One of our founding principles is to work with nature and not against it. We want Sweet Bee Orchard to be a haven free of pesticides and chemicals. We want to make use of the existing ecosystem and flora using permaculture design methods. So, when we saw wild blackberry brambles all over the property we were kind of excited. We can integrate them into permaculture guilds and plant additional berries and other companion plants. With that as a backdrop, Jaron and I went up to the property on July 4th to see if the blackberries were ripening. They are, and they aren’t very good.
Wild Blackberries
The best “cleared” land on the property is covered with the thickest blackberry brambles we’ve ever seen. They are 12 feet high, thorny, and so thick that you can’t see more than a foot into them. Briar Rabbit would be right at home. It covers over 1.5 acres of gently rolling land at the highest point, at the front of the property.
Blackberry Brambles
We have been planning to clear it, with reticence, and were also thinking about how to preserve some of the existing blackberries. Now that we’ve seen the fruit, our hesitation is gone. They don’t taste very good, the thorns make them extremely difficult to harvest, and they are so thick that they aren’t producing very well. We’ll go ahead and clear this entire section and start from scratch. It didn’t occur naturally anyway, and the prevalence of a single variety of plant is inviting pests and disease. In fact, there’s an infestation of those large Green June Beetles feasting on the blackberries right now.
We’ll clear this with our tractor and cutter. Here’s a video of Jaron getting started on this arduous process. Then we’ll till it, and probably repeat that cycle many times. Once cleared, we’ll plant a variety of berries, fruits, and nitrogen fixers, including some thornless blackberries that we’re growing at our house with much success.
This small dilemma about whether to keep the existing plants, or to introduce our own, is just the first of many that we’ll face. The purist in us wants keep things as natural as possible and to leave everything as it is, but there are other factors to consider. On a practical level, we want to have a functioning orchard and apiary. The food needs to taste good, it needs to be easy to harvest, and pleasing to the eye. In addition, humanity has acquired much knowledge over the centuries. We know that we should plant a wide variety of species, we should use appropriate ground cover, and can add swales to help with water retention. We can and should implement this knowledge when it improves sustainability and doesn’t harm the earth. That is our goal.