Food Forest

Herb layer made of lavender in one are of our food forest.

What is a food forest anyway? …and why would you want one?? Let me give you the definition and then tell you about mine and see if I can convince you to convert an area of your garden by the end of this post ….

Food Forest: A garden system that mimics the way a young growth forest behaves. A forest where the gardener gets to choose all the plants and their functions and positions within.

The Food Forest at Esther's Eden

Our young food forest in spring

Vegetable gardens, flower gardens and herb beds - Yes my garden contains all of those. I love them. They are each beautiful, productive and wonderful...however, I needed a way to tie them all together. I love things that have more than one purpose. I love to be able to use the same space for more than one thing and to build things that will last. Enter the food forest. With regular gardening there are yearly investments that you make like labor, adding compost, tilling etc…. with forest gardening there is a large investment of time, money and materials initially - but over time the gardener’s inputs become less and less as the forest grows and begins to produce its own compost and mulch. Of course the gardener will have to prune, add amendments and tidy the food forest here and there but the efforts are much much less…. where as with the regular gardening methods the work increases as the land is continuously worked.

Strawberries and asparagus planted together means twice the production in the same space.

These concepts have dramatically changed my garden. I can get years and years of production out of the same spot with much less work in the long run. I can provide food for my family, wildlife habitat, food for our farm animals, flowers, herbs, medicines, building materials and dye all in the same space! That’s incredible! There is only one downside so far... that is waiting... waiting for it all to come into full production... in some cases it can be 10 or more years!!!

Forest gardening takes a look at how a natural forest is built. There are layers of plants that all help each other. There is below the ground layer, the ground cover layer, the herb layer, the shrub layer, the small canopy layer, the vine layer and then the big canopy layer. You can find plants that fit within each of these categories and that can provide something for the gardener too! Wow!! There are plants that feed the soil layer by fixing nitrogen - like peas, or some that give their foliage over for chop and drop mulch that will cover and feed the soil and the plants around it - like comfrey, which is also medicinal. There are tons of herbs for the herb layer which serve functions such as beauty, pollinator food, ground covers and more. The list of shrubs a gardener can grow in enormous… blueberries anyone? There are several vines that grow and produce fruit - even in our Northern climate like grapes, hardy kiwi and hops. These use the larger trees as trellises to get to the sunlight. Then there is the low canopy and this can be any fruiting tree or maybe even a very large shrub like hazelnuts…. lastly there is a large canopy but this is generally not used within a food forest because we want to encourage sunlight…. you typically see large canopies in old growth food forests. We will be aiming to mimic a vibrant and airy young growth forest within our garden space.

Black eyed Susans provide food for pollinators and cut flowers for bouquets.

So lets make and example here…. most people plant a single vegetable or one type of fruit tree in straight rows. In the case of an orchard it may have a second layer - the herb layer like grasses planted so the gardener can easily mow between the rows. Or in the case of the vegetable garden typically the gardener must weed between the rows - which exposes the soil and keeps the veggies growing well. As we all know there are plenty of fruits in the stores… so yes these methods do work…but is there a better way??? When you plant a single type of veggie or fruit in a long row what happens when a pest comes through? It lands on your nice row of plants and takes some bits out of the first plant… then hops to the next and the next and so on…. leaving you and all your hard work laid to waste. In a food forest a pest lands on a plant and maybe eats it and then tries to find more food but gets confused because next to that plant is not another one of these tasty treats but a strong herb instead. The pest flys off in search for more food elsewhere! Woo! Lets take the first scenario with the soil covering… In our example orchard we have planted grass between the rows. Great. Easy to mow and it looks nice. BUT what if we planted flowering herbs instead of grasses? The pollinators fly by and what do they smell??? Oh that’s delicious! Yes they have discovered your flowering herbs and they linger long enough to also notice your fruit trees are in bloom and they begin to pollinate the trees as well! What does this mean for you? More fruit and less work!! Yes! Flowering herbs also look beautiful and don’t need to be mowed.

Bee Balm planted between young fruit trees.

One more thing I will address before telling you a little more about our food forest…. and that is production. I’m sure you researcher types are wondering what will production be like? And I don’t blame you. Production is why we are doing all of this hard work in the first place! So something I have learned is while a traditional non organic garden may be forced to produce more the fruits than the food forest they are of less quality and taste far more bland while requiring more and more from the gardener as the years progress. The more years the land is forced to produce the more nutrients are lost from the soil and the more your production eventually suffers. With a food forest you are working to feed the soil with compost. You protect the soil structures but laying mulch down and you help keep moisture in it by planting more and closely spacing them. You will be planting in layers which helps to diversify your crops and bring more dimension and beauty to your garden. Who wouldn’t like that? So while your single crop numbers may go down slightly the taste and quality will be far superior to the traditional garden produce. Also your yield will increase as you add different varieties of plants because if you have one crop fail you will have another to take its place.

Leaves and wood chips provide mulch for our young food forest

Have I convinced you??

We are entering year six for our main garden and year five for our food forest. These are big years. This is the year many of the trees could start bearing! I cant even begin to express how much anticipation there is! It can be hard to look at black and white garden sketches year upon year and imagine what will come. It is hard to plant bare root sticks and know that one day they will become towering trees - but I encourage you to remain faithful. It will be worth it! I did the work and you can too! Plant your trees in million dollar holes. Planned and chose varieties that are excellent for your area. This was and is no small feat for all of us... but you can do it! The effort up front will be soooo worth it when the days turn to years and the trees begin to bear loads of precious fruits. Invest in your future. I know it can be very discouraging at times to have to wait so long for the reward. It's good training... character building - my mom would say....

nasturtium provide blooms that attract beneficial insects and edible flowers

If you need a little visual encouragement of what's to come. Try cutting out pictures of the varieties you planted and made a rough outline of the entire food forest... not the areas you will one day plant but only of the area that is currently planted.... and then fill it in with all the pictures. Like an old fashion collage. I made one last year and it sure has helped me be a little more patient. It might not seem like much to the average person but to me it breaths life and hope of all that’s to come.

My visual encouragement

All I can say is I'm glad to have so many wonderful people in my life... because on day I will be begging you all to come help me pick all the abundance my food forest will provide. Lol!!!!

Cheers to dreams and visions. Cheers to destiny, hope, faith and the pursuit of the things God has laid on out hearts!

I Bless you in your journey and maybe that journey will now include a food forest?!

If you would like to follow our food forest journey we’d love for you to join us on our new YouTube channel Esthers Eden! If you’d like to know how I planned out my food forest you will love our upcoming videos on garden planning! Hope to see you over there!