Food Forest on Eastern Plains of Colorado

[Kreindl]

I saw drip tape and the drawback is my trees at 15 to 85 feet apart and they are going into an area roughly 1000 feet by 80 feet.  So I believe the tape would be watering a lot of area without trees. 

I agree they must poor water in those tubes.  I saw water stakes for drippers but they cost more than some if the trees.

It looks as if he's leaving that pipe there so they can quickly drive by and fill it with water and let it soak in. That'd be my guess.

If you're doing drip irrigation for that many trees, I think you'd save a lot of time and expense if you used trip tape, AKA t-tape. It's a flat tape that is easily quickly rolled out, and has drip holes every so often. You can get it with maybe 12 or 18 inch spacing.

I can't think of the name of it, but I've seen products that were made to self water plants over an extended period of time to get them established. If I remember, it was basically a water storage system that somehow slowly released water into the soil over weeks/months.

[Kreindl]

Update on miracle 1/4 inch tool.

The miracle 1/4 inch tube inserted makes is so much easier to put the connectors together.  My five year old can do it.  We've got one hundred tubes with drippers and connectors made.  The tool only worked with the thicker brown micro 1/4 inch tubing and no the black brand Home Depot sells.  The tool struggles with inserting the drippers but those are rather easy todo by hand.  I should get the digi brand tool to see if it works better drippers.

Also I ordered some dibble bars to plant the seedlings, glad I found that tool and I hope it works as well as I've heard it does.  I have a lot more confidence that I can get these trees in the ground quickly.

[Kreindl]

I want to thank Dave for helping me plant many of these trees, Bill at mile high farms for the straw mulch and the Colorado State Forest Service for the seedlings.

So far we have added 141 trees in the past week.

After digging over 100 holes across the length of the property I now know where there are different types of soil.  I thought it was all sandy but found some black soil further down and some clay where water naturally settles.

The permaculture inspired windbreak layout which consists of Ponderosa Pine, Bur Oak, Pinion Pine with some wax currant, willow and native plum mixed in.



Frozen seedlings at Colorado State Forest Service Nursery, Stored at 28 degrees over the winter until they are picked up for planting.



Colorado State Forest Service Nursery in Fort Collins, Colorado



The planting items, dibble bar is orange and works really well for seedlings in some soils. But not ours instead the long black rod worked great for the seedlings in 7 inch plastic tubes since it was about the same size.  The sharp shooter shovel was used for all the bare root trees and to kill grass around all the trees.



Trees were soaked and watered with a mixture of biochar, molasses, plant success (for mycorrhizae, bacteria), Medina HastaGrow, and Medina Seaweed.



Bur Oaks soaking before planting, They were mowed down at some point so they have large roots for their height.


Ponderosa Pine with a wind guard before mulching.  I'm mixed on using these tree guards since they may offer to much protection from the wind which the trees need to get used to so as they will grow thick trunks. They would be great to keep animals off of the trees.



And after straw mulch was added.  The straw and tree guards stayed in place after a couple of days of strong wind.



I planted 6 English walnuts to see how they do on some of the better soil. 



The 2nd food forest on the property will be planted on a swale that is going to be dug here soon with a bit of wood core (hugel inspired).  Will be adding up to 100 trees along here.



I hope to have people come out to see the swale being built and the trees being planted.  I'm considering a posthole digger attachment for the skid steer to speed up the process. If not maybe a small (smaller than last year) hole with the excavator for each tree.  The instructions of a 2 foot by 4 foot hole for the bare root trees last year was overkill so we ended up filling them in and digging with shovel.  So if you haven't seen the bare roots wait to dig big holes!

[endurance]

Wow, you've been busy!  Thanks for the update.

[climberpilot]

This thread is very inspiring. So much so that it has caused me to move from forum lurker to participant. I am closing on a little 8 acre property in Elbert county in just under 2 weeks with the intent of doing many of the same things I see here. Great job with the documentation and thanks for the inspiration!

[Kreindl]

This thread is very inspiring. So much so that it has caused me to move from forum lurker to participant. I am closing on a little 8 acre property in Elbert county in just under 2 weeks with the intent of doing many of the same things I see here. Great job with the documentation and thanks for the inspiration!

Congrats!  I've looked at a few properties in Elbert and have a few more I plan to look at.  Some have good water rights which really entice me.  I have more photos to upload since we planted a second food forest on the property this week.  I'd be glad to check your land out when you get it!

[Kreindl]

This last week we planted the second food forest on the high plains east of Colorado.  These trees are planted along a half finished swale with a wood core.  The layout has a nitrogen fixer every third tree thus each tree has a nitrogen fixer on one side of it. Inspiration from Miracle Farms (a fiver acre commercial permaculture orchard in Southern Quebec - watch his youtube videos)  I will be tempted to add more nitrogen fixing trees and shurbs between each main tree.  Hopefully some of the 100+ Siberian pea shrub seeds will germinate this year.  Each tree was planted with some biochar, microryza fungi and watered in with a root stimulator like shown earlier in this post.

Trees planted along the swale from St. Lawrence Nurseries:

• Melba Apple
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Hudar Pear
• Meteor Cherry
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Lobo Apple
• Mt Royal Plum
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Adirondack Gold Apricot
• Southworth Pear
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• State Fair Apple
• North Star Cherry
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Northern Blue Plum
• Adirondack Gold Apricot
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Sharon Apple
• Nova Pear
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Bali Cherry
• Native American Plum
• Thornless Honey Locust
• Reb Baron Apple
• Adirondack Gold Apricot
• Thornless Honey Locust
• Hudar Pear
• Montmorency Cherry
• Thornless Honey Locust
• Regent Apple
• Northern Blue Plum
• Thornless Honey Locust
• Adirondack Gold Apricot

We planted another 30 plus trees other places.

And here are the trees wrapped up.


The excavator with an 18 inch hoe which has teeth on it.  So the soil was really broken on the uphill side.  We later raked it smooth. I have some wood in the swale thinking it will help build and support soil life.  I spread leaves and biochar along the swale as well.



This is looking south to the start of the swale.  5 trees have been planted on the downhill side and we have raked part of the other side.


The swale will eventually go to the black bags of leaves in the middle of this photo.  I want to gather more wood before I did the rest of it.


We planted the swale with cover crops consisting of two types of clover, a common vetch and sunflower seeds.  We mixed them together and added some michroryza fungi and water to the mix.  And we included some flower seeds as well.  This year or next we will have bees out here. I have some coming this next week but I'm wondering if there is enough there to support a hive.


The excavator was a bit easier to make a consistent swale compared to the bobcat I used for the swales for the first food forest.  It definitely took longer to dig with the excavator.  I'm thinking a bobcat with teeth on the bucket would work great for the rest of this swale.  While I had the excavator I did dig three trenches for the 1000 asparagus plants.  The goal is to plant them 6 inches below the top of the soil and to kill the grass around the area thus I thought digging trenches with the excavator would be great.  I'll see tomorrow when I start planting the asparagus.  I adapted the concept from Mark Shepard when he mentioned using a plow to dig trenches to plant his asparagus.  I'm going to add compost and biochar to the trenches before planting the asparagus.



Why 1000 asparagus plants someone asked.  So as we have enough to sell.  I'd like this to be a productive farm so I'm trying to get a lot of things planted to have a crop in a few years.  As Jack has mentioned most farms make money by having animals and annuals at first.  The goal is to find people who want to come and farm here like they are with Perma Ethos.

[climberpilot]

Kreindl,
Looks great!Do you have any pics/updates on last years development? I'm curious how the swales worked out and if you found they collected much water from snow melt (what little we had)

[Kreindl]

Kreindl,
Looks great!Do you have any pics/updates on last years development? I'm curious how the swales worked out and if you found they collected much water from snow melt (what little we had)

The apple trees on the first food forest and swales are just now beginning to leaf out.  The swales collect a lot of snow since it is often windy out there.  I've only seen water in the swales a few times after large rains.  I'm not sure how helpful they are but I'm thinking they are helpful in some way.  I think the wood core in them is a good thing and they act as a bit of a wind break.  Once things green up I'll get some photos loaded. 

I'm thinking my future swales will be a bit smaller.  Especially the ones uphill from the latest swale.  As Mark Shepard pointed out in one of his YouTube videos the trees he planted along a swale were much larger than the other ones and had he know it he would have swales for all of his trees.  Our soil out there is very sandy so much of the water soaks in thus the swales only catch it when there is a larger rain.

[Chemsoldier]

Am digging this thread. I look forward to future pics!

[Kreindl]

The week before last we finished planting 1000 asparagus plants.  I think they sent me extra because I ended up needing an extra row.  So they sent extra or we didn't space them as planned or I didn't measure the length of the rows correctly.  The asparagus is on the south side of fruit trees and shrubs that were planted last year. 

When the hazel nut bushes arrive I'm going to plant them south of the asparagus as a wind block.  I planted 6 dogwood trees to the north side of the above mentioned swale which is south of another swale.  It sounds like they will flower later than the apple trees.  I was planning to place a bee hive out there this year but I decided to place the bees at the new homestead since it has a lot more flowers and is much more established.

I finished the drip irrigation for the food forest and other oak and nut trees we planted.   Making the 1/4 inch drip lines with the dripper and end that fits into the 1/2inch tube makes the process so much faster!  The right tools are worth it!

 The two pawpaw trees I planted look to be alive and many other trees are just beginning to leaf out.  I also planted a cold hardy kiwi and now the forecast is calling for freezing temps this next week so I'm going to cover a few things.

In the center of the photo is grass covering a nest of a meadow lark's 4 eggs.  This is maybe 20 feet from the asparagus rows.  I'm glad I didn't drive over it.  I marked the area with sticks to remind me where they are.



I have been wanting to add some water for birds and such so I rigged this up with what was left of my salad bowl.  I plan to add a lot of these.



This is an asparagus row, looking west, before planting and before tilling in the compost and biochar.  I first dug the rows with an excavator.  You could also use a plow.



Asparagus rows looking east.



We tried spacing from 12 inches in a straight line, 12 to 18 inches double spaced and 12 inches spaced on the far sides of the row so really more than 12 inches between plants.  Will be interesting to see if we can tell a difference based off of these differences.  After mixing the biochar and compsot into the soil we would dig a hole for the plant and cover it with about 2 inches of soil while still being about 4 inches below the original soil height.  More compost will go on top.



This photo shows the bare root asparagus crown sizes for Jersey Giants from Daisy Farms.  Most of them were on the larger size.  I think some of the small ones were probably included for free.




I was out working on the second food forest swale when I noticed a new friend.  This is the first snake I've seen on the property.  It was not aggressive and eventually moved to a new area.  I'm going to pay a bit more attention.   When leaving I noticed a dead on the road.  I believe it is a harmless bull snake.



I put some temporary sprayers on the back side of the swale to help the clover, vetch, wildflower and sunflower seeds sprout.  A few had sprouted but many more are there.  The next night we got more rain - yeaaa!  I spread some of the leaves I got last fall over the back of the swale to help hold some moisture.  I kept it to a minimum because many of the seeds are really small.



If you use a sprayer like this and set it to water 180 degrees do not line it up to try to avoid the sides because then it actually drips quite a bit.  Rather unlike this photo have the water aim at one of the sides and you will get less drip.  This one is setup to drip some to water a plant just in front of it.



This is the sunset on the last day of asparagus planting.  It was a nice reward for working that late.

[Kreindl]

A summer update.  Finally I think the planting is done or 90% since I bet I'll find more things to plant.  I finally picked a name for the farm(s) and it is RegenFarms with the thought being to regenerate the land when farming on it with permaculture techniques. 

Most of the new trees, bushes and plants have leaves.  The honey locust and black walnuts look to be the last trees to wake up.  They are also about 4 foot tall with not much for roots.  I wonder if I should have cut them in half?!

Some photos
The new swales need more cover crops and I will be adding straw soon. Quite a few sunflowers are coming up as well as some of the clover an vetch.   The larger green plants on top of the swale are sunflowers.


Asparagus is growing along the drip line, Time to add more compost and weed around them.




The bees are at our new homestead and I think it is time for a 2nd box for them to expand into.  There are a lot of flowers and such around here so they are doing great but I'm still giving them sugar water since I was told to do so.  The sugar water is in the top blue box.


The bur oaks finally leafed out.



Cold Hardy kiwi is coming back up after it was knocked out with the late freeze and snow.


Common Comfrey at the new homestead (early in season photo)

Common Comfrey mid growth


Comfrey Bocking 4 - I think this was a 2 year crown/plant I bought last year and it is several feet tall already this year.




I think this was a 1 year old crown/plant


These are comfrey bocking 4 root cuttings which were about 1.5 inches long planted last year coming up.  I'll move them at the end of the year to locations around the food forests.



Comfrey Bocking 4 flowers


Common Comfrey Flowers late in the flowering process - they straighten out and the older flowers become green seed pods that are very rough.  They feel like they will eventually stick to your clothes.


The flowers have 5 petals

[Kreindl]

I forgot to include the photo of these
Gooseberry plants we planted last year with quite a few gooseberries on them this year!


I added shade over the new Paw Paw trees since they are alive but are very slow to leaf out.  I read that shading them for the first couple of years is a good thing so time will tell.


And the bare root goji berry bushes I planted that then were snowed on now have lots of leaves!


And a random tid bit.  This year my cabbage plants have not been destroyed by bugs.  And this is the first year with comfrey planted next to them.  So maybe comfrey is attracting the good bugs to eat the pests!?

[Kreindl]

Here is the goji berry

[endurance]

The place looks great!  You're doing so many cool things out there and this was the perfect year to get things established with all the rain. It also looks like you avoided the worst of the hail.  Several of the sea berries you gave me are doing well, along with the filberts. For whatever reason most of my filberts didn't survive the winter, so I'm grateful to have some new ones started.

Keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing more updates as the summer progresses.

[climberpilot]

Wow. The place looks awesome!

[Kreindl]

We moved this year and I did some planting so now that it has bee a few months I made a video to document what we planted.  I forgot the paw paws be caused they died.  I'm zero for four with them.

And I mention a line I mulberry when I should have said elderberry.  Sea berry , goji berry and hazel nuts are a few of the plants.

http://youtu.be/R-RhIW6BLhM

[endurance]

Hey Kreindl, good to see your other place.  Have you been back out to Bennett lately?  Just curious how things are doing out there.  Every time I look on the radar it seems like your property is getting hit with rain.  Seems like the perfect year to get things started.

I planted the Seaberry and Filberts you gave me.  All but one of the Seaberries appear to be doing well, but only a couple of the Filberts are still around.  Thanks for the plants! 

[Kreindl]

I have been out to the farm and hope to be out there today.  I need to edit some of the videos I made of it and get them uploaded.  Last week it was obvious that they got soaked again.  The wheat fields as you enter have lots if ponds and you could tell water ran across the road again.  It looked like the swales had a lot of water in them at some point.

Most of my ponderosa pines on the north property line died but most of the bur oaks are doing great.  More of the pinion pines survived than the ponderosa.  Looks like all but maybe one of the new food forest trees is leafed out.

I'll make a video I the original food forest.  Some of it died back to the ground and I think most of the small black cherry trees never established.


After visiting Washington state around my saint Helens I'm going to plant trees in wind breaks a lot closer.  Those old growth forests are amazing.  Yes they get a lot more rain but amazing how dense they are.

[Kreindl]

And here is a short video of the wind break trees before I planted them along with the amendments I used: biochar, molasses etc.
http://youtu.be/Z-BFI-gSChA

[Kreindl]

This is a quick video showing the backside of the 2014 swale.  The sunflowers are getting large and providing next or for the insects.

http://youtu.be/hlEmAmyWkEk

[Wild Colonial Boy]

+1 for these recent videos. It's giving me some great ideas for my land which similar.

[Kreindl]

And here is a review of the first food forest that was planted last spring.  There are two hugle swales above the trees.

 http://youtu.be/Hg2Jiq4eGro

I forgot about one maple tree that I transplanted from our back yard.  It is doing great.  And the grape like fruit I show is a Gooseberry Pixwell. 
Here is a list of the trees and shrubs:
3 Bur Oak
3 Black Walnut
3 Black Cherry
2 Mulberry Northrop Morus alba
5 Apple Trees
2 Smoky June Berries
2 Prince William June Berries
10 Gooseberries Pixwell
3 Sumac
8 Elder

[Kreindl]

And a video of the bees.  This is the first hive I've ever had, touched etc.  I captured my first sting while recording this.  Bees get a bit excited when you split their boxes apart.  Note to self start with the bees on a stand to begin with.  And buy a smoker.  Oh and if I had a bee helper we could have picked up both of the boxes without separating them.

I may buy some established hives for the farm this year.  I didn't think there was enough for bees out there but now I believe there is plenty for bees with the clovers from last year, existing flowers and the new sunflowers I planted this year.  I think honey can bee another product of the farm.  Maybe it was Jack who said a bee keeper said 50 hives was enough to make a living.  So maybe 5 or 10 would be a piece of the income pie for the farm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AVkJNwa9QLI

[Kreindl]

Just a few days ago I thought I should order some plantain.  Probably because of the mosquitos that like me.  When I saw photos of it I went out side because I swore I saw some growing.
Looks like I have some at the new homestead.  Anyone think this is not Narrow Leaf Plantain?

The long leaf with lines running down it



The flower (made me rather certain that it is plantain)


The plant



Other updates -

Hazel Nut Bushes
I noticed how dry the soil was around the hazel nuts that were planted this year so I added them to the drip irrigation of the 2013 food forest.  Since I premade the 1/4 inch micro tubing pieces with dripper and connector the process for 20 plus bushes went rather quickly.  Both at the farm and the home stead I've been surprised by seeing plants that are totally leafed out drop all their leaves.  I then think they are dead only to find a new shoot coming up most of the time.  The "champion" plant at the home stead was about 18 inches tall and died back to the ground and has a new stem coming up now.

Bees
The bee hive now has a 'honey super' on it.  I was told that once the bees fill in a second box that I could put a honey super on the hive for a while.  The honey super is for honey for us.  To get only honey on these smaller frames I put a queen excluder in between the top box and the super.  I think I'm supposed to remove it by the end of the month to make sure the bees have plenty of honey for the winter.  I'm tempted to buy some hives with bees for the farm.  Originally I didn't think there would be enough flowers out here for them but now that I see all the flowers I realize they would do great out here.  So at some level I see the farm producing honey.  Oh seeing pallets of bees in an empty field the other day gave me even more confidence in having bees at the farm.

Condensation
I was a bit surprised to see so much condensation at the home stead a few mornings in a row.  As I learned in the Permaculture PDC, condensation can add a significant amount to total condensation for an area.  These berry leaves has the water droplets around the edges.


Sun Flowers
The sun flowers are in full bloom.  Bumblebees, small bees and some other kind of bugs are enjoying them.




Other Flowers
Other flower seeds were also thrown on the swales along with some vegetables.



Goji berries at RegenFarms.  Mature but small goji bare root plants were planted this spring and this one is already producing fruit.  Probably 10 so far.


Vegetable on the food forest swale, we seeded the swale with some vegetables as well as clovers, wild flowers and sunflowers.


And I now know what a split head of cabbage looks like. 


I found some more wood for the other half of the 2014 swale that is above the 2nd food forest.  Hopefully I can get about twice this much before covering it up as it becomes part of the swale.

[ShannonB]

This thread has me full of wonder, awe and I wont lie.... A little jealousy! Great job.

[endurance]

Great update.  So good to see that some of the veggies that aren't getting any tending at all are producing.  Great experiment, I look forward to seeing more in the future.

[Beetlebum]

That's awesome but I'll be honest, you've making me miss home.

[Kreindl]

Fall 2014 update

We have two helpers... 2 mini Herefords Susie and Sweet Pea who get to do a bit of mini mob grazing to help the soil, soil life, worms and plants at the farm.   They are about 7 and 12 months old.  They can be breed at 15 months so eventually we will have more.  They got their round bail today which will ensure they have enough to eat this winter even if I don't get them access to all of the property.



Most of the sea berry / sea buckthorn plants are doing great.  They were not watered often, they must like the sandy soil.  The ones planted at the homestead that survived barely grew and I watered them frequently.  I hope they can be an edible wind block for the high plains.  These photos are a few weeks old but they were still green.  Jack mentioned taking cuttings from them and sticking them in the ground so I took some cuttings and put them in pots and will keep them indoors this winter.  So far they look to be living.  Also finally got some of the sea berry seeds to germinate - months of being in the fridge (maybe not necessary but probably), 2 days soaking in water, then in a zip lock baggie with paper towel and exposed to the sun.  So some of them are growing indoors also.













Sea Berry Seedlings






What is a tiller doing on a permaculture farm?  Garlic planting.  I bought 50 pounds of hard neck garlic after reading about it being one of the top 10 specialty crops to grow.  So far it has only made me realize how much I like perennial plants since it took a long time to plant and it will need to be dug up and planted again next year.  This is a trial run.


I originally thought I tilled enough for all the garlic at 4 to 6 inch spacing but no chance, I've used at least twice as much space.


It takes a long time to separate the cloves!


And the bad part of November - a bear destroyed the bee hive.  I headed out to wrap it in Styrofoam for the winter to find it destroyed and spread out 50 plus yards.  While scooping up a lot of dead or frozen bees I found a clump that was alive so they are in a semi warm room 47 degrees.  With some honey they produced this year, some sugar water with an additive to help them and what is left of some frames that have pollen in them.  I hope there is a queen in there and that they survive the winter.  I'm growing some buckwheat for them in hopes the flowers will help them as well.





Clump of alive bees, yes that is snow on the ground.  They are still alive over a week later.


Many more posts at www.RegenFarms.com

[Chemsoldier]

Sorry to hear about the hive brother.  As always though, your set-up looks amazing.  I hope the bees pull through till you can rehome them.