Nature and Gardening

We have 2 apple, two plum, two pear, three American persimmon, roughly a dozen seedling pawpaw, hickory, and chestnut trees, plus others that are more 'ecosystem service' than production trees. The apples and plums are the only ones at production age at the moment. I prune the trees to maximize airflow and sunlight, and train branches to achieve near-horizontal angles. One of our apples is at around 45 degrees relative to the ground and I trim the branches that would grow into the soil.

For shrubs, we have four varieties of raspberry (R. idaeus) and one variety that's R. oderatus, but maybe 6-10 of each currently. I like to leave three canes upright but will pin last year's canes to the soil to propagate. The R. oderatus I'll prune with heading cuts to stimulate suckering. We also have blackberries, black raspberries, blueberries, haskaps, hazelnuts, nan king cherries, spicebush, carolina allspice, elderberry, serviceberry, bayberry, and several kinds of fruit-bearing Viburnum. We've also got some grapevines, hardy kiwi, and passionfruit (P. incarnata). We like to mix annual veg into these spaces alongside our perennial herbaceous plants like sorrels, sage, comfrey, bergamot, mints, and others.

We make compost from our poultry bedding, which is mostly made up of wood chips that we get from a number of arborists in our area. We also use the chips for our foot paths and will use last year's paths as additional mulch on the gardens they border.

We're in USDA zone 5, but I really prefer the Trewartha climate system, which places us in zone Dca. I also think the Köppen climate system, which Trewartha is based on, is pretty nifty.

While I don't know just how popular they are here, the replies so far are heartening and food/fruit forest and other permaculture/regenerative gardening posts will be welcomed for as long as I'm allowed to be one of the mods