Permaculture Orchards in Maine
Overview
Old way: Dig a hole in a field, plant a tree. Fertilize it, protect it, mow around it for 10 years.
Permaculture way: Prepare the ground with chickens. Plant the apple tree, with nitrogen fixing ground cover, bushes, and trees, and other support species. Fill the space, no space for weeds. Maintain merely by pruning the support species for mulch around the apple, once a year. In 10 years, the tree and its few remaining support species are self-sustaining.
Production Trees:
The point of an orchard (or as Permaculture calls them, a food forest) is the productive trees growing food for humans. So the first part of any orchard plan is figuring out what food you want to grow. For Mainers, the following is a short list of trees we can grow in our climate.
Fruits: Apple, Apricot, Cherry, Fig, Grape, Hardy Kiwi, Mulberry, Paw Paw, Peach, Pear, Persimmon, Plum, Seaberry.
Nuts:Almond, Black Walnut, Butternut, Chestnut, Filbert, Hickory, Pecan, Walnut.
Berries: Blackberry, Blueberry, Cranberry (no bog needed), Currants (maybe), Elderberry, Honeyberry, Gooseberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Wintergreen.
Support Trees:
Black Locust,
picture credit: Guy Marsden
The Benefits
picture credit: Guy Marsden