The Rosewood Forest Garden

Well, it's been 2 weeks. Time for the next plant profile! Prairie Magic Apple ( Malus 'Prairie Magic' ) Prairie Magic is a relatively new very hardy red apple. It is hardy to zone 3a and can live to 50 years or more. I wanted a compact, reliable apple tree and this seems to be it. The information I’ve found suggests this apple was created in Neepawa, Manitoba so it’s a local tree! Since this is a Manitoba apple and fairly new, it was very difficult to find photos, and mine is currently a very proud stick. If I get a photo next summer I will update this post. This apple tree is available in both a full size and dwarf. I chose to go with the dwarf variety as it grows to a height of 15 feet and a spread of 12 feet, and will not overwhelm the food forest. This tree is said to produce large apples with a blushed pink exterior and white flesh. They are ready for picking in mid september and have a sweet taste and crisp texture. They are most often used for fresh eati...

Since we’re heading into winter here, with snow on the ground, I thought I’d try to do one plant profile every 2 weeks to give a little information about what is in the forest garden so far. Hopefully this will get me to spring when I start bringing in new plants and can continue with these profiles biweekly. We will see. Without further delay… Time for our first plant profile! Manchurian Apricot (Prunus armeniaca var. mandshurica) I know what you’re thinking… an Apricot?! Mais oui. This apricot tree is native to Korea and Manchuria (Manchuria: an exonym for several large overlapping historical and geographic regions in Northeast Asia) and is hardy to Zone 3. It is a relative to our native plums. So some clever person brought it over to North America. Manchuria The tree grows up to 12 feet tall, but there are instances of some growing to 26 feet tall with a 32 foot spread just over in North Dakota, so you never know. The bark is smooth and brown, and kind of shiny if yo...

Having decided to move from the permaculture orchard idea into a food forest, it was time to get some Mulch in place to start the battle against the grass. We ordered 10 yards, knowing we wouldn't be able to get much more than that done before the snow flies, given our current schedules. Last week the mulch arrived on Wednesday evening and Saturday we started hauling mulch one cart at a time. The mulch we ordered is not the freshly chipped kind, but rather includes leaf litter and is starting to break down. I thought this would be better to get a jump start with new plants. We put untreated craft paper down as a weed barrier, knowing that it will help to smother the grass but also eventually break down and not be a permanent barrier to plant growth. Then we placed 4-8 inches depending on the pre-existing conditions. When we planted the fruit trees originally we had placed black landscape cloth around them and covered that in wood chips and most had stayed grass free for the sum...

Well, it's time to start documenting my journey towards building a food forest! We bought a house in spring of 2019 on 10 acres in the Rosewood area just east of Winnipeg, Manitoba. We had always wanted to move out to the country and this was the perfect opportunity. The property itself has four distinct areas: the main yard, an area of red pines, a small meadow area and  a poplar forest (majority of the area). The main yard is way too big for us so we marked out a large portion to let the poplar forest spread into, but I also started reading about forest gardens. I had originally been reading about permaculture orchards when we bought the property. We planted a bunch of fruit trees in the spring based on the permaculture ideas. I also hit some sales late spring and early fall and added a few shrubs around the fruit trees. Then mid fall I went down the rabbit hole of forest gardens after seeing some compelling Youtube videos. So I ordered 10 yards of mulch and the journey has...