"simy1" wrote in message
om...
"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message
...
"Rod Tuomi" wrote in message
m...
I have alot of Farmer's blood flowing through my veins, and I love
this time of year. I enjoy getting the soil ready, planting a
garden,
but most of all waitng to see those little plants sprouting
through
the soil. I love to watch the plants grow, take care of them, and
of
course eat the fresh tasty veggies and fruits that come from the
sweat
of my brow.

Rod Tuomi

I'm getting excited, too. After living in the city for way too
long, we
are closing on our new 'estate' in a week. Ten acres! Woo hoo! I
have
been looking at the seed catalogs and checking out the nurseries and
drooling. Sort of like a one-eyed cat in a fish market.


Ray

Ten acres! get organized, Ray. I wish I had known as much as I do now
when I bought my present home (which is also my first). I would have
veggies year round and fruits ten months a year, and plenty of nuts
and mushrooms of course, even though I live in Michigan. And, sure,
why not, a couple goats for cheese and a few chickens for eggs. In
retrospect what I should have done first (that would make gardening
more pleasurable and productive now) was:

1) figure out what grows well around here, make a list of fruit plants
that can cover the season continuously. Here the first fruit of the
season are mulberries. Unfamiliar with them at first, I found in time
that there are varieties growing around here which are excellent (yes,
I took cuttings).

2) set up a garden in full sun and with proper wildlife protection
(though I have since eliminated the problem by a variety of methods).
Soil quality does not matter as much as sun and water, unless you have
toxic soil. You can always get good soil in two years by adding
organic matter and/or ground rock. It is better to plan ahead. I was
fortunate enough to place chicken wire under my beds. My lawn is
overrun with moles, but the garden is unaffected. But I had to find a
different solution for slugs, mice, rabbits, deer and groundhog.

3) build large, walk-in tunnels for winter and early spring
vegetables. I have been having large salads for over 6 weeks now, out
of greens that were planted last september and that survived the
winter under the tunnels. You can use the tunnels as a greenhouse for
seedlings (if you plant in the ground and not in pots, to limit
thermal fluctuations). I think a household (we are four) needs 500
sqft of tunnels (mostly greens and roots that can be stored in the
ground) and 500 of open garden (seasonal and warm weather stuff). To
that, I would add another 500 sqft of "storable" garden (potatoes,
winter squash, bush peas, garlic, onions, favas).

4) perhaps most important, put down a serious irrigation system. If
you go for a big garden, having a well would not be out of the
question. Drip, with buried lines wrapped in chicken wire and
driplines kept under the mulch, is by all accounts the best method (I
am installing my own right now).

5) ruthlessly eliminate veggies that do not grow well on your site,
and get as many perennial veggies as possible. Sorrel, asparagus,
sunchokes, cardoon and perennial chard under cover, mushroom logs and
mushroom beds, herbs of course, raspberries and strawberries.


Thanks for the advice. As it turns out, I also live in Michigan -- in
that small strip of zone 4 just south of Cadillac. We're less than a
quarter mile from the Manistee National Forest :-)

As it turns out, about half of our property is already planted -- with
neat rows of red pine. They need to be thinned, so I'm going to have to
figure out how to use the logs to make our next house. I have lots of
ideas :-)

There is a low spot fairly close to the house that should work well for
a garden. I have to check the soil better, but most of the stuff in the
area is either sand or sandy loam. There seems to be some clay near the
house, and the strip behind the house (between two plantings of red
pine) is sandy loam.

I already have the orchard and berry location figured out. There is a
lower spot between the house and the road that will work very well. I
know that because there are already a bunch of apple trees and wild
raspberry brambles there. There is a really small creek (or ditch)
running near the road. It appears to drain a swamp that's across the
road. I'm thinking of digging a small pond to keep some of the water
for irrigation and stock watering. I'm planning on running an electric
fence around the entire orchard area, along with some chicken wire. I
want to keep the chickens (we accidentally acquired four of them a month
ago, and have 25 pullets, 2 cockerels, and 6 guineas ordered) in the
orchard area to keep the bugs down and the windfalls picked up. When we
get goats, we may use them to clean up the area on occasion, but dairy
goats shouldn't be kept with chickens. They also tend to strip pine
trees -- though most of ours would be safe because the lowest live
branches are too high for them.

Someone left an old plow and disk back in the forest (probably two or
three owners back), so we'll just need to get an old tractor with a
three-point hitch.

I would like more information on digging a trench greenhouse. I saw an
article about it a couple months back in either Mother Earth News or
Hobby Farm or some mag like that. It looks like a good idea, and we'll
have some used windows available in a couple years. I'll probably cover
it with two or three layers of plastic, though, so the light will be
diffused.


Ray Drouillard