Plant an Edible Forest Garden

Image Gallery The author’s recently planted forest garden, still in the early stages of growth. HARVEY USSERY

Are you feeling adventurous? Do you want to delve deeper into gardening? Even better, are you thinking of planting an orchard? If so, consider starting a forest garden. With a little planning, you can grow a productive forest garden, full of plants that work together in imitation of a natural forest.

I’m convinced that imitating natural systems is fundamental to any successful effort to raise food. The idea behind forest gardening is that natural forests produce an abundance of food. People the world over have harvested food from the forest, reaping where they did not sow. Forest gardeners imitate the forest’s natural structure to take advantage of this abundance, but they increase yields even further through careful planning and management. The result is a productive fusion of garden, orchard and woodland.

I’ve been exploring the idea of forest gardening for several years, and have recently begun to try it on my own homestead. But before looking at my forest gardening efforts, let’s consider in more detail how a forest garden works.

A GARDEN OF PERENNIALS

One of the main differences between a forest garden and the typical food garden is that forest gardens rely on perennials. Most vegetable gardens include mainly annuals — such as tomatoes, lettuce or radishes.

To understand the difference this makes, consider the role of annual plants in nature. Annuals colonize and cover disturbed ground, because theirs is a high-energy, in-a-hurry lifestyle. In a single season, an annual sprouts from seed, grows to maturity, ripens fruits and seeds, then dies.

Because of the speed and fecundity of the annuals’ lifestyle, they are able to cover patches of bare ground quickly. This energy intensive lifestyle is only possible in full sun — in shade, most annuals will not receive sufficient power for their task. Over time, however, as the annuals protect and build the soil of the disturbed area, they give way to perennials, and these are the plants we want to establish in a forest garden.  

Most gardeners are used to a fair amount of disturbance and change in their gardens, from tillage, crop rotation, and so on. In contrast, a natural forest tends to maintain its character over time, and resists rapid change. Changes in plant species do happen in a forest, but they usually take place very slowly. The goal of the forest gardener is to follow these patterns and establish a perennial polyculture from which food is harvested with minimal disturbance.

LAYERS OF THE FOREST

Several groups of perennials form a natural forest. The biggest are the trees, which need the full light of the sun to thrive and support their massive growth. To get that sunlight, they grow high and wide, forming a canopy of leaves to soak up the sun. On the other hand, shrubs have learned how to thrive in the shade of the canopy, where there is less light. Intermediate between these two classes of plants are the vines, growing in the shade but reaching for the full light of the canopy.