Jerry & Janet's Eugene garden
Submitted by jerryr on Wed, 2007-06-13 02:22.
Permaculture | Random Personal Projects | Eugene | Oregon | Personal Projects
My partner and I moved to this 2.5 acre property last December, and we're just getting underway with our permaculture projects. We're located near Fern Ridge Reservoir, about 10 miles from downtown Eugene. In the past, we gardened on a third acre lot inside of town, so this is a big challenge for us.
The previous owners had planted many beautiful fruit trees: cherries, apples, pears, plums, more cherries, and lots of cherries. We've added a good-sized vegetable garden, strawberries, more little fruit trees, and a chicken coop. The back acre of the lot is planted in pine trees.
There's a lot of grass. I hate mowing the grass with the lawn tractor, but we're concerned that if we get goats, they'll eat all the fruit trees. For our vegetable garden, we rented a sod-cutter to get rid of the grass, but that leaves bare dirt that needs to be planted right away, and it's a lot of work. We've done "lasagne gardening" (cardboard and mulch) in the past, but it would take an incredible amount of cardboard and compost to process almost 2 acres of grass. Should we let natural succession take its course? Or, what could we plant as an understory for all the fruit trees and pines, that would outcompete the grass and provide some edible output? Ideas welcome.
Here are some pictures.
ideas
Submitted by jerryr on Wed, 2007-06-27 03:16.
Hi Aaron,
Mollison has a lot of ideas, but the ones that we've really taken to heart are:
The herb & lettuce garden right next to the kitchen
Lots of fruit trees, nut trees & perrennials
No-till vegetable gardening, with compost & mulch, and an emphasis on building the soil
A diverse mix of species, very little mono-cropping
At our new place, we're working on integrating chickens (and perhaps eventually a miniature cow) into the ecosystem.
Thanks for sharing, I missed
Submitted by Tony on Wed, 2007-06-27 13:58.
Thanks for sharing, I missed this post the first time around. I always appreciate it when someone shares of themselves, with pictures, it makes it so much more real.
If you want to kill the grass without taking it out, I would suggest laying mulch right on top of it, but a green mulch. Try some wild perrenials, like blackberries. They are vigorous and can compete with grass's root systems.
Another good idea might be to kill the grass first by spreading compost or some other organic material over it. THen it's much easier to manage planting little pockets of this and that.
Letting succession take it's course may not be such a good idea on the 2-acre scale. You'll have to wait too long, and it might not even happen on such a small plot, success happens on a much grander scale.
Just plant food-bearing perrenials when you can, and slowly you'll fill everything in like a big, blank coloring book. Do what you can, with what you can afford.
Tony
plants
Submitted by Ludi on Thu, 2007-06-28 23:30.
That's a nice looking garden, Jerry!
I like this database
http://www.pfaf.org/index.html
for researching interesting plants. Here's a page on alternative root crops:
Thanks
Thanks for your photos Jerry. I'm looking forward to getting out to your place to see it first-hand. How are your 'permaculture' attempts coming? What does Janet think about the ideas of Bill Mollison?
See you tonight...
Care,
Aaron