New House- seeking advice

[ezcc]

So we are settling on a new house at the end of May. We currently live in the city, with only lots of plants in pots and a tiny backyard. The new house has 3.5 acres which is mostly wooded. The trees are enormous, so even in the yard portion of the house I'm not sure how much sun we're going to have.  I'm guessing we won't get much of a garden in this year, but I'd love to get some stuff like maybe some fruit trees or other perennials in if possible.  Any suggestions of things I can put in this summer?  Mid-Atlantic region.  We'd like to do bees and chickens too, but I'm thinking those are also things that ideally would happen in the Spring so we might not get them this year either.

[mindymom]

Congrats on your new home!

If you have any semi-sunny spots under deciduous trees you can put in a small, raised bed garden and plant it in late summer / early fall with cool-season crops like lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower.  I'm in MD near DC and have had a lot of luck with overwintering these types of plants - they get only so big before the cold weather set in, but they start growing again in the spring much earlier than they would sprout from seed, and they get a lot more sunlight in the spring and fall than summer crops would in the same spot.

I think most berry and fruit plants prefer full sun, but I have managed to grow raspberries in a spot between my house and my neighbor's that only gets about 4 hours of sun.  A friend had similar success with blackberries.  Mmmmmm, blackberries....

[june'smom]

My back yard has very little space that is full sun, so we put our strawberries and tomatoes and peppers there.  The rest of the space is only partial sun and we had really good luck with beans, peas, broccoli, and raspberries. 

The biggest problem we have from the trees is the broken branches and seeds they drop.  The weeding is awful after they start to drop their seeds, especially the elm trees.  We are actually going to cut down some of the trees this year.  Good luck.

[mattemma04]

I would put in anything thnt needs a few years to get going. Definitely some fruit trees and bushes.

Some things I have put in are apple,plum,hazelnut,elderberry,nanking cherry,asparagus,and strawberries. If I had put them in when we moved to our home 5 years ago I would have some fruit!. I did have some strawberries last summer...watch out for slugs!

You could get some chickens when people are downsizing,but it is fun to get chicks and watch them grow.Plus you will have time to build a good coop. Check out the BYC forums.

For the bees consider top bar or barrel hives if you can not afford those traditional square stacking ones.