It being spring, I’ve been itching to establish a new food forest plot down on the property.  After reflecting on the drought, and the general state of the weather of late, I’ve decided to base the new plot on native plants, which tend to be better adapted to local conditions.

After scouting the property, I created the map above of the forest plots to date, using a satellite image from Google Earth.

1.  Garden/Main Food Forest
Those are my annual beds as seen from space.  They yellow line represents the fence, and the green area north of the rows is the main and most established plot, containing the largest variety of plants of all the plots, and also the most mature, though none are more than a few years old.

2.  Hibaku Hackberry
This small, fenced plot has one of the hibaku hackberry trees and a small cherry tree as anchors, supported by blueberries, figs, and some herbs and onions

3.  Walnut
Nothing but two walnut trees, spaced widely.

4.  Cherry/Fig
A cherry and a fig anchor this plot, with Mediterranean herbs and a grape occupying the sunniest side of the plot, adjacent to the sled run/fire break.

5.  Hibaku Ginkgo
Two of the three hibaku ginkgos are planted far from the house, should they eventually fruit.  By all accounts, gigkgo fruits smell terrible.

6.  Native
The new plot (6 above) is a relatively moist, semi-shady spot east of the garden proper.  The tall tree layer is the same as on the rest of the property, consisting mainly of oak, cedar, various pines, and madrone.  The El Dorado Chapter (http://www.eldoradocnps.org/) of the California Native Plant Society (http://cnps.org) held their annual plant sale this morning, and I picked up a few edibles for the plot, which will be anchored by hollyleaf cherry (Prunus ilicifolia) and western chokecherry (Prunus virginiana var. demissa) in the small tree layer, with pink Sierra currant (Ribes nevadense), and Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) joining another native gooseberry to fill out the shrub layer, and wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca) for ground cover.  In the next week or so, I hope to put up temporary fencing as in the other plots, to keep the deer out while the plants establish themselves.  I’ll also need to figure out what other natives might do well in the herb, root and climbing layers.

In other news, rain is very likely tomorrow and into next week!