Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: sunflower
- Fruits: apples, berries (brambles), peaches, pears, general tree fruits
- Vegetables: asparagus, beets, garlic, onions, radishes (culinary)
- Additional Plants: herbs, native plants, ornamentals
Practices
- Crop Production: agroforestry
- Education and Training: youth education
- Farm Business Management: marketing management
- Pest Management: biological control, mulches - living
- Production Systems: permaculture
Proposal summary:
PROBLEM/SOLUTION
This project seeks to enhance the food producing capacity of marginal or underutilized land, and to increase the utility of land currently in production or in use as a conservation practice. Creating a vertically integrated edible bio-system will allow landowners and managers to:
1. use vertical as well as horizontal space
2. develop plant guilds that provide natural fertility and pest protection
3. reduce or eliminate synthetic inputs, and
4. produce a wide variety of food products marketable in a local foods environment
Project objectives from proposal:
1. Apply the concepts of the food forest system, developed in tropic and arrid regions, to a temperate climate.
2. Develop a viable food producing system on marginalized land.
3. Provide a food forest that can sustain human (profit) and wildlife (food and habitat) needs.
4. Develop a value-added hedgerow containing edibles from trees, brambles, and understory plantings.