As first generation farmers with no land management or animal husbandry skills (beyond a couple of horses) moving to 85 acres should have been a bit daunting, but it wasn't. As the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know.
Even when planting 3000 spotted gums in 2009, (Thanks Bob Hingston!) I knew nothing about trees, not even that they only grew at the top! That all changed when I did the Master TreeGrower (MTG) course in 2014 and we started thinking about how we could use more trees on the farm.
When we arrived there was a large patch of remnant vegetation, a dam and an old gravel pit. No driveway, no sheds, no internal paddocks and no house. Until 2014, everything had evolved "organically" i.e unplanned. Inspired during the MTG course, I started drawing a plan which I then coloured and coded in MS Word. Being part of the Peer Group Mentoring Program (PGM) also helped with the vision, especially the management of the native forest.
The latest Google Map shows that everything on that 2014 plan has been planted except the teal blue squares at the bottom, the site for our perennial food forest fruit and nut trees scheduled for 2017. We had ripped and mounded in 2017, but have only just finished the irrigation in time for planting this year. The fence strainer posts are in and we are ready to order our trees. (see below)
The PGM program has helped almost 30 landholders in the southwest with their plans for trees, and we don't just draw the boxes and lines on the map, we will often help with the planting.
Cath Miller
Capricopia Farm
[email protected]
Even when planting 3000 spotted gums in 2009, (Thanks Bob Hingston!) I knew nothing about trees, not even that they only grew at the top! That all changed when I did the Master TreeGrower (MTG) course in 2014 and we started thinking about how we could use more trees on the farm.
When we arrived there was a large patch of remnant vegetation, a dam and an old gravel pit. No driveway, no sheds, no internal paddocks and no house. Until 2014, everything had evolved "organically" i.e unplanned. Inspired during the MTG course, I started drawing a plan which I then coloured and coded in MS Word. Being part of the Peer Group Mentoring Program (PGM) also helped with the vision, especially the management of the native forest.
The latest Google Map shows that everything on that 2014 plan has been planted except the teal blue squares at the bottom, the site for our perennial food forest fruit and nut trees scheduled for 2017. We had ripped and mounded in 2017, but have only just finished the irrigation in time for planting this year. The fence strainer posts are in and we are ready to order our trees. (see below)
The PGM program has helped almost 30 landholders in the southwest with their plans for trees, and we don't just draw the boxes and lines on the map, we will often help with the planting.
Cath Miller
Capricopia Farm
[email protected]