As the old saying goes, the first year they sleep; the second, they creep; and the third year, they leap!
That’s talking about trees, of course. Not some sort of amphibian, or your ex.
Our Lower Alabama food forest is coming into its third year, and I am very excited to see how the trees do this season.
This week we planted a few more trees and shrubs in the system, including:
3 Japanese persimmons
2 Toon trees (Chinese mahogany)
2 Autumn Olives
3 Soap nut trees (Sapindus saponaria)
1 Chaste tree
1 Rosa rugosa
1 Kiowa blackberry
It looks like the freezes are done for this year, so we should be in good shape. The mulberries are waking up right now, and our two seedling plum trees are in bloom. Next we hope to plant a lot more chop-and-drop and nitrogen-fixing plants and trees in the system. I’ve started a lot of honey locust and some Enterolobium trees, plus we have more autumn olives in the nursery we can plant. The cold has done a number on our Tithonia diversifolia plants, which were our main chop-and-drop in this system. They all died the first year, but some of them grew well in year two and carried through winter this time.
I liked the idea of letting mimosa trees (a nitrogen-fixer) grow around the food forest until I discovered that the leaves seem to be allopathic in the garden. Perhaps they’re allelopathic to other trees as well? I won’t plant more of them.
I would like more black locust, as they are a good, cold-hardy nitrogen-fixer. We may be too far north for Enterolobium trees to live through winter, but if you can grow them, they are a truly awesome nitrogen-fixer. Mine have nodulation on the roots in their little pots right now, and I started them from seed in the greenhouse. Heavens knows how they already managed to meet up with the right rhizobial bacteria, but they’re really something else.
To give the food forest a good start this spring, we hoed away the grass from our trees and gave each of them a good dose of Steve’s Mix, then mulched them well with shredded pine chips to help keep down the grass competition.
Meanwhile, over at Skool, we have some great challengers taking part in our GROW500 Challenge. The food forest challenge last fall was a great success. We’re working on another video to add to the food forest training course we created last year. This one will be on “How to Start a Food Forest for Free,” and I think you’ll enjoy it.
The day is getting away from me… time to get outside and plant some salad greens!
Happy Thursday, everyone.
