A forest garden in Normandy

France, Caligny (61) Le Bosquet de la Vère

At ‘la ferme de la Berouette’, Thérèse and Yannick are planning to plant a forest garden on a small farm called ‘le Bosquet de la Vère’. Would you like to help ?



Beginnings

We first got involved in permaculture while we were travelling abroad. Later we decided to follow a proper training course with Geoff Lawton (reknown permaculture expert). This course was answering concret needs as we were, at the time, volunteering in an NGO in senegal (semi-arid climate in the Sahel region) with the project to set up a forest garden on a 3 hectares piece of land. This training course was the beginning of a life adventure that got us involved in farming (a world that we knew since childhood). The possibility to set up extremely rich systems based on diversity gave us hope for the futur of farming and agriculture. The idea to find a land where we could put up a complex, diversed, generous and productive system was born.

Le Bosquet de la Vère                2.jpg

It was on december 2015 that we arrived on « La ferme de la Berouette » (17 hectares), a farm wich is located at Caligny in Normandy, 10mn away from the city Flers.

3.jpg

We had an idea : becoming farmers. During a year we’ve spend a lot of time observing without to much interacting. We slowly started to understand the farmland, we studied the ground, wrote down the climat events, strong rains, late frost, drought, wind, etc. We studied wildlife using protocols for worms and butterfly population. We studied our local flora with botanical survey. This time was dedicated to observation in order to understand the restrictions and opportunities of our site. Following this time we chose 3 main products that fit with our climat and our land, and we will work mainly on 4 hectares :

  • Apple production and derived products

On site we have two cider apple orchards already producing. One will be dedicated to cider, vinegar, apple juice making. Under the trees, joseph (member of the community) raises chickens. They freely graze under the apple trees all year round.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Fruits and fruit processing

The second orchards will be tranformed into a forest garden. There will be pear, apple, plum, cherry, quince, strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant and many others. Some of These fruits will be sold as fresh fruits and we’ll processed some into jam, sirup, juice, fruit leather.

  • Pig breeding

Pigs will be grazing in pastures enclosed with electric wire in parallel to the young plants. It takes 15 to 18 months to start this production well. To start rustic hog  breeding (breed : bayeux, gascon, duroc) we have to first find mothers. After nearly four months of pregnancy, fattening will go on for 12 months, then the slaughter and marketing. During all this time, we’ll buy piglets of a fast-growing breed (6 months before slaughtering) so that customers can have meat. All pigs will be breeding outside all year in a rotating pasture system.

6.jpg

The design

We have designed a plan for our futur farm. The design is the permaculture tool essential for a completed project. It helps to think ahead and avoid many mistakes. Here is the design :

7.jpg

The forest garden

In november 2017 One of the two orchards will be transformed into a forest garden.

To start with, we’ve thought of a system that allows us to store water and stop soil leaching

By setting up swales. Even in normandy we have to store water. We’ve had big droughts over the last two years. We are in the edge of the armorican massif that has a fragile aquifer and are therefore highly reliant on rain water and the land capacity to store it.

This winter (2017.2018) we’ll set up 3 swales and the plants that go with it :

  • Nitrogen fixing plants : robinia pseudo-acacia, alnus cordata, eleaegnus spp, hipophae ramnoides
  • Mineral accumulator : birch tree
  • Companion plants : comfrey, dandelion, mint etc…
  • Fruit trees : apple, pears, plums, hazelnuts, quince, cherry, medlar, elderberry
  • Fruiting shrubs : black currant, currant, raspberry, sea buckthorn, rosehips, serviceberry, rosa rugosa
  • Nut trees : walnut, chestnut, oak, beech, hazel
  • Herbaceous: rush, iris, reed,
  • Perennial: strawberry spp, rhubarb, mint, jerusalem artichoke, sweet cicely etc…
  • Ground cover : topaeolum majus, mint, ground ivy, strawberry spp
  • Mushroom : shiitake and oyster and roots inoculation of approx 30 mushroom species : all mycorrhizal and some eatable

The following winter (2018.2019) we’ll set up the last 3 swales that will complete our system.

8.jpg

In a way, These systems are like gutters on the roof of a house as they collect rain water. But swales have to be built completely flat to stop runoff and optimize infiltration. The goal being to store water durably to boost fruit trees production.

When water is stored in the ground it is directly usable by the roots. The thick mulch (wood chip) and eventually the shade under the fruit trees limits evaporation and optimize the use of water.

In particularly strong rain events the swales can overflow. In our system we have designed overflow paths to route the surplus of water to pond that wil be of many use :

  • wallow for pigs
  • biodiversity boost
  • production of organic matter (rush, reed…)

When digging a swale, the ground removed is laid downstream. This rise the level of the ground to 50,60 cm on the mound which leaves us with a suitable space to start a forest garden.

The mulch used at the beginning (wood chips) will promote the establishment of a complex ecosystem of bacteria, microbs, worms, spawn and mushrooms, micro and macro fauna. Once the mulch decomposed, the system that we created will be mature enough to provide for it’s own organic needs.

The outdoors pig breeding has to be designed in a way that prevents soil leaching. Here we’ve chosen to work with rotating pastures (around 20 pastures) where the animals will pasture intensively but for a short time. In nature pigs are beneficial to soil regeneration mainly because they are always moving. If we manage to mimic nature, pigs become an important element that benefit the all system.

Step by step the system will move towards a young forest garden with a lots of beneficial interaction. Such diversity will attract life in all it’s diversity and then we’ll have created a small ecosystem.

anglais1.jpg

We don’t do all this only for economic goals. It is absolutely sure that we’ll have many advantages of such a system : well-being, health, reduced working time (80% of the work in a forest garden is in the first two years, the last 20% is to do with harvesting and caring for it once it is established), decrease illness, harvesting time spread over many months given the diversity of products.

What will we do with so much money ?

  1. Trees, trees, trees: we want to plant as many trees as possible on our land, which will be the forest garden. 250 trees, 400 fruit shrubs,a throng of groundcover, usefull plants, medicinal etc...
  2. The fruit in all it's forms: we need a workshop, a kitchen to process fruits : jam, juice, fruit leather, sirup, dried fruits etc...
  3. Small equipment essential for efficiency.

For our settlement we received a bank loan (6000€), public subsidy (6000€) and also we invested personal contirubtion (7000€). But to complete our project we need your help !

With your support, we woul like to invest :

  • 2700€ for trees, shrubs, ground cover and vines.
  • 1500€ for earthwork for the forest garden
  • 3000€ for the workshop/kitchen for fruit processing
  • 500€ for small equipment

And if we go beyond the goal...we will invest in a small agricultural building which is essential for our farm, in which we will store cereals and material.

Why crowd funding ?

This adventure is not only ours. We want everyone to be able to produce their own food. That's why we spend so much time explaining the way we work to anyone who's asking. That's why we sell nearly all of our production directly at the farm shop : to know our customers and to give them the opportunity to know us. It seems logical to us to be supported by 10, 100 people, friends, family, stranger as it is with you that we want to live this life adventure.

Why support us ?

We are farmers and we work (among many others) for our futur to be happy and healthy. We believe in our dream and these dreams shape our futur. By supporting us you support the emergence of new type of agricultural companies who have human, relationship, ecology at their centre. And of course great food !

About us

anglais3.jpg anglais4.jpg

Thérèse 

"Most of my childhood was spent at the farm. It was quite natural for me to go into agricultural studies in Sées (I was, at the time, thinking about taking the family farm), but during my studies i was introduced  to the big subject of ecology and slowly others thoughts naturally started to grow in me."

 Yannick

"After studying landscape designing I worked for several years in big gardening companies. After some time I needed to see something different and I started to work as a gardener for my own business. Descovering permaculture opened new possibilities : landscape designing and farming became one same discipline."

 

La Ferme de la Berouette

What’s this ?

It’s a community of people created in 2016 gathering around the idea to put up a new type of agricultural model around ecology and human being.

Where is it ?

Caligny in the department of Orne, Normandy (61, France)

Who is it ?

The community is composed of 5 adults and 2 children (so far) and 4 companies. The project is collective. The company is a tool, not a goal. Each company serves the community and each company expresses the communal vision.

Joseph : market gardening on 1 hectare, outdoor chicken (2000 chicken/year)

13.jpgHannah : wool weaving, natural dying

Clélia : aromatic and medicinal plants, market gardening young plants

16.jpg 16.jpgThérèse et Yannick : 4 hectares in forest garden, fruits of all sort, pig breeding, apple product (cider, vinegar, juice)

Rewards

There is something for everyone : great food ! Trainings, craft and art.

  • For the drawing of Maxime belloche, you choose 1 drawing here : ultra-book.com/
  • The drawings of Iris Harivel, l'Atelier Suspendue, are unique, there is one rawing left (13 on 9 cm). It is possible to have it before christmas :

   lampions-2 - Copie-JPG.jpg   

  • For the « Creation of your garden » this has to be 50km around «  La ferme de la Berouette ». It includes the permaculture design of your future garden, and Yannick will work 7 days on you garden.
  • The trainings on the farm will be collective, so we will find a day wich suits to all.
  • The wicker basket of Rachel Leloup, l'Atelier Viminalis, will be perfect to go to market. You can estimate the size thanks to the match box. It is possible to have them before christmas.

18.jpg

  • The farm products must be removed on site, that will be an occasion to meet !

Partners

19.jpg

20.jpg

21.jpg

Learn more 

   

Thérèse and Yannick Wenger-Srodawa

Les Vallées, 61100 Caligny

+33 (0) 604172827

 

 



Vous devez être connecté pour visualiser ces informations.

Vous devez être connecté pour visualiser ces informations.