The food forest is an important and well-known topic in permaculture. It is the culmination of the slow, low-maintenance, perennial model of food production and a great example of the value of a diverse landscape. The goal is to grow lots of food in the way most closely resembling nature. The food forest is, as you would expect by the name, a forest that produces food. It does this completely by design. It is layering plants together in mutualistic relationship to provide for a person’s needs. In short, you make a personally tailored ecosystem compatible for your region. The vast majority of plants used are perennials or self-sowing annuals, allowing for a self-regenerating system that once established requires relatively little effort. How big you make your forest garden or how detailed you make it completely depends on you. Anyone from a small urban resident to a hundred-acre farmer or a park can have a food forest. ![]() Your forest is your garden. You certainly do not need a forest already established on your property to make one. Neither do you need a lot of space. Almost any urban resident with a yard, front or back, has the space for a food forest. It is the ecosystem diversity, not its size, that is important. If you have a 6x6 yard, you can have a food forest. You may have to aggressively prune your fruit trees to keep them relatively small, but you can definitely have a functioning ecosystem. Design is critical to a food forest. You cannot slam lots of different plants together and expect them to work with the beneficial and supportive functions you desire. Some plants positively hate each other. You want high yield, so you cannot put plants too close together and cramp them. One, they don’t like it and it will come out in their lack of growth; two, you will have to do more work in thinning, clearing, and separating (especially in bulbs and herbs); three, it will be physically harder to move around and actually access your plants. Making work is not the goal. You want to put as much effort into the design before you ever put something in the ground. Messing up on paper costs you nothing. Dead plants do. In a food forest, you want a complementary ecology. Think companion planting with perennials instead of just vegetables. If you have a rose, you plant garlic. Now imagine a peach tree with garlic to repel the peach tree borer, a really prickly rose to keep animals away and give you rose hips for your winter tea (the garlic also helps the rose), yarrow to attract predatory insects to the peach, clover as a nitrogen-fixing groundcover, more garlic along the perimeter to stop grass, comfrey to act as a mulch source, and native wildflowers to attract pollinators of all kinds. Add a nice big log inoculated with mushrooms if you want to, or just a log for the good bugs and worms to play with. Now you are starting to see a food forest guild and you’ve taken companion planting to the ecological level. You see, a forest cannot exist with just a tree, just like a family does not exist with just one man. You need the wife, the aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends, and children. Plants need a supportive group just as much as we do. A well-functioning family is a joy to behold and it is a wonderful thing to aspire to. What we are trying to do with a food forest is to take several people (plants) and tell them to be a family. You can see the obvious problem. You had better choose the right people or this is just not going to work. But with proper research and design, you can be confident of your choices. The first aspect is the different layers of a food forest. The tree is the king, but the king needs the cooks, stewards, guards, and other people to ensure the castle runs properly. A good supporter can work several jobs and perform many functions. Don’t plant something that doesn’t give back. Also, because you’ll be planting around trees, make sure you choose plants that can take some shade, and to plant the ones needing full sun to the south. 1 and 2 are your trees. Whether they are 1 or 2 depends entirely on size. A loquat is a smaller, understory tree perfect to put underneath a taller mulberry or pecan. Not only do your trees give you food and timber, they also moderate the climate, cool the soil, prevent water evaporation, and provide wildlife habitat. They are so important to the ecology and increasing our groundwater, especially in hot climates like ours. 3 are your fruit-bearing shrubs and berries. They take up the empty space underneath a tree and provide protection for the smaller, more delicate plants in subsequent layers. Rugosa rose, blackberry, raspberry, rosemary, artichoke, asparagus, and alfalfa are all good candidates. 4 are your herbs. This is the most diverse group by far and performs practically every function. Herbs attract pollinators and beneficial insects, repel bad insects, accumulate nutrients from the soil, fix nitrogen, can be medicinal, and of course, give you food. Ideally, each herb chosen should fulfill as many of these functions as possible. What herbs you choose will depend on your own needs and the needs of the trees and shrubs. If your tree/berry shrub is susceptible to Japanese beetles, you want to use herbs that repel Japanese beetles AND attract their predators. Use herbs everywhere. They tend to be small, so you fit them between larger things (though don’t cramp them!). Choose perennials or self-sowing annuals like dill, chamomile, lemon balm, calendula, and chives. You should also see about providing a year-long food supply for your pollinators, which often come in the form of herbs that flower at different times of the year. 5 are your root plants and grass blockers. Plant them along the edges to stop grass from encroaching on your shrubs and trees (no shrub or tree likes grass). Plant them elsewhere to break up heavy soil (comfrey, chicory, and daikon radish are great for this) and to feed pollinators. The alliums (garlic, onion, etc), turnips, radish, and beets are all good options. Root crops can often be left in the ground after mild frosts, so they are easy to deal with, and can be used as livestock food during the winter. 6 are plants you put in your swales if you have any. If your ground is flat, you may not have swales. But if you do, the swale presents a new opportunity for you. You can often grow plants in a swale that you might not be able to due to nutrient or water needs. You could also plant more herbs or use this area as a strip for annual vegetables like melons and cucumbers that benefit from the extra water. This way, you will know where your annuals are and be able to access them easily. Just make sure that your annuals are not being shaded by the tree if they like a lot of sun, like cucumbers. 7 are your vines. You may not have the space or infrastructure for vines, but they are a useful addition to your food forest. Many people plant muscadine grapes to grow up their larger fruit or shade trees, as grapes like the dappled shade, and are trimmed back every year so they do not overwhelm the tree. You could also use melons, kiwi, cucumber, or a native flowering vine. Coral honeysuckle is not parasitic on a tree, using it only for support, and hummingbirds binge on the flowers. 8 are your groundcovers and they should not be ignored. Even if you have a thick layer of mulch, the groundcover aids you in a way none of the others can: by preventing airborne weeds. Also, if you use alpine strawberries or dewberries as your groundcover, they can be downright tasty. Groundcovers also shade the soil and cool it down, more than just mulch alone could, and prevent other plants, like peppermint, from getting a little too happy. Useful groundcovers include clover, oregano, sage, thyme, strawberry, calendula, and hairy vetch. One thing not mentioned here, but is in some places, is the fungal and mycorrhizal layer. What goes on underneath the soil. It is just as important as the top, I assure you. Without the fungi and soil microbiota, plants can’t grow. Nitrogen fixers can’t convert nitrogen without Rhizobium bacteria. Trees cannot adequately uptake nutrients without the mycorrhizal fungal framework acting on their roots. When it doubt, inoculate. Spread fungal and bacterial inoculants in the soil when you first plant. Otherwise, it can take years to build them up in the soil. You can wait, and farmers through the millennia have had to, but this is one thing I like about modern science. We have inoculating powders that save us time. It is worth doing and does not cost much either.
Also realize that if you want to plant something that isn’t on your list, then do it. Have fun and experiment with your food forest. Stick a pepper plant in there somewhere. Or a mass of radishes. See if sweet alyssum helps your plum tree. But you have to resist wanting to change everything. This isn’t an annual garden that makes complete changes through the seasons. Perennials grow slowly over time. They resist such rapid changes. You have to be committed to let nature do its thing and not disturb it so much. Sometimes this can be difficult, to back away and allow things to roll on without you. It means you have to relinquish a certain degree of control. It takes some humility. Your food forest will evolve over time. Some things will die. Some things will do particularly well. You adapt with it. It’s great fun. Comments are closed.
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Rebecca Burrow
I am a Christian permie designer trying to spread the word about Christian land stewardship through permaculture. I like goats a lot. Maaaaaaaah. Archives
September 2016
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