Open Source Orchard is a working zone 7b homestead documented in public: a food forest more than 2,000 plants deep, the automation that helps run it, the builds that hold it together, and honest numbers on all of it.
The person: I’m Nathan. Career in analytics and IT; hands in the dirt seriously for the last six years. I write everything here from our own ground truth, and when a claim comes from a book or an extension service instead of our beds, I say so.
The name: “open source” is a promise about how we share – designs, data, costs, failures, all published. The orchard is the flagship: every plant lives in a database we built, and every plant eventually gets a public Field Report.
The family: we’re a family of seven. The kids are part of the story and never part of the content – no photos, no names, until they’re old enough to consent to it. My wife Sunny appears occasionally, mostly to express opinions about how many walking onions one man needs. Eugene the house pig has granted full photo rights.
The honest-money bit: some links on this site are affiliate links, always disclosed, always for things we genuinely use. Full details in our affiliate disclosure.
Want to reach us? The newsletter reply button works; I read those.