SHTF Orchard Planting in the Heartland

Nice thread, GirlGenius. I'm sure you let your husband know how much you appreciate his digging. That's some HARD work. LOL.

You might want to start saving aluminum pie pans for your fruit trees. A hole punched in them and tied to the tree slows the birds down enough that they'll share some fruit with you.

Chives planted around the base of the apple trees will keep the tent caterpillars away from your trees and good old white flour deters many pests on garden veggies.

Good luck to you and I hope you soon get rewards from all your hard work and planning.

:)

He just dug me a bunch more holes tonight an we planted the berries and grapes - fixed him some prime rib and morels

Thanks for the great tips!

I've been putting in bits on unused pockets of land here and there. Blackberries on the neighbor's land behind his corn field, where he never goes. A downed oak tree got the shiitakes plugs. Rhubarb looks like an innocuous something and is good early in the year.

Planting row crops is just asking for theft. Things that don't look like food are great. Leaf lettuce in the front planter will get overlooked every time.

THIS is exactly the same thing that I would like to do! I agree wholeheartedly which is why the food forest idea intrigued me so much.

Spent yesterday pulling leaves off my apple tree. Yellow blisters. I did this with my peach a few years ago and ended up with good peaches, so hopefully it will work with my apple this year.

...the whole time I was thinking of the joys my little garden oasis will bring me as I spend my hour doing this chore with my bad fingers and wrists (which were on vacation for quite a while after).

I have to wear gloves all the time in the garden. My hands are so sensitive. When I am finished for the day, I rub on some arnica gel.

Good luck with your apple! We planted 4 apples. We are in a bad area for apples because of all the cedars (cedar-apple rust).

I was looking for some good mulch and I always come back to hay. We always have extra so the price is right :)

It's a great way to cut down on weeding. Just wanted to share this tip ...

[link to compostguide.com]

[link to www.vegetablegardener.com]

This was excellent. Thanks for the links -- I have sent them on to my parents who are gardening fools!

btdt with much more than you have mentioned. Someday it could work, but not until anyone around to steal the fruit, or willing to bushwack those watering, pruning, spraying, or picking the fruit are gone away.

In real life, the bees seem to be gone around here, even the wasps and hornets, but the mossies, beetles and birds, deer and ants fall upon the trees and the worms( doubltless more nutritious than the fruit themselves) take the best of it.
And then, you have a short window of fruit ripening, and then you have to figure how to store them without them spoiling or using up all your resources and space,

And another thing. "organic"? are you shitting me? YOu gonna be all fussy when everyone is starving and willing to kill for food or any sort and you want to make sure your food is 'pure'?
You clearly have no real idea of how hard it is to bring in a crop, and how much extra work you have to do to get to the same point of food obtained with organics on the scale of even a small orchard.
You'd be far better off stocking up on decent fertilizer and using whatever you can as the opportunity presents itself until the most dangerous time passes.

I've seen my trees get stripped in hours from the beetles and birds, so, if you think they are your pals, you have much to learn, when you have everything to lose in a moments indiscretion.

In truth, the weather has gotten so unreliable that ou could lose the crop.

It takes years to cultivate a sustainable organic garden that will actually be able to feed you...year after year. Lots of knowledge to acquire.
Have a back-up plan in place as you work towards sustainability. IF things get really bad have some seeds other than heirloom handy….and a little fertilizer. These things may save your life as you learn……

For those unfamiliar with Ruth Stout's "no-work" gardening system, here is an introduction:

My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don't go through that tortuous business of building a compost pile.

Read more: [link to www.motherearthnews.com]

Today is mulching day for me. I'm headed out to throw a few of last year's alfalfa bales into the lawn cart and mulch the berries. This morning I mulched the rose and lilac bushes.

For those unfamiliar with Ruth Stout's "no-work" gardening system, here is an introduction:

My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don't go through that tortuous business of building a compost pile.

Read more: [link to www.motherearthnews.com]

Today is mulching day for me. I'm headed out to throw a few of last year's alfalfa bales into the lawn cart and mulch the berries. This morning I mulched the rose and lilac bushes.

quoting earlier ac:
This!
It takes years to cultivate a sustainable organic garden that will actually be able to feed you...year after year. Lots of knowledge to acquire.
Have a back-up plan in place as you work towards sustainability. IF things get really bad have some seeds other than heirloom handy….and a little fertilizer. These things may save your life as you learn……

avoid GMO seeds!!! Nature instinctively knows that these seeds are unnatural/incomplete and if you DO NOT SPRAY FOR PESTS AND DISEASES, pests and diseases will consume them. That is the very definable job of pests and diseases, to cull sick plants and organisms within nature...

as far as "Lots of knowledge to aquire" goes, that's why we are all here sharing:)