Kimberly and I wanted to live somewhere that had:
In January, 2010, we found it: a 4 acre, half-cleared, half-wild site with two storage sheds and a 36-year-old trailer house still in good condition. We moved in at the end of February.
We began observing and experimenting at once. We planted a small test garden, turned a weedy driveway patch into a kitchen garden, and, as the design matured, installed 3,100 square feet of sheet mulch beds on contour.(I spent forever designing, and I'm still not done.)
We use hand tools for everything, even the mowing. This keeps us in touch with all the little critters (mainly spiders) that a power mower would simply grind up. We are also letting things go in many places this year to see what comes up.
Here's a sketch of the site from my notebook. The pond near the bottom is actually off the property, though I didn't know it when I drew this picture.
When you visit, you'll find log seats in the upper pasture. These are from the dead pine (marked “13” at top) that we cut down late September. We have since learned of a place nearby where we may be able to have timber milled into lumber.
Kimberly made the circles of tree trimmings. We'll fill these in with mulch beds for understory plants next year.
We used the makeshift fenced garden near the shed to test a bunch of different plants and growing techniques.
It took me half an hour to build and calibrate an A-frame. That's the device I used to lay out the garden beds on contour.
I buried thick branches in several of the lower pasture beds. These act as a sponge, storing several times their weight in water to buffer both flood and drought (we had a taste of both this summer). This technique is called Hugelkultur.
The fishing line fence in the lower pasture works well against deer. We've seen bunches of them graze right up to the fence, only to cringe and scatter when pie pans jangled as they touched the line. We also put down mesh over hoops in places to discourage rabbits.
All the beds uphill from the house (and some of the others) are sheet mulched. We just mowed close to the soil, put down cardboard sheets, and put clover-rich clippings from the whole yard down on top of them. With continuous mulching, it should rot down and be ready to plant by Spring (this is based on our test garden, prior work in similar soils, and the works of Stout, Fukuoka and Hazelip).
We start most plants in flats (you'll see some in the test garden West of the house), and transplant to the beds. This time-consuming practice makes financial sense at retail prices such as farmer's markets and CSAs. It also makes ecological and energy sense. By summer 2012, the beds will be packed with a wide variety of vegetables planted in small patches.
I'm pretty sure that within ten years, this site could feed, shelter and financially support up to ten people indefinitely. That would be the same population density as Los Angeles, but with all the plantings, it won't feel crowded. If we succeed, we will have a template to help reduce American consumption and waste to a sustainable 2% of present levels, leaving 95% of the country wild. This is an important and necessary change because human activity is wiping out species at over a thousand times the natural extinction rate (mainly due to habitat loss).
Here's a sketch of the site as I picture it in 2020. Hedgerows and cane fruit pergolas enclose sloping woodlands, thickets and meadows. The hedges are thick enough to repel deer, and their inner borders include stone fruit grown from seed (we'll propagate the good ones into the orchard).
In the top left, you'll see the cob cottage we plan to start building in 2011. Cob is a British word for gob of mud, sand and straw. There are more than 10,000 cob houses in Great Britain, some of which are more than 500 years old. Cob is non-toxic, biodegradable, and found almost everywhere.
The cottage feeds a nearby pond through roof catchment and household greywater cleansed through a reed bed. The pond reflects winter morning sunlight into the house for maximum solar gain, and waters the annual beds nearby. Beneath the large trees that came with the yard, we have an understory of edible shrubs and herbs to take advantage of the free leaf mulch. Orchard trees line the long driveway.
The trailer home is gone, with the non-toxic parts (e.g. windows minus vinyl sills) re-purposed in the cob duplex. The sheds are now cob. The cob houses are passive solar, with rocket masonry stove backup heat.
The pergolas along the middle fence lines are built from coppice wood and tree trimmings. Cane fruit grows up opposite sides of it on alternate years.
In the lower pasture, orchards and berry thickets surround a small pond, and a big pond can be used to flood a grain meadow for a few weeks each year to beat back weeds. Citrus grows in the mild microclimate of the hillside just North of the pond. The orchard to the South incorporates aesthetic elements of flow, sanctuary and prospect. As with all areas of the garden, it includes plantings for self-fertility and multiple yields.
We have much to learn to realize this vision. I like to plan and talk. Kimberly likes to read and do. It's a good combination. We've changed the landscape a lot in just seven months, mostly with annual beds. With a few years of perennial plantings, it should produce abundantly. By then, it may even be pretty. Check it out, and decide for yourself.