My syntropic experimental garden in northern Italy
This is my 2 year old 2000 m2 garden with multiple tree lines integrated with swales. Support species are willow, Paulownia, Italian alder, black alder, black locust and , lupine, scotch bloom. Other trees are for example cherry, pear, asian pear, nectrine, plum, pineapple guave, medlar, loquat, pomegranate, szechuan pepper, black walnut, pecan, almond, hazel. The lower layers consists of blue honeysuckle, blueberry, strawberry, tayberry, gooseberry, seaberry, red current, black current, Japanese wineberry, borage, sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke, yucan, asperge, pumpkin, amaranth and much more. Next to all my fences I grow kiwi, kiwiberry and two types of akebia. The land borders and steeper parts are used to grow grapevines for Barbera wine.
The vegetable garden is fenced because it would be consumed by wild animals. I grow a permanently white clover in my vegetable beds that I cut down short whenever I plant new crops, so they keep the soil moist, fertilized and free of weeds. The only care is watering in summer and cutting the clover around the plants if they overgrow them.
The garden is an experiment with many species in varieties with the plan to learn from the successes and mistakes and use this knowledge to plant around 7 hectares in the future.
The area around sunflowers can often be devoid of other plants, leading to the belief that sunflowers kill other plants.
Haven't seen that yet. They do produce a lot of biomass that has been a great addition to support smaller plants in the summer heat.
I would love to see your design. I did mine in an 10k in the Republic of Georgia
Sorry what do you mean with 10k? My design is mostly based on the elevation lines of the land, with a fruit or nut tree every 6 meters and bushes and support trees inbetween.
1 ha. What support trees did you plant between? I had willows, black locust and acacias to create biomass. Also all the lines were planted in a 40-50 cm deep trench, as a hugelkultur (old branches, menure, leaves and new fertile soil) but not above ground. Very happy trees.
Now I see your comment with the support trees. Nevermind
I use these trees because they were adapted to the environment, do not need to bring from outside and easy to propagate.
Same here!
Very hard to find information regarding Syntropic Agriculture in Template Climate.
Yes exactly, plus it is still very hard to find out the successes of syntropic agriculture in a climate with limited sunlight, but I guess there is only one way to find out.
Let´s be a pioneer! and plow the way for those coming behind, so they canl learn from our mistakes and successes.