Food Forest

I walked up onto the hill a few days ago and just stood there, looking down over my garden. I love this time of year, when everything is fighting to live again.

I sometimes wish I had an even higher place, where I could see the hill as well--that's going to be my food forest.

The "forest" was once a very steep hill. The neighbor behind us had a child in a wheelchair so when he built his fence he built it at the top of the steep hill rather than the bottom.

A few years ago I was in the difficult position of needing to relocate my herb garden, and the only place available was this hot, dry area where nothing grew. Not even weeds. It's straight sand, there was no water in place, wind blasted through there and blew away anything that did manage to grow.

Needless to say, the herb garden didn't do well. Rue, tarragon and feverfew thrived. Everything else died.

Then I made a discovery. That area is consistently 10 to 15 degrees hotter than the rest of the yard, even during the winter. The snow up there melted off a full month ahead.

Essentially I have a solid 1 planting zone jump, IF I can keep the wind from blowing the heat away during the winter, and IF I can control the heat during the summer. Not many plants can handle a range of 120 to -10 degrees fahrenheit.

Since the space is about 3 meters by 10, I decided that three dwarf fruit trees would be sufficient for the canopy layer. Eventually that will be one apricot and two cherries, which will help with transpiration and create shade, thus bringing the temperature down to a manageable level during the summer. By putting up a vine trellis along the east end the wind should be cut down summer and winter. So that takes care of two problems.

The other was the soil. It's almost straight sand, in spite of assertions that compost has been put up there. A few pounds of composted steer manure and a few buckets of garden soil are not sufficient. So last year I put in mulch. I buried the whole area in grass and leaves. I also spot-treated with whey when the plants appeared to be struggling. That should introduce the beneficial bacteria needed to actually build soil rather than the whole thing being just a few inches of leaves over dead sand.

I've been rewarded this year by everything coming back strong--even some I thought had died last summer! The next step will be introducing fungus. I found a few mushrooms up there last year, which I've never seen before, and this year the soil is thick with worms. Progress, right?

Transitions

I did a batch of pickles yesterday, with less than a week's worth of cucumbers, including the "siamese" cucumber. Two of them grew together.

During the summer I eat a lot of fresh food. Cucumbers, zuccinni, tomatoes, onions, beets, fruit from the trees, carrots, potatoes. My herb garden is going crazy so I have fresh basil and mint, sage and thyme.

I think the hardest part of summer is the transition from "fresh" to "winter" in terms of diet. For close to six months I'm eating real food, not something that's been processed to death for the sake of profit.

There is no comparison between a potato right out of the ground and one of those gray things they sell as potatoes in the supermarket. Fresh potatoes eaten with butter--they need nothing else.

Then suddenly it's gone, and I can feel the difference. What they call "produce" in the stores is a pale shadow of the real thing, short on vitamins and minerals, grown on chemical fertilizer in played-out soil that's been used and reused for years.

It's no wonder that people are always sick during the winter. I've tried growing plants inside during the winter, but it never works. I'll keep trying because I want fresh during the winter, too.