The Mediterranean Fruit Orchard
Many land owners dream of having their very own Mediterranean Fruit Orchard on Mallorca. Not surprising, because it comes with a lot of attractive benefits: Healthier food, self-sufficiency (independent of the supermarket), lower carbon footprint (km0 food), farm to table concepts, working in your own garden, gifting the surplus from your harvest to your friends… etc.
Sustainability: The most regenerative form of food production is the ecosystem that needs the least input or disturbance from outside. A food forest is just such a system: The plants are strategically planted to thrive with the least input possible. No fertilizer, no pesticides, no tilling. The perfect “fruit orchard” you could wish for on your own land.
Many times we find that our customers who initially looked to create a fruit orchard or a veggie garden later end up planting a full-on food forest with us.
Mediterranean fruit orchard plants
Some of the typical harvest from your own Mediterranean trees: Olives, Lemons, Oranges, Clementines, Cumquat, Loqus (Nispero), Avocadoes (not everywhere on Mallorca)
Produce from your own veggie garden could be: Tomatoes, Zuccinis, Watermelons, Lettuce, Red Peppers, (ADD LATIN NAMES) – ADD months of the year they ripen.
What’s a permaculture orchard?
A fruit orchard that is designed according to permaculture principles will be divided into zones. The zones that are placed closest to the house have the plants that need the most attention, or are harvested most often. The zones further away from the house will have low maintenance plants that will likely only be harvested once a year.
In a Mediterranean permaculture orchard you will find plant guilds where multiple plants work together to support each other. Example: Flowers will attract pollinators, or they can attract “pests” so they leave your productive plants alone. Some plants will be nitrogen fixers that regenerate the soil for those plants that need nitrogen to thrive… and so on.