@Luisport thread My small fruit tree orchard
Really always made me want to chronicle my own journey of turning my tiny yard into our tiny oasis. We don’t have much land, but I just pack everything in tight, it’s not the way everyone would prefer but it’s the way I like it.
When we bought the house there was nothing of note in the yard. Unfortunately I live in a mostly tourist area and therefor not a ton of people do what I value as landscape (edible and floral) rather they do what is easy to maintain without irrigation. It’s very hard to grow even grass here. The soil is hydrophobic beach sand, and when you see new construction add sod on top of beach sand you know it’s a matter of months before it looks awful. The only way to grow here is to build soil, I use the “back to Eden” approach which is me getting truckload after truckload of municipal mulch (free). It is basically compost and really seems to be very fertile black gold to me. I just want to have a place I can go back to and reflect over the past and future, please indulge my addiction haha
Wish I could go back in time and not put down this landscape fabric. I’ve moved to two layers of cardboard which is much better, kills the grass/weeds and breaks down fast
good job! i did the same to my yard. turned 3/4 a acre of grass into a orchard/ food forest. its 8 yrs. in the making and always evolving. trying new stuff, removing stuff that didn’t work out or i wasn’t fond of it. even though im on rocky clay. i still use woodchips. this way i rarely need to water or weed. dont be afraid to use fruiting groundcovers/ herbs in between your plantings, ive got lowbush blueberries, arctic raspberries and improved cultivars of strawberries as well as various spreading herbs growing all over the yard. i also seeded my steep ditch with lupines and wildflower mixes. keeps the bees happy when my plantings aren’t flowering.
3rd or 4th year Pancho Avocado (left) Lila Avocado (right) but the Lila had a pine tree fall on it and damaged it really bad so it’s now finally recovering
Yeah I am slowly trying to fill the ground in with perennials and ground covers for that exact reason. Unfortunately I still need to water almost daily due to the heat and the ground not holding water really. But slowly I’m getting there
