New Orchard and Pollinator Garden on a Hill (Permaculture Berms)

Welcome to our new orchard on a hill! Come see how we used natural terraces, permaculture-style berms, burlap, and pollinator companion plants to transform a barren weedy hillside to a thriving new garden space.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Written blogpost, photos, and complete plant list: homesteadandchill.com/pollina...
Similar natural untreated burlap: amzn.to/3JYFkoR
Landscape rakes: homedepot.sjv.io/6eg5VN
Moongate Arch Trellis: click.linksynergy.com/deeplin...
Solar powered drip irrigation tutorial: • DIY Solar Powered Drip...
How to Make a DIY Gopher Basket for Trees: homesteadandchill.com/homemad...
Tree-Planting Best Practices: homesteadandchill.com/how-to-...
or • How to plant a fruit t...
Choosing Fruit Trees (Cross Pollinators, Varieties, Chill Hour Chart): homesteadandchill.com/fruit-t...
Follow on Instagram: / deannacat3
Visit our website: homesteadandchill.com/

[@lsipp2889]

WOW!! that was HARD work!! It looks incredible!!! You are going to have so many pollinators for your fruit trees in the years to come. This is just beautiful and an incredible design. Look forward to seeing how it all evolves over time. Oh, and moving all those boulders and planting those berms?? Y'all have strong backs for sure! great job, guys!! 🦋🦋

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you! Yes it was quite the physical task... I finally bought myself a back brace for some extra support during the last few weeks. I was put-a-fork-in-me DONE! Lol. And yes, the pollinators are already so busy out there. Bumblebees, honey bees, native bees, ladybugs, butterflies, moths, hover flies, wasps... they all found it right away! Thanks for tuning in!

[@kerrystrong5447]

Beautiful work! And I love your cat 🐈 , he's such a good helper. I'm so thankful you guys have the energy to do all this cool stuff and film it for us. Thank you 😊

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for the kind words and we appreciate you watching! The cats help out a lot in the moral support department during these big projects 🤣

[@Lou_Mansfield]

wow amazing design and beautiful. Thanks for planting a lot of stuff to help native pollinators!

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for watching!

[@kimwalter1269]

Absolutely beautiful orchard area! I love your property so much and could watch you guys in your gardens all day long! Thank you for another awesome video ❤

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for watching!

[@godwinsgodwins7892]

Thank you for this. You are such a Wonderful inspiration! You have helped me so much with my garden that keeps growing bigger and more whimsical 😊 wish I could show a pic. You should have a place where people can show you how you inspired them. I love your videos and your products too. You and Aaron are truly a Blessing.

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for the kind words and we are so excited to hear how you have transformed your ever growing garden space! You can always email us through our contact page on Homestead and Chill and feel free to show us what you have accomplished. Congratulations and thank you so much for your support!

[@tiffanytimares8239]

I really enjoyed watching this project develop on Instagram! You two worked so hard non stop! Great job! Great video🎉 thanks for the inspiration ❤

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for the kind words and for tuning in on IG as well as here! We really hope you did get some inspiration from the project and found something you can implement in your own space, thanks again and have fun growing!

[@iartistdotme]

AWESOME video! Amazing layout and installation. What a fantastic view and pleasure it must be so sit and overlook the hardwork payoff! Enough superlatives - it is beautiful! and inspirational.

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for the kind words and for tuning in! It has become quite the enjoyable place to hang out in.

[@jennifermasterson1612]

I loved watching you create this space! Thanks for documenting everything!

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thanks for coming along for the ride! :)

[@susanwright3843]

This is beautiful and your video is perfect!

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for watching!

[@annapotter7397]

Very cool! Loved how you used the burlap for coverage. Thanks for sharing your process for the area. It's the best example/demonstration of how to create such an area that I've seen. Very informative. Thanks!

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you! It was our first time using burlap too, but have used it in another smaller project since - love it!

[@kathyborem-ys1kx]

Enjoyed this video so much. Great ideas. Thank you.

[@HomesteadandChill]

We are so glad you enjoyed it and were able to take a couple ideas from it as well, have fun growing!

[@sbarton291]

Well done! I love the way you think of every step of the way and research it, knowing why you chose to do something the way you did. Thanks for showing us and giving more detail on your website!

[@HomesteadandChill]

Absolutely! The way my brain works is both a blessing and a curse... ha! I appreciate you checking out the website too. Have a great weekend!

[@carmelwelch1793]

The new orchard space looks amazing! The work that you put into it really shows. Thank you for including the project details as well as the permaculture features and the plant list. ❤

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for watching as well as the kind words! We are so glad you enjoyed it and we hope you found it helpful.

[@gaylerichards7409]

Absolutely beautiful! Such an excellent video! Your hard work certainly paid off! Can’t wait to see what’s next.

[@HomesteadandChill]

We appreciate the kind words of support!

[@MeandYouHello]

Fabulous!

[@TheEmbrio]

New subscriber here. Outside your projeft, to better the overall landscape : This fall, divide up the comfrey, make swales kn the ’native’ slopes, or just pockets1 shovel full, plop comfrey rizomes. They will soon bring up the organic matter in those pockets and shade lots of the sourounding sand, making it hospitable to other plants. Keep it up with the native wildflosers, perhaps get more edible woody bushes, that seems to be your next step. You havebtree layer, herb layer, you need bushes, and would enjoy berries probably right ?

[@HomesteadandChill]

Hi! There are blueberries on every level too, and we do have plenty of other shrubs. Lavender, rosemary, rockrose, monkeyflower etc are all perennial shrubs here. Only the poppies are annuals. We also planted feijoa (pineapple guava) shrubs along the far fenceline between native coffeeberry, loquats and sage. I like the idea of putting comfrey elsewhere on the native hillsides, but I don't think it would survive without us running irrigation to it also. It doesn't rain (at all) for 8 months out of the year here unfortunately. We also planted a couple native ceanothus up in the sand adjacent to the project site that grow very short and wide, up to 10-12 feet wide or more, so we're hoping those grow in to shade the sand and take over where the ice plant is too 👍🏼 thanks for watching and sharing your ideas!

[@elizharber3564]

✨

[@mjrepollo4545]

Absolutely beautiful orchard and garden! It’s so thought out, from the rain run off to the native pollinator plants. This video is so inspiring, thank you. I grow in zone 9/ Central Coast by the beach too and our foggy weather has me discouraged at times to garden. What do you use to fertilize?

[@HomesteadandChill]

Thank you so much for the kind words! We are likely not too far from each other, gardening in the foggy and cool summers can be tough for the more heat loving crops but you should be able to have an amazing fall/winter garden with bok choy, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, beets, radishes, etc. Just get your veggies transplanted by early October so they have some time to grow while the temperature is still warm. As far as fertilizer goes, we like to use Down to Earth amendments, you could use their All Purpose blend, Vegetable Garden blend, but we like their Bio Live blend. You can typically find them in 25-50 pound bags (if you have a large garden) at a farm supply or feed store or in 5 pound boxes (if you have a smaller space) at your local hardware store or nursery. Hope that helps and good luck!

[@TheEmbrio]

I’m worried you mai pathways being a continuous slop and with plastic landcape fabric’(soon clogged and not draining properly) will make your pathwaysninto slip n slides in the winter/rainy season. Fingers crossed you reduced runoff enough

[@TheEmbrio]

Maybe in t he rain season, put wood boards across, lightly staked, to keep your mulch in. Somewhat like shallow stairs.

[@HomesteadandChill]

@@TheEmbrio Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, we shall see. We don't get toooo much rain here usually, and I feel pretty confident about the amount of runoff we reduced through the berms and also steel edging uphill that the flow down the paths should be pretty minimal, but we did think about creating wide "stairs" initially - something we can definitely change if needed later. Thanks for tuning in!

[@ThaliaM21]

Absolutely beautiful! Yours & husband hard work shows! And how did you get fruit so fast? Is there a way to know which trees will give fruit faster at the nursery? By the way your bug off balm is the only thing that works for mosquitoes! I forgot to put it on ONE day & I got attacked! 🥲 I love it so much I actually made a spray using the same essential oils and I'll spray it around the area I'm hanging out at and it works so good! Still have the wear the balm on my skin though! Thank you!!

[@HomesteadandChill]

Hey there! We invested in a few more mature trees that are already bearing a little fruit (though we also bought some smaller tree/ bare root ones too). A couple of them were on rootstock that was also known to bear exceptionally young, though we don't except much for the first few years either way. And I'm so happy to hear you love our Bug Off Balm. Thank you so much for being a valued customer, and for watching!