We started out as Rock Bottom Homestead (Rock Bottom Farm was not here then, though they seem lovely and do pigs, etc., and we’ve backed away from using our homestead name for business because they are doing well with it…) and were excited to recuperate an old mostly-volunteer orchard. Our property told us it wanted to do fruit (the lump of grapevines were shaped and loved, the blackberry hedge in the back was prolific, there were smatterings of black and red raspberry everywhere, and yes, the first year there were so many apples on our mix of 2 dozen trees). The ground seemed rich, water was plentiful (maybe a little too plentiful), and though we are on the north-slope, that seemed to protect us from some of the common ills. It’s a pretty property. It’s got a nice strip of woods to forage for mushrooms, blueberries, and wild plants (solomon and false solomon’s seal, winter/checkerberry, juniper) and a sugarbush.
So, we put in 2 dozen more apple trees, half a dozen pears, a couple of peaches, plums, beach plums, hazelnuts, chestnuts, a half a dozen white grapes, white/gold raspberry, elderberry, mulberry, and a couple of lowbush blueberry. We tried to garden in the back field the first year but it was too far from the water source — it was very successful even though I three-sistered with the wrong plants (I used Strawberry Popcorn which was a smaller plant, and my beans were giant and heavy and tried to pull them all down, my summer squash below were all the lovely strange shaped ones, which come to find out — we didn’t like very much), we had loads of squash and tomatoes, potatoes and beans, I put in an asparagus and a sunchoke bed, moved all the rhubarbs around and companion planted the crap out of the garden. We put garlic and daffodils all around the apple trees and planted ‘guild’ beds in the orchard (happy stuff for pollinators and apple tree health — comfrey, boneset, blue false indigo, wild bee balm, etc.).
Then we put in a swale at the top of the hill (from a possible spring or just a thoroughfare for the winter melt) to stop the water from pooling in our backyard and overflowing into the basement. We moved the garden down the hill further and made it bigger, in the last couple of years we added more veggie beds and beds for flowers, a giant pea trellis, a pumpkin bed and doubled everything. We tried a couple of grain beds (they failed) and a fenced in circular dye/medicinal plant garden (which failed). And tried to sell flowers but it wasn’t for us. Despite 3 years of drought, many of the fruit trees and friends survived (definitely had some poor casualties, drought brings other struggles like more disease, pests, and well, drought) and then this year it’s been a rainforest!
Everything is so lush, we cannot keep up with it. It’s a jungle in there! We sized down the garden because of the time we spend at the store this year (hoping to have more time for the homestead come next year) but the tomatoes, peppers, beans, dahlia’s, and tatsoi are going nuts. The climbing dry beans are stunning, and the cukes and sunflowers are doing well. We lost all of the eggplant to beetles and the one side of the garden is dense with crabgrass, many of this years flowers did not make it into the garden (but are sadly still hanging on, still in their jiffy pots on the side, zinnia’s with tiny blooms, flamingo celosia with tiny pink tips, herbs potbound but seeding). And we took some time off from having chickens (and though I miss the romance of them, I might not go back…my chicken coop can become a new tool shed, can’t it?).
We’ve decided next year (with this January’s plan) to pretend we are reviving a derelict property and see if we can’t at least prioritize in a new way. I’m thinking more perennial beds for medicinals and teas. More wildflower fields and less fretting. It’s all about ‘appropriate framing’ – ha! Stone Broke is a step up from Rock Bottom, right? May you find new ways to frame old problems.
Rock Bottom Homestead 