When we visited Treehouse Vineyard to help trim the grapes vines just before spring, we met an extension agent. In addition to being a very nice guy, he was a wealth of information. As we were trimming away the old dead wood, we discussed our philosophy for Plan Bee. We smiled/smirked as we mentioned that we didn't like using pesticides, herbicides or other cides on the land. We also explained that we wanted all of the vegetation serve a purpose other than appearance. So if we planted a cherry tree, it had better produce cherries and not just ornamental blooms.
Our model is an Israeli model where the vegetation either produces or is removed. Israel, according to Wikipedia, produces 95% of its own food. We shared that in a visit years ago we saw the Bedouin placing sheets beneath olive trees and shaking the trees to harvest the olives. This took place in the streets of Jerusalem. He informed us that we wanted to practice permaculture . So as we think about what we are doing on Plan Bee, we think of it like a giant beehive. All aspects of the land are considered as we plant; remove vegetation; add vegetation and introduce other life.
Below is a Google Map version of our front 4 acres. The reason for the big red dot pointer is I used the shared map option in Hive Tracks to get to our map. If you click on the map, it will enlarge a bit so you can read the 6pt text. The black line in the middle that looks like a magnifying glass is what we are using for a road although it is a bit gravel, a real little bit, and mostly a slightly worn path created by our bee mobile. (Our '99 Saturn) For those technologically inclined, I imported the map from Google into MS Visio and then marked it up with our information from paper files. In order to insert it into this posting I did a Save As a .jpg file. (Ah yes I feel better.) Anyhow, below is the map and we found it cathartic to look at what we have done in a year. We are finally starting to see our impact on Plan Bee.
Our model is an Israeli model where the vegetation either produces or is removed. Israel, according to Wikipedia, produces 95% of its own food. We shared that in a visit years ago we saw the Bedouin placing sheets beneath olive trees and shaking the trees to harvest the olives. This took place in the streets of Jerusalem. He informed us that we wanted to practice permaculture . So as we think about what we are doing on Plan Bee, we think of it like a giant beehive. All aspects of the land are considered as we plant; remove vegetation; add vegetation and introduce other life.
Below is a Google Map version of our front 4 acres. The reason for the big red dot pointer is I used the shared map option in Hive Tracks to get to our map. If you click on the map, it will enlarge a bit so you can read the 6pt text. The black line in the middle that looks like a magnifying glass is what we are using for a road although it is a bit gravel, a real little bit, and mostly a slightly worn path created by our bee mobile. (Our '99 Saturn) For those technologically inclined, I imported the map from Google into MS Visio and then marked it up with our information from paper files. In order to insert it into this posting I did a Save As a .jpg file. (Ah yes I feel better.) Anyhow, below is the map and we found it cathartic to look at what we have done in a year. We are finally starting to see our impact on Plan Bee.
Picture below is of the entire Plan Bee property.
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