Our property is about 10 acres in size, and about 7 to 7 1/2 acres of it is woods, wild grasses, wild flowers, and some marsh area, with a large natural pond in the middle of it. I guess it could be best described right now as a savanna. There are many native wild edibles already growing in this area. You could almost say that it already is a forest garden or at least the beginnings of one.
A lot of thought has gone into the planning of this trail over the past year.
I need the trail to be wide enough for a garden tractor with a 48 inch (121.92 centimeter) wide mowing deck to easily travel on, and mow. So I think by doubling the with of the garden tractors deck which would be 8 feet (2.4384 meters) wide will do just fine. This will give the tractor plenty of clearance on each side. This will be especially helpful when the taller vegetation starts to lean into it later on in summertime when it’s all full grown.
I also need the trail to be as level and as easily accessible as nature will allow. I’m getting older, my friends are getting older, and my parents and most of their friends are older. We also have friends and family that are physically handicapped so I would like to make it or at least part of the trail accessible for them too when they come to visit. I see a good used golf cart coming in our future!
Then there’s wildlife to consider! A forest garden is all about sustainably working with nature, not against it.
I know a bit of the history of the woods, and pond area. I was actually part of it a little over a decade ago. The last owner of the property Margie (a close family friend) had a love for birds, and wanted to turn the woods and pond area into a protected reserve for the Red-headed woodpecker.
She asked for my help in creating it so I put together a small crew and we got to work.
Our job was to remove all the invasive species that had taken over so that the land could be restored back to pre-industrial revolution condition.
It was very educational, and a lot of fun to create. We got to work with bird experts, scientists, and our states DNR, but I will get more into that at another time on a blog post of it’s own.
Needless to say we succeeded, and the land officially received state protection status, until a few years ago when politics took away the state protection status on all private properties in our state. We still maintain the land as a protected reserve for the Red-headed woodpecker, but just without the state protection status or the states help anymore.
So I want to be careful not to do anything to the land that would upset or harm the Red-headed woodpecker on this part of our property. The trail for now will only serve as a nature trail until I learn more. In the meantime I’ve got over 2 1/2 acres of lawn around our house to play around with, and turn into a forest garden!
In the image above marked in yellow is the planed first part of the main trail. I had to walk every square inch of the area to find a safe rout through. There are lots of rocks, stumps, big fallen dead trees, and young tree’s just starting to grow scattered throughout this section of woods. So I brought a tape measure along to ensure an 8 foot (2.4384 meters) trail width as I walked the area. There are only 3 to 5 medium sized boulders that need to be moved by taking this rout, but it’s all level once you enter the woods, and far enough away from nesting areas to be safe from disturbance.
Every part of our property has a different incredible view! The photo above is a close up of our pond viewed at water level from the Southeast looking to the Northwest, and with every seasonal change so do the views! The main trail if things keep going as planned will hopefully give many different breathtaking perspectives for trail users to enjoy.
Besides all the incredible views! There are also some resources that can be repurposed without harming the natural environment.
On the most Southern end of our property lies an old fence line left over from when this part of the land was being used as a pasture. It’s kind of hard to see in the photo above because it’s becoming overgrown with Birch trees, but it’s full of rocks and boulders. Farmers over the years had picked them out of their fields and stacked them along this fence line until it became a really long rock wall.
Now that the fence line and rock wall serve no purpose anymore, I would like to use some of the rocks for landscaping projects in my forest garden on other parts of our property.
I just have to get the main trail close enough to get them out!
Now that I have the first part of the trail all planed and marked out it’s time to clear and mow it. So stay tuned! Things are about to get interesting.