Cottage Food Forest | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

With the goal of exposing my parents to growing their own food, and putting some of my permaculture research to practical use I decided to take over a small patch of land at my parent's cottage and turn it into a beginner food forest.

With that in mind this past Friday my buddy and I loaded up the car with tools, his trusty dag, and headed out of town amid a ton of rain. We stopped by the good old US of A on the way there to grab the following gem. I am so incredibly happy to have this book in my possession I cannot even tell you. It is the technical permaculture manual I have been looking for. Other books light touch on the overall design theories, this book goes in depth on everything you need to know.

The site is zone 5a, and the entire lot is about an acre or which I'll be borrowing about a 30' by 30' section near the garage.

Using the following picture (taken almost at the start, we'd cut down a tree before I realized we had not taken pictures yet. Too eager to work I guess!) as a guide, this is how things stack up...

The camera faces north in the shot, so the area faces south. There is good sun from late morning to mid afternoon. This is an area with a lot of water catchment. There is a road to the right that is elevated and a series of rocky outcroppings that slope from the road down to the sight so a lot of runoff ends up in the site. The parking area to the south of the site also is sloped to run off into the site.

Below you can see the road on the right, the outcroppings in the middle and the site on the left.

The following shot is from farther south so you can see the parking area and the grade which run into the site.

My father had been dumping yard waste on the south edge of the site (the north edge of the parking area) for a few years now so there were really nice piles of composted dirt. The site is a bit rocky, so that was a huge bonus to have laying around.

Below you can see a grown over pile of compost just to the left of the darker tree. We probably took 8 or 10 wheel barrels of prime dirt from that pile.

To use the same photo from above here is the site as it was upon arrival. We had taken down the one tree you see already since I had forgotten to snap pictures before we started.

Behind the cut down tree to give you an idea of the conditions on the ground.

Partially cleared site, camera pointed north.

This is from the back of the site looking south, to give an idea of the grade and how water will move.

We took out three maples for maximum sun.

Fully cleared site. Note the rake for scale. Camera again facing north.

First (top), and southern most swale.

Two swales done.

And the third and final swale

We did some grading and ditch shaping to try and get as much of the run off from the road and car parking into the site. This runs east to west from almost to the road back into the first swale.

Another shot of the ditch work leading into the site.

Shot taken from east of the site on the rock outcroppings between the site and the road. All three swales in place.

Gratuitous in swale shot!

Super helper.

We worked most of the day Saturday, drank a few beers and probably had about 15 man hours in so far. We seeds the swales with bush peas. The rest of the site with about 10,000 wildflower seeds. The goal this year was to get the earth works done, and seed in nitrogen fixing plants and ground cover. I might stick some garlic in towards the fall, but for now I will just largely let it grow back in a bit to protect and improve the soil, and watch how the sun and water hit the site. Next year I will start adding in perennial food crops like apple trees, berry bushes, hardy kiwi (my new favorite thing), chive, asparagus, and anything else that looks like fun. I will add some annual veg here and there as I see fit, but I really want to focus on the perennial side of things to keep maintenance to a minimum since I am not always on site.

A shot of the site the next morning.