dug by the post-hole-digger. My husband is driving:





Here is me on the tractor, moving hay into piles:



Here is a photo of what it looked like after we used the front loader to scrape the ground (we will double-dig this tomorrow):



We also started to dig the holes for the five trees that have been delivered already (3 different varieties of figs, 2 asian pears).

This is the first time I have ever looked forward to hard labor!! Can't wait until tomorrow...

-Giovanna