Overall Goal: Plant fruit and nut trees and shrubs which produce as much food as possible with low maintenance.
To accomplish this goal, this design included planting trees and shrubs on the lower pasture area – about 2-3 acres along the access to the driveway.
Specific goals:
The landowner would like the design to include 2/3 fruit trees/shrubs and 1/3 nut trees/shrubs.
Types of trees and shrubs in the design:
- Trees: Chestnut, apple, pear, pecan. Integrate the existing chestnut into the design.
- Shrubs: Hazelnut, elderberry, bush cherries, and thornless blackberry.
Property walk and assessment
This property is forty acres in NE Kansas.
USDA growing Zone 6B.
The goal is to plant trees and shrubs on the lower pasture area – about 2-3 acres along the access to the driveway.
Burr Oak trees line the driveway, each about 60 feet apart. There are two Burr Oak trees in the North end of the pasture.
Just North of the 6th Oak tree there is an existing Chinese chestnut tree, in a cage (because of deer pressure). The tree is about 6-8 feet tall. It does not have nuts because there are no other chestnuts to pollinate it (and chestnuts do not self-pollinate).
Limiting factors:
Spouse wanted to keep the pasture open to the North of the 6th oak tree/chestnut. This will be used for future family events. All planting needs to be to the South of the 6th oak tree.
Although we discussed guilds with multiple layers, the desire was to keep it as much of an “orchard look” as possible.
The pasture does not have water infrastructure (frost-free hydrant or other water). The creek to the North is dry for the summer months. This has the potential to be a Type 1 error and could limit tree health and growth.
Because of this rainfall pattern and the lack of water infrastructure in the pasture, it will be necessary to capture, or “plant” water in the ground. Therefore, I recommended installing swales, with trees planted into the berms.
Boysenberries were desired, but they reportedly do not grow well in Zone 6B.
The hedgerow along the West side of the pasture has some Cedar trees, so the apple varieties chosen will need to be Cedar Apple Rust and disease resistant.
Contour Map of the Pasture
The pasture has a 4% slope, that is mostly toward the East. The main planting area slopes more to the Southeast.
Soil Map of the Property
Soil Type is Martin silty clay loam, with silty clay loam for the first 14 inches and silty clay below 14 inches. This is encouraging for planting trees because most of the land in the counties around here in NE Kansas (including mine) have much more clay than this.
Water
Although this looks pretty good, it doesn’t tell the whole story. It actually looks more like this:
In NE Kansas we do not have “April showers bring May flowers.”
Instead, it rains huge thunderstorms in May and June. So we need to capture that water and “plant” it into the ground.
Implementation – Let’s Do This!
Because there is no water infrastructure in the pasture, it was necessary to create swales and plant the trees into the downhill berm. Wood chips and heavy mulching. Including comfrey to add nitrogen accumulator to the apples.
The design included 160 feet of swales – one swale 60 feet and the other swale 100 feet.
I used a mini-excavator to dig the swales, form the berms, and dig holes for the trees.
160 feet of swales dug
16 trees – apples, pears, chestnuts, pecans
20 shrubs – hazelnut, elderberry, blackberry, serviceberry
14 perennials – a few types of echinacea, comfrey, Black-Eyed Susan
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