People Laugh At Me Because I Am Different

We don’t. With the orchard what we did is I went through,
I showed you the two year cycle of preparing the land where I grew the four years of covers.
That stimulates the biology, gets the land, the soil, healthier.
Then what we actually did, we went in before we planted the trees, we went in and seeded perennials.
We like to use perennial native grasses and some perennial forbs and then we do add some flowering species.
We seeded the entire area where we put our orchards, and we have several areas, to that.
Then we come in and plant the trees.
It’s a perennial carpet there.
Then that’s where we’re grazing sheep and laying hens.
Our grass finished lambs are grazing underneath in the orchard.

We have tree tubes around the trees because if we didn’t, the deer just decimate.
Our deer population’s so high in our place that they would decimate the trees if we didn’t protect them.
It’s not ideal for really producing and growing the type of tree that’s easy to harvest, but that’s okay. It doesn’t matter.

What is in your orchard?

We’ve got everything; apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, several different nut varieties.
We have juneberries and buffalo berries which are native to our environment.
There’s probably about 20 different species of fruit and nut trees that we’re growing now.
The reason for that is think of it this way, how many people would you guess in North Dakota are growing peaches?
Okay. I can get I’m sure three to four dollars per peach, you know? Because it’s a nostalgic thing.

People laugh at me because I’m different. I laugh at them because they’re all the same.
That’s the kind of attitude. You got to have that kind of attitude when it comes to marketing.
I don’t want to market what everybody else is marketing because then it becomes just a commodity, and I have zero desire to produce commodities.

 


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3 Responses

  1. i am doing the same in my farm, and yes some people are criticizing me, for my farm is really weedy.

    1. Well done and keep going! The weeds are providing cover for your soil and helping balance it as well as cycling nutrients. Eventually the weeds will change and more native species will appear.

    2. Your ‘weeds’ will be doing a great service to balancing your soil and will eventually change to more native species.

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