Food forest - more than orchard of your dreams

Permaculture Food Forest

Permaculture food forest can be described as a polyculture plant assembly where every element benefits the other or is at least neutral. In simple terms, food forest is a garden of Eden. It’s diverse, sustainable, and highly productive. In the final stage of growth, it produces abundance of organic food with little resources or no additional labour and input. This is because a food forest creates special microclimate limiting loss of nutrients and water. Picture three-dimensional space with layers as follows:

• the overstory tree (canopy) layer – nitrogen fixing trees, large nut and fruit trees, palm trees, as well as firewood trees.

• the understory tree layer – dwarf fruit and nut trees

• the shrub layer – berry bushes, herb bushes

• the herbaceous layer – medicinal and culinary herbs, flowers, nitrogen fixing plants

• the ground cover layer – groundcover crops e.g. alfalfa, red clover, vetch, beans, peas, strawberry, nasturtium etc.

• the root layer – root crops the vine layer –

• climbing and vining plants e.g. grapes, passionfruit, kiwi

You may ask why so many layers, as such set-up likely resembles a wild forest rather than an edible orchard. But this is precisely the point and that’s why the system is called a food forest. The canopy layer consists of trees typically over nine meters, they will provide shade to trees and shrubs that need it for sustainable growth, especially in tropical, Mediterranean, and arid climates. Shrubs take space in between trees. Herbaceous layer on the other hand support fruit trees and berries by attracting pollinators and pest predators. Groundcovers are used to shade soil, reduce evaporation, suppress weeds, and control erosion. Additionally, legume groundcovers (e.g alfalfa, red clover, white clover, hairy vetch, field peas, lentil, chickpeas, peanut) fertilise soil with nitrogen fixed from the air. Root crops loosen the soil allowing water infiltration. Finally, vines are additional food source taking little space, they also attract beneficial insects.

How this can be achieved?

Small food forest can be created at the edge of your garden. If you have additional space, you can plant tree guilds or convert existing orchards or woodlots. Ideally food forest should be close to your home for easier management at the early stages. The starting point of establishing food forest in an area that lacks fertility is to plant pioneer species (hardy plants that can be first planted on a barren land) and nitrogen fixing trees. They will be supporting fruit trees in addition to added compost and mulch. In reference to mulch read my blog about Permaculture for more information.

When creating a food forest or any Permaculture system, think about resources. How will you source water? Is there an irrigation pond or can you create one, is there a creek or will you capture and store rainwater? Can you filter and re-use grey water? Apart from satisfying your food forest basic watering needs in early stages of creation, you should consider if it needs to sustain periods of drought. If so, trees could potentially grow on swales which are an excellent feature for spreading, soaking, and sinking water in the landscape. Compost and mulch sources are also very important as your chosen species will need nutrients. Can you make compost yourself by having access to green material (grass and plant clippings), food scraps, and brown material (dry leaves, straw, hay, shredded paper etc)? If you have access to animal manure, that is a bonus and when composted properly, it can enrich your soil significantly.

Furthermore, if you plan to keep poultry, let them do some work in your food forest by loosening the soil (chickens by scratching), mowing overgrown cover crops (ducks by eating weeds) and fertilising the area (with their manure). When selecting your species, consider if they are appropriate for your climate and think how much food sources you want to grow. Lastly, fill empty spaces between trees with shrub, herbaceous, ground cover, root and vine layers. This can be done step by step and with convenient pace.

Growing food forest will take some time and effort in the beginning, but the benefits are truly remarkable. I’ve listed the most obvious to me here for a quick reference note, but I’m sure this list could be very long indeed.

• Food forest allows to completely use all the potential growing space.

• Diversity within food forest ensures constant supply of food, as with changing climate and weather events you could always count on some yields. Whereas if you grow one or two types of fruit trees, with damaging weather events (severe drought, change of temperature) your chances of getting good yield are vastly smaller.

• Pest damage is significantly lower in food forest because plants grow better and are more productive in guilds.

• Assembling various species together makes it more difficult for pests to target your fruitful species. For example, some herbs deter pests through their smell.

• Food forest will eventually self-fertilise because of the number of growing species and big amount of their fallen leaves and branches that will decompose in time with help of bacteria and fungi releasing nutrients to the soil.

To summarise, you cannot go wrong by copying what nature does. It’s obvious that spraying chemicals, exposing soil by constant mowing, or digging year after year damages environment, beneficial life forms and our health. On the other hand, by creating biodiversity, observing nature, and protecting worms, fungi and bacteria breaking down the organic matter to your benefit, you are buying and insurance policy covering your lifetime as well as lifetime of future generations.