Forest – Page 2 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

starter trees

2017/01/10 Danielle 0

We’ve hit the new year with all the right energy, planting trees. There are all these sayings about trees, like “the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago; the second best time is now” and “a society grows wise when [people] plant trees in whose shade they will never sit” (implying planting trees for the benefit of future generations), and it all boils down to: trees taker a long time to get established. Start them as soon as you can. Trees (and shrubs, and other deep-rooted perennial plants) are essential for a food forst, or any […]

summer

2016/12/14 Danielle 2

No matter how much I like the longer days (getting home when it’s still light!) and warmer weather, I also dread summer a little. While the long, hot, dry days and the coastal breezes may be perfect for a holiday or a day at the beach, they’re not so good for growing anything. The dry summer season is as harsh in its own way as the cold winter of the temperate areas of the northern hemisphere. The theory is that our forest orchard will be reasonably self-sufficient once established, requiring minimal irrigation or care. That theory has a downside though […]

Olives for integrated livestock-orchards

2016/11/14 Danielle 0

I’ve been doing an awful lot of research, recently, into integrated agroforestry and pastured livestock farming systems. Specifically the system of pasture and productive woodland common to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) which is commonly called dehesa, or montado in Portugal. Although the traditional dehesa forests are primarily made up of cork oak (Quercus suber) and holm oak (Quercus ilex), the system could work with any number of tree species. It’s basically a Mediterranean silvopasture system, with scattered tree cover (using trees which produce some sort of commercially valuable product) with pasture and animals grazing underneath. Traditional dehesa […]

Spring Planting

2016/08/21 Danielle 0

It’s been a busy weekend. As well as finishing off a literature review around implementing dehesa style agroforestry in Australia, for my uni course (once the paper is marked and returned, I’ll put it up here in the Resources section), I’ve planted 17 trees. The bare root trees from Heritage Fruit Trees arrived, so there’s been a lot of digging and planting happening. Five more apple trees for the orchard, five pears and two nashi pears planted in a new little pear grove, and another five stone fruit trees for Zone 1 behind the house. Zone 1 includes the […]

fruit tree varieties

2016/07/22 Danielle 0

I was talking to a friend at work a couple’ve weeks ago, about her garden (she’s recently bought a house, and is madly excited to be planting some dwarf fruit trees in the garden), and she asked me what trees I have in the ground. It made me think, maybe other people might be interested in our choices of trees and varieties too. So, here goes. 🙂 Not all of these are in the ground as yet; I’ve noted which ones are planted, and which are on order. The trees without a status note are on the wishlist. […]