A food forest has seven layers, although a food forest needs to have at least three layers (big, medium, little)
1) Canopy or overstory (such as large fruit and nut trees)
2) Semi dwarf (such as peach, citrus, persimmon)
3) Fruiting shrubs
4) Herbaceous layer
5) Rhizomes (root veg)
6) Soil (ground cover)
7) Vertical layers
Food forests were inspired by the tropics, where the forests are super productive with foods, herbs, and medicinal properties. We also discussed the Polynesians, who when traveling, were said to have 22 types of plants and animals they'd bring in their canoe to feed themselves in distant lands. This sparked an internal question: What would my 22 canoe crops be? What would yours be?
John said the number one item needed for the a food forest is water. "You got to get your water right, or you got nothing right." Wonderful ways to go about collecting war is to have a rainwater catchment system. Another idea is grey water recycling--to use water from inside the house for outside water. Gravity fed water is a great and simple system also. How about a pond? Grow fish for food and the fish water is great for plants. "Do you have an excess of slugs?" John asked. "Maybe instead you have an absence of ducks." Ducks! Ducks are great for eating pests and they give you eggs! Double win! For more info on aquaphonics, please check out Max Meyers of NorCal Aquaphonics link below.
How about planting flowers? Flowers are a wonderful habitat for the predators of pests (pest predators). When planting flowers in your food forest, look for flowers that are very accessible for insect's small mouth parts. It's very important to provide for the pest predators, because these guys have a longer, slower life cycle than the pests they hunt. Remember when planting your food forest, diversity makes it interesting.
Also, please make sure that you plant pairs or clusters of fruiting trees for pollination (plant sex!) and that tree planting is planting for decades away. And as always, share your harvest!
And lastly, I want to impart you with John's 3 VERY IMPORTANT rules for seed saving, planting, and propagating. LABEL, LABEL, LABEL!
Please check out these other links for more info!
Regenerative Design Institute
CA Rare Fruit Growers Golden Gate Chapter
CA Rare Fruit Growers Scion Exchange
John Valenzuela's blog, Cornucopia Food Forest
NorCal Aquaponics
Hi! two things that would be very useful-
ReplyDeletefor the third layer, Nopales and artichokes are great perennial resources!(although cactus may better appreciated delegated along borders of fences, etc. Their vegetable harvest is limited to maybe two months (take advantage of harvesting year round if you mix in some usually ornamental varieties which grow green shoots during the late fall months, but no valuable fruit, nice flowers tho.)) The fruit advantage must be the best, however, because it is fantastic! I have found orange, red and purple Tunas, they are called, but no connection to fish:)
If you are in a weedy california place, and are open to using semi-invasive species, i would highly recommend tending to a stand of Chiquelite, or hierba mora/ solanum NIgrum/americanum. that would go under the canopy and tree layers successfully, and you would get spring and winter greens, but you need to boil them very well of course, with a water change in between. It also makes delicious purple berries. Also flowers, the native white long ones do well in that layer, and if you haven't paid any attention, it is very important to keep a steady supply of Miners lettuce, a California native, under neath the tree layer-strawberries would not work too well, maybe in between the shrub and crop layer,though. miners lettuce is a nice wild crop which is pleasant to eat raw!and it only gets maybe a foot tall, max, and it keeps out other weeds you dont want, but slugs may like it. it loves shade and can grow for maybe five months out of the year, before rotting away, to produce another crop with the fall/winter rains.
I love agro-gardening, and am messing with dryfarming at the moment, or at least the intensification of my crops without breeding. I got a successful plot of corn with only a few waterings once a month, and potatoes with no water.
If I could help you guys out, man I would love too!
this is so i Get any reply notifications, respond to this comment:)
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