Orchard Guild
Traditional orchards are monocultures of a single species of fruit trees. As with any monocultures, they are highly susceptible to disease and insect predation, and often require significant pesticide applications. When in graduate school, my pomologist-advisor often said that if you wanted to grow one apple tree, you may as well plant a dozen, as you would need to spray, and by the time you purchased the chemicals and mixed them, spraying just one tree was pointless.
I thought a lot about this when I began thinking about a home orchard. I wanted a variety of fruits and certainly didn’t need a dozen of each type of tree to supply just our family. Also, while we make no attempts to be “organic gardeners,” we do endeavor to use as few pesticides as possible.
We knew that one way to reduce the pressures of disease and insects was to plant a polyculture. We began by planting a variety of apples, european and asian pears, cherries and peaches. Last year, we expanded on the concept of a polyculture with the addition of our “orchard guild.”
A guild is a concept drawn from the permaculture movement. It is a mini-ecosystem created by planting a group of plants, around a central element, such as a fruit tree. These intercroppings can increase yields, while improving crop health. Plants in the guild can provide one or more components of plant health to the central element.
They can be suppressors that keep weed growth at bay. Mint works well as a suppressor, as it outgrows/outcompetes many weeds. Thyme and strawberries, which grow low to the ground, can smother weeds.
Guild plants can be used as attractors to draw in pollinators and beneficial insects. Yarrow and butterfly weed work well for this purpose. It is helpful to consider what insects typically damage the central element tree, and incorporate guild plants that attract the natural enemies of those insects.
Repellents are guild plants which repel unwanted pests. Lemon balm, chives, garlic, perennial onions, scented geraniums and lemongrass are all excellent choices for this purpose.
Other uses of guild plants are for nitrogen fixation (ie: white and red clover, lupine, beans, and peas), natural mulches (ie: comfrey and hosta), and accumulators that “mine” nutrients from deep in the soil, bringing them closer to the surface, where the central element tree roots can more readily access them (ie: chicory).
While using a guild as a means of improving our orchard health, and reducing the need for pesticides, is experimental, it does serve a few guaranteed purposes. Our guild is a food source for our honeybees, an herbal tea garden, and a cutting garden. And, while I might be biased, I think it is quite pretty.
