Next release in our area-specific internships is the forest garden & silviculture projects of Milkwood Farm. The first forest garden & silviculture internship slot is 3 October – 28 November, and applications close on 20th August.
This internship is an opportunity for someone to work side by side with Dan Harris Pascal; designing, implementing and learning the craft of creating temperate forest gardens and small-farm silviculture systems.
The Milkwood nucleus forest garden after it’s first spring of intensive planting
One layer of Dan’s design for the Milkwood nucleus forest garden, which acts as the central ‘ark’, from which naturalised planting material for herbs, tubers, understorey and overstorey will be developed and re-distributed to more forest garden systems around the farm…
This season will see an explosion of activity at Milkwood Farm, as we move in and start to develop many complimentary systems for animals, vegetables, tree crops and more. The forest gardens of Milkwood Farm are a central part of this trajectory.
This internship will involve hands-on involvement in all aspects of forest garden design, planning, planting, growing, maintenance and harvesting within the season of the internship period.
This internship also includes a ½ day per week of one-on-one tuition with Dan Harris Pascal on the craft of forest gardening, to ensure you emerge from this period with solid design and growing skills.
Internship hours are task-based and will be irregular depending on what needs to be done in the forest garden that week, with lots of early starts. We ensure weekly days off for everyone’s health, safety and good spirits.
This internship opportunity will involve a lot of hard work, early starts and learning, within a supportive and positive community environment that values your contribution. Read more about the Milkwood Farm forest garden here…
Milkwood Farm Forest Garden internship dates:
- 3 Oct – 28 Nov 2012: applications close 20 Aug, notifications by 30 Aug >> APPLY NOW
- Autumn 2013 – dates tbc
Dan Harris Pascal planting last spring…
Intern Sabina fitting dripper line for new plantings
Early spring in the nucleus forest garden last year
Same garden in early summer
Contour swale paths filled with woodchips to catch and store water, feeding herb layer and merging canopy alike
Students in the forest garden, November
After one spring of good design and establishment, a flourishing edible, layered forest, emerging from a windswept hillside…
Could you tell me/us how deep you made the swales, which you then filled with woodchips? I read in another blog post that they are 60cm wide, but I didn’t find how deep… do you think it is important? We have a swale/contourline dig out, but it hardly ever holds water, so now it is more like a barrier to walk our (little) land, would be great when it was filled and we could walk on them. Thanks for your reply! (and know that many days your blog is the last that I read before going to bed! amazing work… Read more »
Hi Ria, the swales are only about 10cm deep. This was selected out of ease, the soil on the site is quite rocky and close to to the sub-soil and we didn’t want to be holding water in the sub-soil rather infiltrating it. The amount of rainfall will be the other factor when designing swale volume. You can calculate your approximate catchment and the volume required to hold it like you would a roof. As yet we haven’t had these swales spill over so they seem right for the area. If we connect these paths / swales to the road… Read more »
Thanks a lot for your quick reply!
Ria
Surprised the permie movement is Australia has not cottoned onto the Acacia/sandalwood biodiverse system of production. A totally native food production system. We have been getting nut yields as high as 100kg/ha in 350mm rainfall. Our selection based breeding has given us nut size increases up to 30mm for the largest biotypes. And we then graze the plantings once they are tall enough with our purpose bred microsheep, 100% wool shedding miniatures. We target our non productive sands that cannot grow grain crops profitably.
Um, what nuts? If we’ve not cottoned on to it i’d say it’s because we don’t know about it 🙂 more info please!
Santalum spicatum, a hemi parasite, native from WA to SA. Grows in 250-600m rainfall zone. Requires a companion legume tree upon which it hosts. Plenty of information if you google it or go to http://www.sandalwood.org.au or our own website http://www.sandalwoodresources.com.au. Its timber is also extremely valuable fetching nearly $15,000/tonne for good quality 15+ year old timber. So you get nut production as well as an investment in your own organically driven superannuation. No fertilizer inputs necessary. Amenable to sheep grazing but you need to be specific with the breeds you use to reduce damage to sandalwood.