krater garden – Peacock Orchard

How the trees are dealing with unseasonable weather

It’s hot. It’s even been in the 90’s a few times. This is not Wyoming weather. This is…..this is weather unfit for human kind. It’s also dry. Spring is when we get our rain. August, September and October are our dry months. We can go without a lick of rain that entire time. Now though, now is not good. This heat, this drought, this is not good on my young trees.

I’m discouraged. I can’t water. I don’t have the water rights to water. I’m taking water out to the most desperate trees but otherwise, I’m just praying. Praying for rain that is missing us every single time.

The kraters and swales do their job admirably. I think if the trees were established better the whole system would be stable against drought conditions. The trees aren’t established though. The most established tree is on it’s 3rd year. All the others are going on their second summer or even their first in a few cases. Their roots aren’t established enough to survive this.

They are drooping. They are yellowing. Their leaves are falling off. I’m near despair. Please, rain, please.

I think I need to mulch. I haven’t for various reasons. Ok, I actually have. The very first year I mulched the trees and it was utterly pointless. It all blew away. I haven’t bothered since. I think I need to try again though. Straw being my best bet. Perhaps fresher straw and not the half decomposed straw I used the first time.

Still, perhaps this is a lost cause. That’s the thought at the very back of my mind. That I’ve done something foolish thinking it was something brave. That I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars proving all of the nay sayers right. If a single dry spring can kill all of my work than this system doesn’t work.

It’s not all dead though. It’s simply dying. Come rain. Come and restore my plants and my spirit. We are all waiting for you.

Proof that Permaculture WORKS!

As if you needed proof, I know. Still, I am excited today.

A review of the orchard shows more trees that survived the winter than I had anticipated. The mini kraters and swales have done amazing things. We are set to have a bumper crop of plums this year, so long as we don’t get a late freeze, fierce wind, or some other completely likely weather event.

Why would I say this small 5 acre orchard is proof that permaculture works? It is dry here. Very dry. Made worse by the incredible wind we suffer from. We are high up, cold, besotted with pests. There is no genetic material available from our state to base our plantings on. We have everything going against us, including public opinion.

“You can’t grow _____ in Wyoming!” I hear it every single time I talk to a local about the orchard. When we are open to the public minds are going to be blown!

If I can grow trees here with little to no watering (certainly no irrigation), than permaculture planting techniques are a blazing success.

This winter we harvested so much snow we even created an ideal place for pests to hide.

I do hate those ground animals.

I’ve also been successful at growing garlic and onions for the first time. Ruth Stoute and mulching, a real winner!

I’d highly recommend permaculture planting techniques to everyone and you should too.

Mini Krater Construction and Planting

Thanks to my bush experiment last year I decided Kraters were the way to go. Lots and lots of Kraters. So the first thing I did was make sure I was legally allowed to dig them. I am, so long as they remain under a certain size.

So the work began. We dug the initial holes with the front bucket loader.

texting and driving — Don’t text and drive. Unless you’re in the middle of a field on an excavator that has a top speed of .95 mph

Look ma, no hands!

Then I went in with our new excavator and did some ground softening/terracing work.

Of course, life is not complete without back breaking physical labor. So I went to work with the hoe refining my terraces. Then I had to add the topsoil back into the holes and hoe the terraces again.

It’s kind of hard to tell. The one krater has a rather unique design though. You see, I originally thought I’d be able to deepend the Kraters a bit. However, the kraters were pre-dug 20′ in diameter. The excavator has a 7′ reach. I wasn’t able to get to the middle, no matter how I tried. So I didn’t try to deepen any other kraters but the one ended up with an island in the middle. I find it a perfect place to plant a paw paw.

After I put the topsoil back on I cover cropped the works.

Husband and I took a day off to plant them out.

We had just a little big to plant…………………………..

The aronia berries are holding up to our hot weather nicely. The cover crop seeds are also coming up!

Finito.

I’ll update pictures when we have notable growth. It’s exciting!

Krater Garden? Oh yes!

gallatinmidway — photo from Zach Weiss of elemental ecosystems

Krater Garden finished construction

housekraterafter5 — photo from Zach Weiss of elemental ecosystems

Same krater garden planted and growing.

So what is a krater garden?

Sepp Holzer, The “Rebel Farmer” from Austria, developed the krater garden after a trip to Siberia. The crater garden is, well….a crater, with terraced sides. Water collects in the bottom of the crater and feeds the plants grown on the terraces. Krater gardens also create micro-climates in which plants that cannot normally be grown in a particular zone may thrive.

Why would I want to make a krater garden?

Well, why not? My land is pretty flat and pretty dead. I’m in a High, dry and windy area. I need to take advantage of wind protection and water harvesting opportunities. I also like the idea of increasing the square footage of my 40 acre property.

The plans:

Initially I was going to go big, really big. However, big earth works come with big price tags, also, permits. So after speaking with the local water permit person I was granted permission to do a small krater garden without requiring a permit. I had the honor of being the first person in Wyoming to mention krater gardens and I had to send a lot of krater garden information to explain what I was talking about.

http://www.elementalecosystems.com/phone/krater-gardens.html

http://www.permies.com/t/37563/sepp-holzer/Crater-Gardens

So the plan is to use the bucket of our small tractor to dig a krater garden that is no more than 3 feet deep and 14′ in diameter. Of course, that is the water harvesting portion of it. I didn’t hear them say I couldn’t do the terraces larger so I’m going with as big as I can with my limited earth moving equipment. You might be wondering how we came upon 3′ and 14′ in size. Well, the simple answer is that I’d dug a duck pond with the tractor before and from that experience knew that 3′ was as good as I was getting. The duck pond is also 14′ in diameter so it seemed like a good idea to get that approved since I’d dug it before I was quite aware of water law and regulation.

It is winter here right now but that is just fine as the planning stage is in full force. I need to pick the location for this garden and plan the plantings. I’ve been making the front of the house the experimental area, so now I need to pick which part will be cratered. If the crater garden does well I may expand the concept to the rest of the property. I am right now imagining 40 acres pock marked with 3′ deep craters.

I will most assuredly keep everyone updated with my krater garden progress.

Thanks again to Zach Weiss for granting me permission to use his photographs. Be sure to check him out! (http://www.elementalecosystems.com/crater-gardens.html)