The orchard is now open

As I sit here typing this, I can remember few times being as tired and completely satisfied as I am now. This weekend we managed to plant 9 fruit, nut and berry trees, numerous edible bushes, two ornamental trees (for fun), and a handful of edible herbs. It's a food forest in 24 hours or less!

The past two years I've measured, sketched, erased and re-sketched the food forest of my dreams. The plans are the result of many influences, including the Permaculture class I took last year taught by Toby Hemenway, and numerous books including Gaia's Garden by Toby, How to Make a Food Forest by Patrick Whitefield and the Raintree Nursery catalog and their helpful staff.

You may remember the story of our driveway removal project from last year. After the removal of 32 tons of concrete, we had finally exposed 1500 sq. feet of "dirt". Not the kind of dirt you could plant in, but dirt nonetheless. From there, we set to work building boxes, hauling in soil, and building up the area in preparation for our food forest. Today, we're finally seeing the plan come to life with the installation of cherries, apples, pears, almonds, apricots, peaches, figs, currants, hops, mulberries, kiwi, blueberries, tea and various other plants I'm probably forgetting to mention. In 3-5 years time, our effort will being paying off with bountiful harvests.

Here are a few photos. It's hard to get a good picture since most of the plants are still dormant. I'll be uploading more pictures as they come out of dormancy.

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

The project is far from complete. This year, we're under planting our orchard with many annual vegetables because we lack the space to put them elsewhere. Starting next year, the portager, which I'm building on the other half of the land salvaged from the driveway should be finished which will allow us to add many more understory bushes and ground covers in the orchard.

Enjoy ~

Raised Orchard

We'll soon be receiving the fruit trees we ordered this winter for our orchard. To prepare, I went out a couple of weekend ago to start preparing the holes, and to my disappointment, the ground was absolutely saturated with water. I was reminded that we live in an area with very little perk (think wetland). The only way to fix this issue on our property is to build raised planting areas. With a little more rock (5 tons to be exact) and some cedar boxes, we're ready to plant the six dwarf fruit trees we'll be receiving this year.

Before Photo:

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

After Photo:

From The Making of a Craftsman Home

2010 garden planning

I've got one thing on my mind in the dead of winter, and that's the upcoming growing season! After two years of garden planning, hauling dirt, removing concrete, etc., I can start to get serious about planting the remaining trees and getting the production garden ready. I've spent the past two months flipping through my Raintree Nursery catalog, and have chosen a few select edible and ornamental varieties to plant next year.

• Olympia Blueberry: Small antioxidant packed blueberries.
  
• Bluecrop Blueberry: A larger blueberry. More productive, but less antioxidants.
  
• Ananasnaja Kiwi: Nothing beats fresh kiwi fruit picked directly from the vine. I ordered three plants in total, one male, and two females.
  
• Asian Pear: This particular dwarf pear tree contains four Asian pear varieties.
  
• Fig (Madeleine Des Duex Saisons): Figs do exceedingly well in the Pacific Northwest, and are an extremely attractive and productive fruit tree.
  
• Hops: Both golden and tettnang hops for interest, and for beer making in the future.
  
• Russian Tea: A small bush, reaching 2-3 feet in height. The leaves are picked and used to make a black tea. This one is entirely for fun!
  
• Kwanzan Flowering Cherry: This will work perfectly in my Japanese inspired Pacific Northwest landscape design. The flowering cherry will add color and interest during the early spring months of the year.
  
• Paper Bark Maple: I went back and forth on this decision, but I've decided to plant a Paperbark maple alongside the pond and waterfall as a focal point. This maple is very slow growing and remains small to medium size with pruning.
• Red and Black Currant: Why not. I know nothing about Currants, but they were thrown into my order for free.
  

My original thinking was to plant all of the fruit trees in the area where we tore out our driveway, but I have since changed the plan. Instead of planting all the fruit trees in one area, I have now decided to scatter them around more throughout the landscape. By doing this, I've reserved more room on the south side of the house for sun loving production berries and vegetables.

A friend of mine introduced me to a permaculture themed website recently that's had a huge affect on my garden plan. I strongly recommend a visit to PathToFreedom.com if you're planning an edible food production garden.

Next up on the list is to determine what vegetable varieties to grow next year and to place a seed order. For Northwest gardeners, I strongly recommend Territorial Seed Company, which selects varieties compatible with our cool climate. I've been ordering from Territorial for 4+ years now, and have had an excellent experience. I'll be keeping my order small this year, since we've got a large number of house projects planned for 2010, so we'll have our hands plenty full.

Are you planning your gardening for the upcoming year? Post a comments, and share your spring time dreams.

From concrete to green strip

Building a green strip down the south-side of our house in place of the existing driveway has been a huge project in the making. First step was to remove approximately 1500 sq. feet of concrete (32 tons total), followed by weeks of raking up rocks and broken concrete bits. I knew going into this project that it would be a huge job, but I think we still under estimated the effort involved. As with all large projects, this one is paying off big in personal satisfaction.

This weekend was one of the final steps in the transformation: hauling in fresh top soil that will eventually become the substrate for the vegetable garden and orchard. There is still a lot of preparation before the project is complete, but it's coming together nicely. We're racing against mother nature to try and finish this project before the rains start falling and the fall/winter season begins pouring on us. I'm looking forward to the calm months ahead.

The goal is to have a small scale edible garden in place by spring 2010. We're closing in quickly on successfully reaching our goal.

From 2009 Landscape