Agroforestry for Small Farms & Homesteads – Food Forest & Homestead Design

The old John Eyler Homestead – once completely logged – is now Regenerating into a Dynamic Food Forest.

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If the future is nuts.. then the fine folks at Stoney Spring Farm on the historic John Eyler Homestead site are well set. This hillside farm nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains feels like it is right out of a John Steinbeck book, a peaceful ‘away’ place many of us dream about.

This beautiful site has just become more majestic with over 1,000 fruit and nut rich plantings in a dynamic agroforestry/permaculture design.

The first objective of the site design was water. Being a hillside farm water was sheeting off, leaving the soil dry even just a few days after strong rains, and pulling organic matter off with it – a double loss!

To slow, sink and spread the water we created swales on contour that consist of a dug out basin and corresponding downhill berm. These swales on contour are capturing the water sliding down the hill falling into the basins which then sink all that wonderful water into the water table – hydrating the soil for 30-40 feet downslope. This key design completely changes the soil dynamic and thus the success of whatever is planted.

So, what did we plant?!

Overstory:
Northern pecans, hybrid chestnuts, hickories, select black walnuts, heartnuts, pine nuts, sweet oaks,sugar maples, honey locusts, persimmons, mulberries, willows..

Understory:
Paw paws, hazelnuts, juneberries, elderberries, hawthorns, cornelian cherries, red buds, spice bushes..

Ground Covers:
Mountain mint, running comfrey, bee balms, clovers.

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#plants #gardening #food

here in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the old John iser Farmstead we are planting the future with fruits and nuts medicinal and useful plants in an agro forestry setting where we are taking these open denuded Landscapes that were used for cattle logging agriculture that were not really serving the landscape by causing erosion loss of water and top soil and we have come in and we’ve designed Harvest water on Contour throughout the landscape we’ve created these basins and these burms so that as water falls down the landscape into those basins it stops and it hydrates the landscape it stays collects that organic matter and soil that would be eroding and starts to build up the soil then we’re going through on spaced pattern and we’re planting large overstory nut trees nor Northern pecans hybrid chestnuts select hickories pons paw Pauls a cornicopia of very select genetics of each one of these types of plants that we are sourcing from throughout the country from the best of what’s been found over centuries so that as we’re planting we’re actually inoculating the entire region here with some of the best genetics that’ll spread by Animals by humans for hundreds of of years so this is a benefit not just to the hillsides of this beautiful place but for the entire region so as we are planting these overstory trees we’re also coming in and doing under story midstory trees things like juneberries and Hawthorns and Red Buds help diversify the berries and the bird habitat we’re planting great pollinators in here things like false Indigo Bush and Mountain mint so that all the insects and the and all of the life can hum in this space and support itself as its own ecosystem we’re also jump starting all of this with uh wood chips and straw these organic waste streams that are all around us that we can bring in to help start these systems then we’re planting Ground Covers what we sort of call Green manures that will run throughout the system help cover the soil help feed the soil with organic matter and build fungal networks we design for neglect by putting in the bones of the design selecting the really appropriate species to plant and then these things will Thrive and they will last for hundreds of years and beyond that because the seeds that are falling from this will keep growing in different areas and different regions and this becomes a real resource so it’s such a blessing for this place to exist and having come from a history of logging and cattle to now being this new food Forest that’s going to bring abundance not just to the lives here but for the entire region such a blessing [Music]