Before getting into the food growing aspects of Simpler Thyme, I should mention first off: of full-time/year-round residents, there are two seperate households on the farm. Ann and Mike Lanigan have their home near the highway and main entrance to the property, and in close vicinity to main parking areas. Bill Orosz lives in a smaller dwelling further back on the property: the map above shows a long, mildly-curving, east-west driveway going to the west side of the property. Here are located in close proximity a three-bedroom trailer and two cabins for wwoofers, and Bill's modest house (which is passive solar, with a greenhouse on it's south side).
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As far as food production goes it could be said that there are four different types of food producing systems at Simpler Thyme.
Outlined or overlaid with red boxes and white letters are the annual, or vegetable, dominant areas: A - is the main garden with it's raised-beds and 8/9-season-crop-rotation; B is one (tomatoes and squashes) and C is two fields (tomatoes, brussel sprouts and sweet potato) that are also planted with annuals, but are tractor-tilled and more simple in species diversity; and the area around D includes 5 unheated greenhouses filled mostly with greens / leafy vegetables, and three small gardens which are currently home to sweet potatoes and melons. For all but that very last category, see previous blog postings for images; for the latter, see below.
In the image above we see not only a space with annual vegetables, but also a frame of a greenhouse with vegetation encompassed within - these are potted tropical fruit trees that spend their summer out here, and the winter inside the passive solar greenhouse attached to Bill's house. We can also see currant bushes (with wood-chip mulch at their base). This image very explicitly shows the heterogeneity of this part of the farm; how it hosts a mixture of annual and perennial cropping systems. Below is another example showing a Ginkgo Biloba tree surrounded by melons {and in this case, old strips of plywood used as mulch, a great example of a 'waste' actually being a resource}
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Outlined by yellow boxes and with yellow lettering are areas with mostly perennial crops: A is the oldest and most well established orchard which actually put out produce for market this year (plums, cherries, currants) {see a previous blog for cherry images}; B is a drier uphill area called "the nut grove," with young and barely productive trees, and two swales on contour {see images from April 15 entry}; barely visible (overlaid on top of the long east-west driveway) C is in place to draw attention to fruit trees and pernnial herbs which line the driveway itself.
Note one thing about this picture which is not very sustainable or permaculture-inspired: mowed grass. This season at Simpler Thyme they kept some areas of the property manicured for a specific family event (wedding); I hope that in future years this space will be seeded with resilient beneficial or edible groundcovers (like clover, strawberries, or herbs of some kind) or host a chicken/duck tractor.
Also outlined with yellow but unlettered: the small but thicker-lined box beside yellow-B is an asparagus patch; on both sides of red(white)-C are two small patches with more young tree, shrub, and ground-cover crops being established. And the largest area encircled in yellow, a thin line, is a space where 100s of trees were planted largely between 5 and 10 years ago, with most having perished due to multi-season droughts. This area is mostly dominated by grasses and wildflowers (as is the 'nut grove') at the moment, with only a few trees still surviving. Along it's border with the forest are a plethora of wild raspberries, and near it's eastern edge (right beside a brown box with a grey-A) is a large patch of cultivated raspberries. Below we can see that this space looks more like a meadow than a young forest or orchard:
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The brown category represents places where animals are raised. The large triangle with a grey-B is an 8-10-ish acre pasture where 10 cows, two goats, one horse, and one donkey currently roam. It is has one quarter which the animals have permanent access to (bottom left corner, near the barn), while three other segments are all fenced off and only openly periodically to the animals; hence the pasture is on a rotation. In general the cows are raised for meat only (as opposed to milk), and the other 4 animals are there more as pets.
Note that in this picture below, on top of seeing the south edge of the pasture we are also seeing the edge of the one of the tilled gardens {red-C}
Near yellow-C is a small brown box which is a pig-pen; these pigs started the summer clearing that area of vegetation and thus mostly eating greenery, but these days live mostly off of kitchen and post-market food-"wastes." Before two weeks ago there were four of them, but two were recently slaughtered for an on-farm wedding (one of Ann and Mike's daughters). The other two will also be mainly for household consumption.
The brown area with a grey-A consists of three separate animal enclosures: chickens in one; Muscovy ducks in another; and a third which is home to peafowl, guinea fowl, silkies (a type of chicken), ducks, geese, and rabbits. I will discuss these animals in a later part of this analysis {the 'critique' section}.
Finally there is the forest, a 25 acre rectangular-shaped generally-"natural" ecosystem. It is dominated by maples, beeches, hickories, and other Carolinian trees and sub-canopy plants. On top of 150 sugar maple trees which are tapped for sap, which is then boiled down into sap in the farm's own sugar shack, and the intentionally planted shiitake mushrooms, there are also many wild edibles in this forest. Right now, Mayapples and Wilk Leeks are two plants which are plentiful, tasty, and ready. Later in the year Black Walnuts and Hickory nuts will be ready; earlier, wild gooseberries and strawberries were up for grabs. And of course one could always hunt or trap some animals in this forest if desired, albeit at 25 acres it would not give a very large supply of meat sustainably.
Here is a picture from back in May when the Trillums were flowering.
Placement of these systems, "Zones"
Bill Mollison and newer/younger permaculture designers bring up one design feature which should be common sense to any farmer or homesteader: it makes sense to locate growing spaces that need the most care close to dwellings, and to place less-frequented systems further away (all for efficiency sake, why walk further than you have to?) This is easier to do when one is started a brand new farm or homestead, a bit harder to do when working with pre-existing features.
Simpler Thyme seems to be reasonably well structured when this guideline is kept in mind: the more biologically complex annual gardens are congruent to either of Bill or Ann's houses; the simpler gardens are bit more out of the way. The perennial spaces are all also not exactly close to the houses, as they don't need weekly harvesting or weeding like diverse vegetable and herb gardens do.
As far as animals go, the birds need daily feeding and egg collection, and also are close to the main house and hub of activity. The pigs do need daily feeding, but are on route between Bills house and Ann's and thus are not easily ignored. The cows et. al. however do not need daily attention (remember, we don't milk them, their calves do) so it is acceptable and ideal that they are out of the way.
Finally, the forest needs next to no care at all from the people on the farm. Every once in a while someone checks for mushrooms; for a couple of weeks in late winter, maple syrup is harvested; and every once in a while wood is cut and/or gathered from in there. But otherwise it's a relatively untouched area.
One important thing to bring up, considering Simpler Thyme is a farm, is: where is produce processed, packaged, and stored post-harvest? I have not touched on this before, but it is very simple. Attached to the main house is an on farm market and a root cellar where much of the produce is weighed out, bagged or bunched, and stored; in a barn beside the house is a fridge where greens are stored right away harvest; between these two structures is an outdoor sink and tables where freshly harvested greens or roots with leaves attached are dunked in cold water before being refrigerated.
This may seem to some like a minor detail and rather irrelevant, but it is an important part of the big picture, and an aspect of permaculture design. For a farm or homestead to be environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable it must involve a decent amount of efficiency; people need to be able to accomplish the most amount of work with the least amount of effort if they are going be happy and productive workers.
In the next section I will go on to talk about the main garden and some of it's structural aspects, as well as the changes that are taking place (and how it's transition into a perennial system is a microcosm for whatever else is going on on the farm).
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