Food forests, forest gardens, agro-forestry describe a type of perennial food system dominated by woody plants. In permaculture design systems we can combine different plant species and animals at the correct timing to mimic natural systems to produce food, building materials, fuel wood, crops, medicines, and whatever else is our goal. Forest systems are complex they contain many niches and grow without the need of any inputs. We have designed many different types of forest garden systems that look at the unique conditions of the site and what the land and climate can support in conjunction with the wishes of the client.
In Ashland Sacred Earth designed a food forest containing overstory trees with apple, almond, peach, pear, cherry, and mulberry. The understory is a mix of fruiting shrubs, red currant, gooseberry, goji, with medicinal plants, insectory perennials, and vegetables.
Designing multi-storied canopy productive forests has been done for thousands of years by indigenous people around the world. In the “spice islands” these types of designs have been modeled on natural forests and are extremely complex. There are many layers of plants and animals are also grazed on the undergrowth. I had a chance to visit this place in Tanzania to experience this kind of design. The food plants included vanilla beans, pineapple, nutmeg, jackfruit, coconuts, cinnamon, pepper, cardomon, bananas, starfruit, citrus, mango, papaya, passionfruit, and too much to list.
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