Laying the Corner Stones

Hey, have not posted for a couple of weeks so i thought i would bring you up to speed.
So we adopted a Kitten (8 weeks Male) which had been abandoned which we named Susan, and a Puppy (Female 10 months old) which we Re-named Nelly and they have been taking up a lot of our time.

Work on the house is coming along we have plasterboarded one room and the others are nearly completed too. All wiring is done upstairs too, easy peasy (had a good reference aid Thanks Dad x).

Had our winter supply of logs delivered too, they are keeping us nice and toasty and we have been cooking on top of the stove too, so lots of yummy stews!

We have had a few sunny days so managed to get out in the garden to build a couple of raised beds and carted the previous land owners compost heap and filled them up along with some leaves to mulch too. We have also planted our first food item, some store bought garlic that was running shoots so we thought there is no harm in trying to grow them.
We have been doing a lot of thinking and reading about what we want to do with the field, and have decided to go with a Food Forest. Basically a Food Forest is a Food Production area that mimics the natural Eco-system of a young forest and everything grown in it is useful to us or to the other plants. We wanted our food production to be as chemically free as possible so opted for this tried and tested method (they have been using Food Forests in tropical zones for hundreds of years). It also produces a lot more food than conventional methods as you are growing on more than one layer, so you have Fruit Trees in the canopy, then fruit shrubs underneath, then ground cover crops as well as root tubers and vines. So on the land that we have we should be able to produce abundantly and with minimal inputs as once its up and running the cycles of the plants create their own rich soil. So not only are we not stripping the nutrients out we are adding to them.
We are still very much in the planning stages of this project, as their are a lot of aspects to cover but we are hoping by next winter we will be ready to plant our fruit trees. In the mean time we have got lots of things to do in preparation and have started to lay out our main paths through the forest, so we can mulch the areas that are not paths and also plant willow around the edges of our property to act as a windbreak.
Thanks for reading and we will update you again soon.
Luke and Cloe xx