Apple Guild Update 1

Photo taken 6/4/11

Photo taken 7/23/11

In June I posted about starting an apple guild here. Now that it's already August, there are already noticeable improvements to the area, but there are still years needed to grow to maturity and sustainability.

Some of my friends were kind enough to give me a few herb plants for the apple guild project while I was attending a garden swap in June: lemon mint, peppermint (I already had spearmint), bee balm, chives and garlic chives, marjoram, oregano and 2 annual basil plants (a spicy globe basil, and a purple basil). I bought thyme and dill starts for the guild, and also transplanted some anise hyssop, yarrow and lemon balm from another garden bed.

All the herbs will attract pollinators, and some are also nutrient accumulators (yarrow, chives, lemon balm).

6/4/11

So far I have dug up the weeds in a small area about 6' x 10' on 1 side of the apple tree (it's hard work even without record heat), and planted 2 teepees with haricot verts (French skinny green beans) to fix some nitrogen in there. Since the apple is still small, I put a couple of tomato plants and the basil at the edge of the current drip line where they will not rob nutrients from the apple roots. 

I wish I knew how large the apple will eventually grow, but I've lost contact with the man who gave it to me. I may have to enlarge the outer ring of bulb protectors (hopefully to be planted this fall) as the tree matures since they should be planted at the (currently unknown) mature drip line.

About 6 feet into the weeds to the right of the apple are 3 rhubarb plants, which will stay. Behind the bean teepees are 4 currant bushes (2 black and 2 red); they will also stay.  They look pretty pitiful (struggling) after 4 years here.

I started some annual nasturtiums to help attract pollinators (both dwarf bush type and vining) plus some flowering sweet peas to put in there somewhere, too. The sweet peas grew about 4" and then died; I think it was too warm, and too late in the season for them. The nasturtiums are struggling, but I think it's just the heat.

A long bed against the front of my house had some strawberries lost in the jungle and struggling for light. I dug them out, cut them back, and put them in a tray of potting soil mixed with sand to sprout. They will go around the apple tree as a shallow-rooted edible ground cover.

Photo July 23

Here are the strawberries (at least the few that survived) around the base of the tree, photo taken July 23. They have rooted nicely, and will spread. Herbs to the right and left of the tree trunk have grown considerably from the transplant stage and I have harvested some already. The purple (left) is an annual basil with a small spicy globe basil in front of it, the plant on the right is the perennial anise hyssop.

Growing More Lush, photo taken 8/17/11

There is much work to be done building this guild over the next couple of years, but I am quite pleased with the progress so far. Hopefully by this fall I will get a few comfrey plants transplanted around the guild. I have put lots of cut comfrey leaves on the ground as a mulch in there... they disappear into the clay quickly!

I was tardy in getting a second planting of green beans mixed in among the first round, but they still have time to fruit before frost. Even if they don't produce many beans, they will add some nitrogen to the soil.

This entire planting area was just lawn grass that I covered with weed cloth and mulch about 4 years ago. Each year I added more mulch and it has broken down, so that when I finally (and laboriously) removed the underlying weed cloth this year I had some 'almost soil' to leave on top.

Unfortunately the area under the cloth is still hard packed clay, but if I allow the deep rooted dandelions to grow in there next year (and maybe plant daikon?) which bring up deep minerals from the subsoil... and add mulch, eventually it will attract worms that churn and break up some of the clay. I'll also add some greensand this fall as it helps break up the clay plus it will add micronutrients to help remineralization.

I have a huge pile of aged willow chips (almost inaccessible) down in the gulch near the spring house, left from last year's tree work... and if I can ever get some help, I'll mulch the guild area heavily this fall. The other woodchip pile the tree guys left near the street is more easily accessible, but it contains a lot of black walnut which would kill most things in the guild.

This is one of my more interesting projects in this garden, and one that will take the longest time. Others have been straw bale gardening, and this year's random vegetable planting.

My First Nut "Crop"!

Four summers ago I planted a variety of fruiting bushes... and one nut bush, which was ordered as an Allegheny Chinquapin. It was a foot-long bare-root stick when it arrived, and this year it seems to be producing about a dozen nuts... which greatly pleases me, but they are NOT chinquapins!

In working towards sustainability, I wanted some small nut bushes to provide a source of minerals (including calcium), protein, carbohydrates, vitamins B1, B2, B3, amino acids, and some excellent unmodified fuel (fats). Almonds perhaps might have been my first choice, but they will not grow here.

Most people think of chinquapins either as the towering oak Quercus muhlenbergii whose leaves resemble those of the chinquapin, or the small Georgiana chinquapin (Castanea alnifolia), which is more of a creeping 4-foot tall shrub that grows in zones 8 to 10, but we seldom think of a medium-size nut bush like my "woulda-been" Allegheny chinquapin (Castanea pumila), which is basically a shrub or dwarf tree growing 12 to 15 feet tall in zones 3 to 9, and is a diminutive cousin of the American chestnut (Castanea dentata).

About MY nut bush

After carefully examining the shape of the nuts at this stage, my bush is a definitely a filbert. Of course, I have no idea which filbert it might be, since it's merely what Forest Farm sent me as the chinquapin I ordered 4 years ago. The shipping list and the invoice both indicate a chinquapin... but clearly it is not, although the leaves are somewhat similar.

I'm not totally disappointed as I also like filberts. However, it's the not knowing what I really have, how tall it will get, yada, yada...

Hard to see the nuts, but they ARE there

My next big project will be to build a Nut Guild around this bush and hope I can guess close to the mature size. Meanwhile I need to research what needs to be planted in a nut guild. I may even try to plant some of the mature nuts (assuming they mature!) this year to see if I can grow another nut tree.

New project: an apple guild!

I have a new project, a really BIG project: building an apple guild!

3 years ago someone gave me an apple seedling (unknown variety) from his grandfather's old tree. It is now about 5 feet tall. I've been reading up on "guilds" since watching the A Farm for the Future videos and reading about the forest farming concepts.

To me, a guild is like companion planting that has advanced to college level. Generally, guilds are perennial with a fruit or nut tree at the center, and collectively everything around it provides for the needs of all the things planted in the group, in as many ways as possible so it becomes self-sustaining. Each "guild" needs 5 things: Nitrogen, Nutrients, Mulch, Pollination, and Protectors from competition and pests. 

There are other guilds possible, too. I found Bee Guilds (perennial), and annual Bean Guilds, Strawberry Guilds and Tomato Guilds on the internet. The annual guilds are basically heavy companion planting rather than concentrating on a self-sustaining circle of plants and trees.

So for my apple guild, I'll need a thick ring of "protectors"  just barely outside the eventual drip line to keep grass from encroaching and also deter pests; those will probably be daffodil bulbs in the beginning since mine need dividing. I don't have enough for the entire perimeter and will hopefully buy more bulbs in the fall.


Inside the 'protector ring' will be another ring spotted with a few comfrey plants and maybe a couple of artichokes just inside the daffs; they will mine nutrients with their deep roots, plus provide nutrient-laden mulch by cutting the comfrey back several times over the summer and letting the leaves litter the ground. Planted among (as well as just inside) the comfrey will be some bird and insect-attractors like dill, fennel and bee balm (monarda).... and some nutrient accumulators like yarrow, borage, chives and lemon balm. Also interspersed will be some annual vegetable plants like beans, peas and squash.

Next in and closer to the tree will be some ground covers like strawberries and red clover (a nitrogen fixer), and maybe some plants that can take a bit of foot traffic, like thyme. Right close to the trunk will be more "protector" bulbs to deter pests that might gnaw the trunk, or climb for fruit. (The shallow roots of ground covers and bulbs will not interfere with the root system of the apple tree.)

Apple tree I have to build a guild around. As you can see, lots of hard work to do!

I will have a post with photos of how it's changing in a few days. It will be a 'work in progress' for several years to get it all established, and as I add more fruit and nut trees to the yard, I plan to make them all into guilds as well.

Two good books on the subject:
Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture