I live in Northeast OH in zone 6b. I have had a vegetable garden the past 2 years and am slowly becoming obsessed with living as self-sustainably as possible and am creating a food forest. I decided to use the James Prigioni method and covered roughly 1,000 sq ft. in layer of wood chips 6-8in deep. I ordered 3 apple trees, a cherry, a peach, 2 blueberries, and 2 raspberries. The trees are dwarfs, except for the peach, which is a semi-dwarf. All bare-root which will be shipped in early March.
I have heavy clay soil. I dugout where the peach tree is going and backfilled with half native soil/half compost, and plan on doing that with the other 4 trees when the rest of my compost is finished For the blueberries I plan on working some peat moss in the soil to increase the acidity.
I am looking for some advice in planting and if there is anything you would change with the design I created? I spaced the dwarf fruit trees with a 4ft. radius from center, and the peach with a 7ft radius. I plan on fencing in the entire area, so would 4ft be enough space for a dwarf tree next to a cattle fence, or should I move them out a little bit? I plan on planting milkweed, purple coneflower, and other perennials throughout the garden, what else would you recommend flower wise? Moving forward what else would you add to the garden?
P.S. I plan on installing a rain water catchment system in the spring, and would like to build a slow sand/biofilter in the future for potable water, if anyone has experience with that!
Thanks,
Brendan
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