Hen Hill Farm is a woman owned small holding where I am in the process of implementing my own Permaculture Design.  My design work is based on studies of Bill Mollison's work (with related courses in Permaculture), studies of French Intensive, Bio-dynamic and organic gardening methods, with 25 years of hands on gardening and farming experience.  Plus, lots of just plain ol' trial and error learning.   

 As a young child we lived for a time on a truck farm in central California, where I learned to appreciate the way things grow from the land.   I grew up running barefoot in the orchards, getting stung by bees, and splashing about with my brothers in the irrigation canals.  My uncle, Vernon, had animals on his farm, where we got to try our hand at milking cows, making butter and helping with the fruit picking (peaches & cherries).    Of course, he had the whole lot - chickens, cows, pigs and pet "coons".   His family was living "sustainably" off the land and fish, hunting and frog "gigging" for the rest - like all of my Arkansas forebears had for generations before us, well before the term "living sustainably" was popular.  Following in their footsteps, I have returned to the South - to my roots.  Of course, I bring to my work here an East Coast/West Coast mentality and years of study and practice of meditation, mysticism and Eastern spiritual traditions.  Mindfulness is a way of life.

My micro farm is located in a rural area of the Piney Woods of East Texas.  Hen Hill is located in Zone 8, where it is on the edge of being sub-tropical, with good rainfall (46+ inches a year), many nearby rivers, a large lake, lots of ponds and sun.   It is hot and humid here much of the year, but on the plus side, if you can take the heat - we can garden literally year round.   It is possible to grow many low chill fruit trees.  We can (& do) grow Asian & European Pears, Apples, Peaches, Plums,  etc.  Plus Figs, Southern type Blue Berries, Grapes, Black Berries and most kinds of  of Citrus - if care is taken during the short, but often freezing winters.   The young citrus we planted this year are Red Cara Cara oranges, Kumquats, Satsumas, Tangerines, Ruby Red Grapefruits, Meyer Lemons & Limes.

Hen Hill Farm is just 2.75 acres, but is being intensively developed as a partially sustainable micro-farm with well integrated systems.  I am creating new food forests/fruit orchards to add to the old existing Pecans, Pears, Muscadine grapes and wild black berries that were here when the  place was purchased.   There are farm animals which are suitable to a small holding & we utilize chicken tractors.  There are some water catchments around the house down spouts, a previously existing gray water system and a new large fenced, 4000 sq. foot, organic  garden.  In the spring, the air is full of the smell of wild Honeysuckle and Jasmine -  Trumpet vine and wild Sun Flowers and Cone flowers are everywhere.

Animals: I raise heritage American Brown geese (beautiful birds), White Midget turkeys, as well as a pair of pigs, Pygmy goats, ducks, guineas and many chickens - all are workers here on the farm - weeding, tilling and bugging - and provide fertilizer for the garden.   The garden is planted primarily with open pollinated, heritage seeds - and I practice seed saving of these same seeds.

Much of my current PC design is a "work in progress" with many future aspects yet to be created.  These projects will include an outdoor shower, improving the current gray water system with cleaning ponds & water plants, automated watering systems for the food forests, a "rain barn" to catch water for  garden irrigation, solar hot water for the house, a permanent green house, etc.   Eventually, plan to catch rainwater for all water used on the farm - easy with our rainfall...

A lot was accomplished in 2008.  A new chicken coop was built and the main flock moved across the street where they are "pastured" on grass.  We completely enclosed the main vegetable garden and created raised beds (with more to go).   Steps were placed into hill side, where we put in a long swale above one row of citrus trees.  Below which plantings of Lavender, kitchen herbs, Rosemary, Mints and Egyptian "walking" onions will be planted near the steps next spring.  Last spring a variety of Melons were planted on the small slope of the hill to utilize the space under the new citrus trees.  The melon crop was fantastic!   We had 4 varieties of old melons, including Amish and Asian Tiger melons.

Structure work:  also, work was started on an Arbor for the Kiwis next to steps just placed into the hill side terrace.  More fencing was put in to contain pigs!  Many new fruit trees were planted all over the property.  And, the posts were placed in the ground for the grape vine trellis in the South Orchard - for adding more grapes next year -2009.  

The Northern Hillside Garden (a very small hill) is being terraced over time and has plantings of various kinds of figs, blue berries, and citrus (Meyer Lemons, Key Lime, Satsuma) on the lower part of the slope.    

Just south of the main garden is another new food forest (Southern Orchard) where we are "stacking" food plants fruit trees (plums, peaches, pears, Cara Cara red oranges, grapefruit, satsumas) with thornless black berries below, various other small berries and grapes to the sides with annuals - such as melons and cucumbers and corn all round in the summer.   

Wood Lots/Animal forage:  We are keeping 2 small wood lots for wildlife habitat and as a buffer where the pigs can free range a little with the goats and make their wallows to keep cool.  The animals will be rotated between these 2 small woods every 4-6 months to allow the plant life to recover and regrow.  They have started mating and it looks as if we may have piglets some time in early spring of 2009.

Thank you for visiting Hen Hill Farm web site! 

(website created by Sangita)