Why?

I (all our family) just love fresh fruits, straw berries ahh, peaches ohh, plums mmh, papaws yes, persimmons delicious... I could eat "tons" of it. Healthy fruit without fertiliser, pesticides or herbicides, fresh and mature - straight from the tree into our mouth. Yammy. I never had enough when I was a little boy.

The Plan

My aim is to plant as many fruit and nut plants as possible to create an (almost) independent forest system on a former sheep pasture.
This undertaking is a (very - Anne) long term project which, hopefully, will be continued/improved and used by generations; owners; inhabitants to come.

The Idea

It was sparked by Robert Hart's forest garden, by the reading of the French books: "La forêt fruitière" de Maurice Chaudière, "L'homme qui plantait des arbres" de Jean Giono, inspired by a visit of Martin Crawford's 15 year old forest garden in Totnes, south east England and encouraged by Australian Jeoff Laughton's video: "Greening the desert".

The Location/Climate

We are living in L'Epine, a small French village in the High Alps, (in a solar heated house) on almost 4 000m², at an altitude of about 900m amsl.
Our climate is dominated by long, cold winters and warm dry summers, USDA zone 6b with the temperatures going down to -18 ocasionelly.
The Mistral is a strong gusty and drying wind from the north, comes in periods of 3 and up to 9 days with its peak in February. The wind chill makes it grim to go outside than.

Action

A few years ago we started planting seeds, shrubs and trees and climbers.
Trees came first as they need so long to grow and bear fruit.
As for our soil it is the mud of the former alpine ocean Tethys we had here, called "la Marne" in French. Mud in winter and concrete in summer, every plant brought in needs a planting hole and some good soil to start with.
Until now we started with the common fruit trees which grow already in this area as there are Apple trees, Plum trees, Apricot trees, Peach trees and Cherry trees - they have a hard time, also neighbours have old, well bearing trees. See "UPDATES" for more plants.
Wild Pyrus - pear trees and Crateagus - hawthorn bushes are common in the hedges around us and it is easier to graft interesting varieties onto them then to plant new trees.

We are also keeping bees - for the honey and fresh pollen and chicken - mainly for the eggs and the occasional rooster in the pot.

Shiitake mushroom growing trail has just started in spring.

volunteer position in the south east of France

Final call, last 3 weeks to apply for the 1 month 3 weeks volunteer position in the south east of France (-; We offer a volunteer position for 2 dynamic, committed, motivated people, dedicated to enhance the development of a food forest for mutual be