In tandem with my fruit tree from seed experiment, I am also going to attempt growing pumpkin, watermelon and rockmelon away from my main garden amongst my apple trees and next to a channel. I am lazy, so wherever labour can be saved, I attempt to find it. I simply call it efficiency.
The guild I would have created with the apple trees serves two purposes, the first being that when I water the trees, the vines are also getting watered too. A substantial amount of groundcover is also created, reducing the weeding and watering requirements. At the end of the season, I can then put all the organic matter back into the soil, greatly improving it. While this guild is incredibly simple, it is a start and perhaps over the years it can become far more complex and self sustaining.
The crops next to the channel are low risk and high reward. Most days the channel is full of water, and my theory is that once the plants become established they will not need any manual irrigation. My grandfather did something similar to this a while back and I believe it was quite successful. The most important thing is allowing the roots to grow enough to reach the water before I stop irrigating it. I am unsure how much fertiliser I will give it at the moment, but will likely play it as it comes.
This experiment will take far less time than the tree one for obvious reasons, so the feedback loop will be better. If I am met with even the slightest success, I will likely repeat it, improve upon it and perhaps even expand the plants I use in it. While permaculture is definitely focused around the use of trees, you cannot ignore that the beauty of annual crops is the ability to correct mistakes.
As said before, this experiment holds very little downside. The worst that can happen is the plants die without a yield, and honestly, that isn’t bad. It tells me that either something is incredibly flawed with my theory and I shouldn’t repeat it, or perhaps I can identify a major mistake, correct it, and try again next year. However, from the empirical evidence, I have a feeling that not only will I get a great crop, but the soil will be improved around the apple trees and less labour is needed for the same yield.
I will keep you all updated on this little experiment over the next few months!
