Hello and Happy Summer Solstice as we celebrate this longest day in the light’s great arch across the sky. As the summer comes into full swing, EEC Forest Stewardship takes a look at how things are growing. Reflecting on some of the permaculture principals used in living closer to space and place, we take a visual tour of the area right around the main dwelling areas to see how a decade of cultivation and regeneration are coming into their own. Below is an outline of the area I consider Zone 1. It’s a lot more vast than a typical plan, but the circles within are sub zones of focus outlined in more detail as we delve in. The circles would open out more concentrically from the tenant kitchen center point if property lines did not create boundaries of limitation.
The red circle surrounds a building in daily use. People will walk by and see the area, easily stepping in to tend. These areas are more easily maintained and utilized, so food and medicine plants, as well as the more sensitive species you need to keep an eye on for success, thrive. At the center of this circle is access to potable water, both in the building and outside in a spigot.
Water is life, and our well house is not far below right on this initial overview. The well fills that blue water pillow in upper right, and offers irrigation throughout this landscape as needed, supporting survival of all. This south facing area with a brilliant sun catch off the wall of the structure, provides a heated microclimate where the most successful frost peach has really come into it’s own. As a self pollinating variety, it puts on fruit beautifully, with enough water and room to espalier across a hot surface, which helps prevent peach leaf curl. Some good mulching in the bed below has encouraged kitchen sage and oregano to burst with enthusiasm, making this corner of the garden a bustling pollination station throughout the growing season and feed us with fruit and herbs. Native flowing red currant flank the other corner of the building, offering shade, which dramatically reduces the interior temperatures in summer. In fact, before these plants took root in the kitchen garden, the fridge within died during a particularly hot summer of 90s in the farm’s second season, 2015. Now the microclimate gains a summer coat of shade leaves, which drop in winter to let in the light, helping to heat the structure with passive solar. If we as a species could think more like this with our design, there would be abundance and resiliency all around.
This lush space is now shading the building and soaking up southern exposure to maximize health and production. In the adjacent bed further south, aronia, lemon balm, mug-wort, chervil, and tansy are taking root. I’ve been trying to establish blue elderberry for a few years, with no success. It takes a certain soil and setup which I have dialed in with luck in some parts of the land but not others. The aronia is thriving anywhere I plant it- which is a nice consolation, as it too is a great anti-viral immune support medicinal plant to have. This plant is often used as a cash crop, and in future, could be a smart revenue source for the farm. Propagation from our mother plants will ensure the spread and growth of this crop for years to come.
Taking a step back from the tenant kitchen garden, we see other projects which have been put on the back burner until more space is needed for cultivation. These raised beds have never been fully realized, both because of a lack of need- I’ve got more than enough growing on here, but also the amount of fill needed to fully realize these beds is far from ready for cultivation. It’s not a bother, but does make for a strange sight on the landscape, with the pillars holding back the metal walls starting to bow forward without the dead-men bent t-post tie downs planned in the original design. This project was always more work than I liked, to bury the dead men tones of earth would have to be moved and set, which was partially completed when we had large machines on sight moving fill, but other than a few trips of barn clean out in the truck, the beds remain incomplete. But they do offer grazing space fot the sheep, and pollination for the bees- even if the flowers are blackberry. The terraces also help hold the bank below the building, slowing erosion and offering rooted stability when plants establish. In future, a shrub step will most likely be the plan, to help set the hillside and offer shade and good mixed browsing for the animals. Every plan on this landscape evolves as needs change. It’s good to be flexible and not get too caught up in original hopes. When the plans were initially laid out, there was a thought that eight people would be living here and cultivating the land together. Until there is true need for such cooperation and work together in this area to survive. For now, the prep work is there, and when many hands make light work, we’ll pick up where we left off and continue the agricultural expansion. A passive drip system with well established mulch and compost won’t take long when the space is needed.
Learning to work within my own limitations is a journey in progress. Passive systems are key, even in zone one areas that are tended frequently by one person. It’s not a chore as long as the watering is passive and mulch keeps weeding to a minimum. The raised bed area is still great grazing space, nothing goes to waste, and I have less to maintain. It’s not typical for our current society to think less is more, but we should be embracing this concept to help reduce consumption. The land can expand to embrace our need for more food when it is asked for. I’ll plant medicine and fruit there when there’s an opportunity, and plan to let go of the veggie gardens in that space for now. Sometimes plans on paper look great, but the physical work to implement them on the landscape becomes impractical. Looking at the space as a whole, the main beds are in use next to the building, and that is manageable tending for that space. Tenants could expand and plant more if they wish, and in the past some tenants have used the upper bed for personal growing, so it’s there when needed.
Taking another step back into the next circle (green) from the overhead map, the main house and kitchen gardens come into view, along with firewood storage, pastures, and the towering wild hedge which lines our north boarder on the property. This area is the furthest irrigation watering I do from the house, in 30-45 min cycles, the sprinkler moves around the garden while I weed in the wake of watering. It’s a fun summer cycle that takes a couple of days a week to fully maintain, but that’s minimal to keep a growing patch near the house alive and well. Since I’m not a real gardener- preferring the livestock cycles and hedge setting edges of the land to row cropping or perpetuating high need cultivars. Much of the early plantings when I first moved here ten years ago are beginning to set and survive on their own, and that’s the kind of gardening I like to set myself up for. Less watering, more mulch, chop and drop, and graze down rotation. Zone one areas are usually where all the veggie patches and daily tasks are piled so you don’t have to go far to check up on things. It’s smart planning, as i’ve seen so many people choose to put gardens far from the house and then never end up flourishing because going out there is a task, and the back and forth becomes a chore, not a joy. Step out your front door and make the garden right there so you spend time in it. From the covered front porch I can see all the important gorwings on and tend without much thought. Compost, watering, weeding, and seeding happen within 20 feet of the front door and kitchen. It makes an afternoon of porch time with friends while watering possible, and encourages use of the growing space for in use plants like salad greens, peas, asparagus, garlic, camas, grapes, currents, crab apple, and much more thrive in the richest soil and best kept beds. By late summer, the ring of rich, dark green around the house is much easier to see.
I’ve had a greenhouse setup in this outer ring in the past, and it was ok, but more work than I wanted with opening and closing, watering even more, and the winter snow threatening to collapse the whole build. I’m not really craving the hot weather crops you use a greenhouse for in most cases. I’ve found organic grower connections on the east side of the state where the heat welcomes tomatoes, okra, and eggplant- to name a few. The green house did extend the growing season, but I’ve not missed the work, and continue to shift towards less work and more native species implementation to enhance the environment we’re in. None of my natives have been lost to predation yet, as they tend to be acclimated and able to handle browsing predators better than any of the cultivars. The slug problem is actually a lack of ducks problem, but those birds were so messy and a real threat to the pond, so they are not present at this time. I do think the design for a pair of garden protector ducks could be rigged up in future, and it’s on my list of things to try, as slugs are really the worst challenge facing the gardens today.
Stepping back on more ring, into that purple area of the map, we can see almost all the zone one space around the house, and the second and third zones coming away from the main structures. Though I make this walk twice daily to feed animals down at the barn, I do way less tending in these spaces, and little to no watering. In this Spring picture, things are green and lush with cool weather and recent rain, but by the end of the summer, it will brown and yellow out like California, as we are on a south facing slope with great sun catch. That sun does also bake the ground- killing most of the grass in the gravel driveway and parching the grazed down pastures. Established tree islands offer shade and less evaporation, so planting more shade is key to keeping this area a lush paradise in times of drought. In this outer ring of growth, pines, willow, and crabapple take center stage, nurturing twin berry, Nootka rose, and Saskatoon. These plants and trees don’t require irrigation or a lot of tending, just occasional trimming and understory reseeding to create diversity in layers of vegetation which work together to form small forest ecosystems. Sheep graze this zone, and the plants have to survive a good munching, which they do now. It took a few years to get things growing over head height- which is the average tallness your plants need to be to fend off ungulate browsing. Caging them when they are young will help fend off attacking chewers. There are also several species of less than appetizing plants and shrubs you can select to keep deer and other foragers from eating your hard work, but the best practice is fencing and keeping important plantings close to the house in sight.
Zone one should be a place where you have the most fun with your time cultivating. I walk outside and see so many yummy things to eat, enjoy smelling, touching, and standing in. Form flowers to garlic scapes, grapevines and apples, it’s a delightful paradise that just keeps getting more diverse and abundant with age. It’s been such a great learning journey too. Some growing years are certainly better than others, but with some smart work and a lot of observing, I’ve come to a balance in gardening and weeding, watering and planting, which feeds both the stomach and soul, with much more to come. Thanks for taking a tour with me and seeing what’s growing on here at EEC Forest Stewardship.
EEC Forest Stewardship 