Garden With Ernest

A Forest Garden or food forest can become a really special place. Because it can grow into a self-sustaining low maintenance, resilient garden. That provides food for us and wildlife and can also help combat global warming.

My Food Forest

This really grew by accident when I fenced off a small area of my garden to plant a native hedge. The idea was to grow food and habitat for wildlife. But I soon found that a lot of the trees and shrubs had food for me too.

Woodland edge Gardening

The name “Forest gardening” can be a little confusing, as it implies that we are creating a garden in the middle of a forest. Whereas, Forest gardening actually replicates the kind of planting found on the edge of a forest or woodland, where there is still plenty of sunlight. 

So Forest gardening is copying the way natural woodlands form and grow. A natural forest creates a balanced, stable and sustainable ecosystem.

The plants on the edge of a natural forest consist of more than just trees. There are layers of plants starting from the ground up. 

The Layers of a Food Forest

Fungus grows under the soil along with bacteria, nematodes, and other terrestrial insects. Above them in the leaf litter, ground cover plants, herbaceous plants and tree seedlings grow. Small shrubs, Sapling trees and vines grow in the middle layers and above them are the mature trees. Every layer supports thousands of insects which feed birds, bats, and a host of other mammals. 

In a forest, death and decay are as important as the living plants and animals. We are trying to mimic all of that, in a cultivated food garden. So that our Forest Gardens can support themselves and enrich the environment, not deplete it. And we can even do this in a tiny scale in tiny space. By growing plants together in guilds.

What is a plant guild?

A guild is a term used in permaculture, for a group of plants, that mutually support and benefit each other. It is the same as companion planting, expect most of the plants are permanent. So guilds create well balanced mini ecosystems. These permaculture guilds, are made up of layers of perennial plants, shrubs, trees and climbers.

All the plants in guild contributes something to the group and provide food and shelter, which benefits the whole system.

Food Forests are unique

Furthermore, I have just counted 58, different types of trees, shrubs, perennials and wild plants in my food forest garden, that I can identify. And there are a lot more plants that I want to add.

Some plants are there by design, a few where already growing there, and many have just moved in. Of course all plants are beneficial to something. Most of the trees and shrubs are grown for the edible fruits and nuts. But some trees have edible leaves too.

Beach, Birch, Hawthorn, Linen/Lime tree, Mulberry and Pine trees all have edible leaves or needles. Harvest them in Spring when they are still young.

Other benefits of growing trees

Trees capture carbon from the air, which is a great asset, and helps to fight climate change. The tree canopy provides shade, and leaf litter which makes a natural mulch that benefits the whole food forest.

I have a lot of vigorous self-seeding trees such Hazel, Cherry plum, and Elderberries, as well as lots of suckers from a wild cherry tree. These can all be utilized as chop and drop mulch to add fertility and increase the under ground mycelium networks.

Trees like networking too

These fungal networks connect individual plants. Water, carbon, nitrogen and other minerals pass along them. So by creating a soil that is rich with decay and covered with natural mulch, will help change my garden, from free draining grassland, to water and nutrient retaining, woodland.

Shrubs and bushes, provide more good nesting sites for insectivorous birds, which will help regulate insect numbers, in your woodland garden.

And bushes often produce their fruit and berries earlier than trees do, providing a longer season of productivity.

Shrubs utilize the middle space

Shrubs grow in the middle space below the trees and above ground level, so the growing area of your garden is maximized.

Ultimately, perennial plants, ground cover plants and climbers should cover every available space. There should be no bare ground and very little grass. Turf grasses have roots that are close to the soil surface, and soak up rain quickly so they compete with trees and other plants for water and nutrients.

On the other hand, many broad-leaved pernnial plants have roots that reach down to various different levels in the soil. This means they are not in direct competition for space or resources. In fact they are often assisting each other.

For example, clover is a nitrogen fixing plant, Lamb’s quarters, Sorrel, Comfrey and Fennel are dynamic accumulators. When these plants decay they release their nutrients, which benefits the other plants in the guild.

Fill your forest garden with useful plants

You can choose plants with many other uses too. Some plants attract beneficial insects,like Dandelions, Fennel, Yarrow, Parsley, flowering Radish and Mustard greens.  And some of these beneficial insects will eat other insect pests too.

And between them you can add other perennial and annual edibles plants, such as Pumpkins, Asparagus, Rhubarb, Strawberries, Parsnips, Kales, Broad beans, Pernnial Onions and Chives .

There are over 20 different types of plants in this small group. Here’s the list of some of them:

• Crab apple
• Dwarf cherry
• Cherry plum
• Creeping raspberry
• Strawberries
• Culinary herbs
• Flowering pernnials
• Wild flowers and edible weeds

As the food forest develops it requires less maintenance, plants will cover the soil reducing the need to water and weed. Mulching happens naturally and builds soil health slowly. It never needs digging over and because most of the plants are perennial or self-seeding it will rarely require replanting.

Food Forests are for more than just food

As I walk in the dappled sun under my  trees and collect fruits and edible plants to eat, I can see how all this plant diversity has increased the biodiversity of my garden.  It is more interesting, productive and, I think, far more special than when it was just grass.