Alright finally have a bit of an update.. not the whole farm but:
-nuts from seed
-ram pump (full video coming soon)
-pasture walk
-winter cow watering
-grafted volunteer apples
-a new nut tree ecosystem takes hold
-drinking water spring update
Not covered but hope to in a future video:
Air pruning beds, zone 1 veggies, new pond zone… new orchard areas, bees etc.
Front Yard Garden
22 Comments
Oh great! It is always great to see systems evolving over time.
Great stuff as always, Ben. Thank you for the tour!
Things are looking great! I feel your pain with the pressure of the cattle on the trees. My trees are looking a bit rough after a year of alley grazing.
I was going to ask for a homestead tour! Thanks for sharing your landscape design
greg judy can help with the watering situation
Any issues with cows walking on chestnut burrs?
Keep it up buddy! Your are definitely inspiring me to keep pushing my mountain homestead over here in the northern Rockies.
Thank you Ben
The stoke radiates across borders and bioregions Ben! Thanks for this AMAZING entertainment and shared experiential capital. The PNW is a smoke fest right now, perhaps the latest fire season I can recall (I'm 42 and have lived on Vancouver Island for 40 of those years). I'm just stoked to be up on the north coast out of the haze for another week and rain is finally coming to douse those flames in southern BC and Washington. It's a crazy ride this life, I hope to keep sowing apples in random spots and sprinkling acorns around just for fun until the worms turn my carcass into food for those trees. Haha!
Thanks for sharing! Beautiful landscape.
Amazing Ben, thanks. Please consider a better camera.
Thanks for sharing. I remember a few years back you did a walk through. Things have changed.
Sounds like your cows are pruning your trees for you. Maybe try planting more chestnut than others in select spots and see if you get a few that survive the cows and you get straighter saw logs out of it?
That walnut tree will be fine. When I get damage to the main lead at that age, I select the next largest lower branch. Then I get a small stake and bend that branch into a vertical position. Then prune the tips on the remaining branches. By the next season the tree commits to the branch as the main lead. In 5 years when the trunk caliper increases the old damage is erased.
I'm wondering, where is that part of your property in relationship to your house, studio, pond etc, that is featured in your book? Is that a new part?
Thanks Ben, great to see.
Cut the American Chestnut at the base and it will send up new shoots. It will be fine.
On species migration: The indigenous peoples helped their favorite species migrate to places they wouldn't have on their own. So I feel that it is our job to help the process along with every species that we find useful and needed for our new ecosystems. If we plant it, they will come.
2×4 is great for deer, but what would you do to protect against rabbits? They have eaten the bark from 10 bare roots I planted last year, not to mention every single veggie I planted. Fencing the zone 1 garden and lining that with wire too, but would have likely gone for chicken wire had you not said to avoid…
Love seeing your videos thank you for sharing. I don't want to ask what specifically is planting in the hedge rows — but more along how did you decide what to plant in the hedge rows?
crucial information while I re-establish diverse, value bearing, multi generation ecosystem on denuded site. thank you
Thank you Ben. Zone five b here in central ma.. You have inspired my homesteading journey, even when difficult for many years.
Great video Ben! I write you from Denia, Spain, and your work is very inspiring. I learn a lot from you ☺