permaculture

[Sharon Gordon <gordonse@one.net>]

At 11:04 PM 2/17/02 -0600, you wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sharon Gordon <gordonse@one.net>
> >Sounds like a lot of wonderful new additions.  I enjoyed the
> description >of >your Front Yard garden.  You have an impressive
> variety of plants >there.>How much of your household food do you
> expect to produce >once your>plants are really bearing at a good rate
> in the next few >years?
>
> I wish I was organized enough to answer this question.  One site that
> I have read pretty thoroughly is http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ , which
> is the site of some folks who have done amazing things with a 66' X
> 132' urban lot in an order neighborhood.

Their variety and productivity is amazing.  Another interesting experiment
with detailed data was done by Albie Miles 
http://www.cityfarmer.org/albie.html .
His plan is good from the standpoint of nutrition and soil fertility.  He 
was doing this
as a short term academic project, so the focus was on annuals.


> get a lot of light on our growing areas all around the calendar.  One
> of the things I think about a lot is how that will change as the semi
> dwarf fruit trees grow.

If you put the fruit trees closer to the house, you could still get most of 
the light
on the lower growing things.  This would also give an extra benefit of 
airconditioning
for the house.  If the trees are closer to the road, you might be able to  
grow
more greens and lettuce in the summer between the trees and the house by 
taking
advantage of the shade.  This might get you a couple extra weeks of greens
before they bolt.  A few other considerations...If the trees are tall enough
 that nuts will drop on the house, I can say from personal experience
 that it's difficult to get any sleep during the
weeks they are falling on the roof.  Cherries and cherry-bird-poop are very
rough on car paint.   Many of the things that you are planting are very
beautiful in bloom, so I bet your yard will be a visual delight.

Sharon
gordonse@one.net