Our Forest Garden

As anxious as an expectant father I watch for my new fruit and nut tree seedlings to emerge in the spring as the soil warms. Years ago I started experimenting with the growing of fruit and most recently nut trees from seed. We are slowly working towards creating a small food forest of our own and have been diligent in saving seeds from the fruit and nuts of old orchards and forests that we come across as we search our favorite haunts for wild edibles.

Chestnut just emerging

One year old chestnut

Many of the apples trees we have started are ones able to grow high into the forest canopy. We have gathered seeds from wild black cherry trees that tower 50 to 60 feet above the woodland floor. Shade loving plants such as currants and gooseberries seem to do well once established. Certain raspberries, strawberries, service, and elderberries have also been encouraged to grow amongst many other adaptive plants. Our acreage consists of many tall trees and the aforementioned attributes are important in such a forest garden. This is a goal that is still very much in its infancy and will be many, many years in the making but one of which the basis has already been established and is slowly becoming more than an idea but an actual reality.

Black raspberry

Strawberry

Black elderberry

Native elderberry

This last fall I seeded directly into the ground various apple, pear, cherry, apricot, plum, chestnut, and walnut seeds and some of them are just beginning to develop into little seedlings. We do this in the fall because the seeds need to go through a 3-4 month stratification period at 35-40°. This can also be done in the fridge as I did with some of my sea kale and soapwort seeds. My wife would be most annoyed if I filled up the fridge with tree seeds as well though, it's bad enough that the living room is full of vegetable seedlings...and then there's last year's squash but I won't talk about that right now.

Sea kale and soapwort in the fridge

Sea kale 7 weeks later

Baby apricot

Parent apricot started to bloom yesterday

The apples, and pears, are always a mystery because they will be a cross of what ever trees were growing in the area, that's OK. I am not going so much for flavor in this project as adaptability...I need tall trees that can be grown out in the woods and can compete with the coniferous trees for light. It also helps that they are trees from the immediate area and should do well in our climate. The rest of these seedlings, with any luck, should come true to to form as I believe they are all standard trees that self pollinate.

Our tall coniferous trees

We also have a wide variety, around 32 I think, of nursery bought dwarf and semi dwarf fruit trees anywhere from 3-10 years of age, most in the 4-5 year range and just beginning to bear fruit for us in our mini orchard. The most important thing to know about planting fruit trees is that they take time, time slips by quickly though. I am so glad that we stopped putting off the little orchard idea and finally got busy and started planting trees a few years back. We added around 12 just last year and have two more pears sitting in pots in the greenhouse waiting to be planted this spring. We found a couple sad little Asian pears at a $ store and decided to take a chance on them.

The area we planted a few of our younger semi dwarf trees in deer cages

Sad little Asian pears

We traded eggs and a bit of cash for many pounds of English walnuts this past fall and I planted around fifty of them, I had to take a peek and see what was happening....the expectant father thing. We started a couple black walnut trees a few years back and they will be used to pollinate the English ones in good time.

English walnut starting to root

Boy and three year old black walnut

Future home of walnut trees

The apples come from the seed of over 20 standard trees found all over our area and were the first to germinate this spring.

Apple emerging

Three days later

Three year old apple from seed


A couple of our black cherry trees, direct from seed 4 years ago, are close to 11' tall already, and even provided us with a handful of cherries last year.

Black cherry

Some of our unknown but very hardy pear trees, perhaps some type of Bosc, are very close to bearing fruit and I have high hopes they will this summer. One of our Italian plums, an old grafted one, has been through the worst of it with us. It was actually ripped out of the ground when a tree fell on it a few years ago, we hoisted it back up, replanted it and although it lost many of its limbs it has continued to produce. Not only that but it has given us numerous baby plum trees, not true to form, but ones that none-the-less put out a most delicious little green plum. They also grow very tall and seem to thrive wherever we plant them...even in the shade.

Green plum preparing to flower

It takes 2-4 years for a nursery bought fruit tree to produce and will take perhaps 6 or more for one propagated from seed...even longer for some nut trees. So there is no better time then the present to get started on the planting of fruit trees and berry bushes.

Don't be afraid to try something new! We have mulberry trees and honeyberry bushes growing and are now looking for a hardy peach and perhaps a quince to grow. Can I keep my two sad dwarf Asian pears alive in this climate?...I don't have a clue, but am darn sure going to try.

Honeyberry bush

I love this quote I first read on Chiot’s Run .

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit". - Rudyard Kipling

The Champion

In a prior post Run Baby Run I talked about my wife training for a 12km (7.46 mile) race. The training went pretty well although we did not get in nearly as many runs as I had hoped partly due to the weather. By the time Sunday's race rolled around she was able to run 5.5 miles with some confidence. In preparation for the event she had a big green salad topped with eggs and potatoes for breakfast a few hours before the run. This is a mainstay in our diet and provides us with all the energy we need to get through the day.

Since eating mostly raw vegetarian foods (we still eat wild game upon occasion) directly from our gardens we have noticed a number of changes to our health. In addition to shedding excess pounds, we have noticed that our energy levels have gone up dramatically. My wife who used to suffer from low blood sugar levels has no issue with this at all anymore. She has been able to greatly increase not only her endurance but strength as well. We attribute this to the nutrient dense foods we have been consuming of late.

Another interesting benefit of our garden diet is that we never get sick anymore and believe me we are exposed to germs on a daily basis. Our grandson spends part of his week in daycare and is always bringing some sort of illness to his grandparent's house.


Not only did my wife run the race and finish in the top 25%, pretty good considering the crowd of over 44,000 runners, but upon arriving home she spent the rest of the afternoon working in the gardens with me. It was a long day for her but she was pleasantly surprised to find herself with still more energy to burn.


Sometimes when you push yourself, as in an athletic endeavor, it taxes your immune system. I had her follow up the race with an immune system boosting concoction of a raw clove of garlic, tablespoon of honey and a handful of sorrel leaves (extremely high in vitamin C). Of course a hot bath, foot rub, and Corona with lime were also in order for the champ...her idea of an immune system booster.

I must say that the best part of the ensuing race towards self sufficiency has been the amazing changes to our health...health is our wealth. Good job honey!

Forced to Operate

We do not normally have any issues with wireworms, the larvae of a click beetle, attacking our crops but I did find these fellows enjoying one of my onions.

The onion was leftover from last year, at fall harvest I often leave the smaller onions in the ground so that they can be used as early spring greens. I was transplanting this one to another location and noticed it had been violated by wireworms.

I was forced to operate.

The onion pulled through but the wireworm's fate was not at all pleasant.

The Secret of True Happiness

I often wonder if true happiness is simply finding contentment. I truly believe that if one can have peace of mind in the moment, content with what is, you will have achieved what people call happiness. Try spending a whole day carefully looking around in utter amazement at the things that are and pondering how they could possibly exist, it is a most interesting place to go.


I always find contentment when I am free from the things of man, although one has to blur their eyes to achieve that these days. We spent a couple hours hiking in the mountains yesterday, here are a few of the things we noticed.

Haughty Asparagus

Looking down on their new relations the snobbish green asparagus was not at all pleased to be sharing its bed with a foreign visitor. "Who are these purple aberrations that have managed the winter and are now attempting to become permanent squatters, disrupting our all green society?" they demanded.


Looking up at their much larger rivals the peculiar purple asparagus respond "We are much sweeter and more tender then you, green asparagus. The farmer says we may stay as long as our performance holds up."


The green ones scowl and make preparation for a most bountiful harvest, "We will show the farmer who is best, we may not be as tasty but are far more productive" they tell each other.

The purple asparagus responds in kind, focusing it's energy on delicate flavor rather than quantity.


The farmer smiles, having overheard the argument, and thinks to himself "Just wait until I introduce the spargel" (white asparagus).