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Old Coach Road
Food Forest

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We are building a temperate food forest and including some sub tropical elements in preparation for climate change. The site is located in a NE facing valley below a south sloping ridge and is surounded by forest on all sides helping protecting the food forest site from strong coastal winds coming from the south and south west.

The food forest is being planted into a remnant clearing, left over from when the block was grazed by sheep and which is now covered mainly by bracken and false bracken. These plants, combined with the bush rats have helped create a healthy, well-draining soil on top of a clay base.

We have divided the food forest into different areas inorder to trail different species mixes. Areas are defined by the main canopy species and include:

• Carob
• Stone Pine
• Bunya Pine
• Pecan
• Avacado / Blackwood
• Fig
• Mulbery
• Sub tropical- experimental
• Mixed

Solid dots represent canopy plants already in place, while lighter dots represent potential sites for additional plants, while very light dots indicate an area of influence (as at mid July 2010).

Plants planted to date include, black mulberry, carob, bamboo, lychee, fig, stone pine, banya pine, coffee, curry plant, wild hazel, grapefruit, blueberry, chilean guava, and many more. We are also planting a considerable number of blackwoods in the wind break in order to ensure the wind break's survival as the ti tree, which currently dominate, but are growing old and and beginning to fail.

One of the major tasks is building a track network accross the hill face. It is hard going and requires a lot of clearing and digging. The flase bracken risomes are especially hard to dig through.