For six years we have been designing our new home and landscape. We are on the cusp of moving in and I am overjoyed to finally create a foundation for our food forest.

Low-Maintenance Food
Dave Jacke’s brilliant Edible Forest Garden book describes a food forest as “an edible ecosystem, a consciously designed community of mutually beneficial plants and animals intended for human food production.” Healthy ecosystems require no human maintenance: they run on sunlight, rainfall, and the inherent actions of resident critters. That is the kind of landscape I want to mimic! The maintenance burden is put on the strong shoulders of Mother Nature, freeing up my time to harvest and play.

In addition to providing copious amounts of low-maintenance food, these spaces also:
• Provide habitat for desired birds, insects, and other critters
• Clean and manage rainwater
• Purify air
• Build soil
• Sequester carbon

Exact opposite characteristics can be seen in most landscapes created by humans. This is why we are experiencing our current environmental mess. Improving the health of my yard has led to a much better understanding of how to address larger environmental issues.

Starting with the Soil
Construction left much of the clayey soil disturbed and compacted. A spring seeding of cover crops helped add organic matter and break up compaction, but the soil was still in bad shape.

Most new homes simply smooth out the soil and lay down sod. The shallow roots of turfgrass cannot penetrate the clay and so the water-fertilize-weed-mow regime begins and lasts… forever.

Fertile soil in Midwest ecosystems is created through centuries of work from soil organisms and plants. I only have a few decades to make a beneficial contribution to our environment so I needed to speed things up a bit.

Compost Spreading Party
Compost is called “gardener’s gold” for a good reason: it enlists the help of trillions of beneficial soil organisms to increase tilth and make nutrients available for plants.

During a toasty late afternoon, wonderful friends and family helped spread over thirty tons of bulk compost over the landscape. We shoveled the compost into wheelbarrows and spread it 3-4 inches deep. Existing cover crops (and weeds) were completely covered by the compost. Thank you, friends and family, who helped with this fun work!

Breaking up Compaction
The clay soil was compacted nearly two feet deep in several large areas. The yard was too large to uncompact the soil by hand, but too small for large-scale farm equipment.

Thankfully, a couple local organic farmers answered my plea for help. They used a small tractor and subsoil plow to break up the clay to a depth of 12-18 inches. A subsoil plow is great: it heaves and cracks the soil without turning it over—this is very beneficial since clay soil quickly hardens when exposed to air and sunlight.

While we could not plow as deeply as I had hoped, the deeply incorporated compost will begin working on the lower levels of compaction.

Tilling
The compost was then further worked into the clay by tilling the top 6-8 inches of soil. The tilling also smoothed the landscape, incorporated the cover crops, and broke down large chunks of clay.

I am not fond of tilling because it disturbs soil structure, brings weed seeds to the surface, increases the potential for erosion, and can create a layer of compacted soil just below the surface. In this case, however, the soil had already been greatly disturbed. Erosion issues will be managed by immediately seeding fast-growing plants and by digging infiltration swales.

I will likely never till again. Permanent garden beds and pathways, perennial plants, and cover crops will all keep the soil healthy and alive. Mother Nature never tills soil so why should I?

Next Steps
I am currently digging infiltration swales and rain gardens to manage rainfall and create a self-watering landscape. No mow grass and cover crops will be seeded shortly afterward. More blogs will follow describing these activities.