Better Farming - October 2016

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44 PROMOTIONAL SUPPLEMENT Better Woodlots October 2016
In 1991 we acquired a 125-acre parcel of
rough farmland in South Fredericksburg Town-
ship. For the most part, the land had been
abandoned for over 20 years with only about
40 acres still being cultivated by a local farm-
er. There was no home on the property, only
an old barn and several smaller structures, all
of which were losing their battle with gravity.
What attracted us to the property was its
diverse nature. There was a 30-acre mixed
hardwood bush, 20 acres of mature red cedar,
several small fields marked by thick hedge-
rows, an EPA wetland, and a small orchard
that we initially thought we could bring back
into production.
In the spring of 1992 we started planting
trees; 1,200 of them, mainly conifers. And in
the following years we added many thousands
more such that today much of the property
that should never have been put to the plough
years ago is once again under forest cover.
Reviving the orchard proved to be a learn-
ing experience doomed to failure. The trees
turned out to be too damaged to be saved,
and we encountered more bugs and disease
than I thought possible. So we began to clear
the old trees out and think about what we
could plant to replace them. Not being farm-
ers, we also began to think about developing
an alternative crop that we could introduce to
replace the corn/soybean rotation on our 40
acres of arable land.
During the years we were planting and
tending our tree plantations, we gained a
good deal of helpful information through our
participation in the Ontario Woodlot Associa-
tion. So it was not surprising that our next
endeavour was sparked by a presentation
sponsored by the OWA on growing nut trees.
Nut trees seemed to be a perfect fit for our
old orchard, and so we planted our first 20
heartnut trees in the spring of 2010. We then
followed this up with further plantings; filling
the old orchard and pushing back one of the
cornfields. Heartnuts are a type of Japanese
By Bill Warwick, OWA member
Hickory Heart
Farm
Continued on page 46
Reviving the
orchard proved to
be a learning
experience doomed
to failure.