Lessons from a Permaculture Orchard

Today's chore-time podcast listen was "The Permaculture Orchard with Stefan Sobkowiak"

Key takeaways:

• A monoculture, even a certified organic one, is not a functioning ecosystem.

• Find a way to "close the gate" on the operation; give yourself some mental and physical space away, to help with perspective on those really bad days/weeks/years.

• Pests/disease/weeds are not the problem. They are a symptom and will point you to the source of the problem, if you listen and observe.

• A monoculture of one fruit (especially one variety) is a buffet for pests.

• Graft new stock onto established trees that have been cut at 2-3 feet height and take advantage of 20 years of root growth.

• Multiple crop species and types give visitors more to buy. They'll come for the apples and take home pears, eggs, vegetables.

• Plant trees in a trio of one nitrogen fixer to two different fruit or nut producers. Could be any mix of trees and shrubs.

• If renovating part of your property to organic/regenerative, start in the middle of the property as a refuge for beneficial predator organisms.

• Membership marketing! Benefits over simply being open to the public include screening for aligned customers, ability to adjust membership to expected yields and increased customer loyalty.

• A tree that bears heavy one year will most likely have small production the next, and vice versa.

• Walk your operation on the most extreme weather days to see how things adapt. i.e. kiwi fruit on a trellis may freeze while the vines around a tree utilize the heat sink of the large trunk and are unfazed.

• Don't plant 1200 zucchinis.

• Interplant vegetables or small fruits between trees. 1 per foot. Annuals work well when trees are young, switching to perennials makes life easier (and are generally more shade tolerant) as trees cast more shade.

• Squash and pumpkin work well with established trees. They, like pole beans, can overwhelm trees under 6 feet tall.

• The difference between "knowing about" something and "knowing" something is three growth cycles of practice.

• It will take 2 human generations for the default concept of production to switch from monoculture to polyculture.

I found it both interesting and sad that not only could I not find an image of a multi-species orchard to use for this post, but I also could not get AI to generate one for me. I look forward to the day when the image of "orchard" defaults to diversity.

You can visit Stefan's home page and learn more here.