The Low Maintenance Edible Forest Garden

Easy and Productive Permaculture Intensive Organic Food Production

Jun 20, 2007

The Edible Forest Garden is an Agroforestry garden landscape designed to grow a lot of organic food with minimal work and resilient in the face of climate change.

An Edible Forest Gardens is a low maintenance garden landscape, designed using agroforestry permaculture techniques. Highly productive, and resistant to climate change challenges, the edible forest garden, a technique also known as Agroforestry, offers a sustainable way forward for green gardeners.

Edible Forest Garden Maintenance

From time to time it is necessary to cut back invasive plants, such as mint, and apply a straw or hay mulch. To harvest, wander through your garden with a basket, and enjoy the variety and abundance. Many of the ground level plants are suitable for salads; such a variety of freshly picked green leaves is highly nutritious. It is rarely, if ever, necessary to water a temperate climate forest garden.

Create an Edible Forest Garden

It takes a few years for an edible forest garden to establish. You will find that some species thrive on your site while others do not; often it is simply a question of trial and error. If a plant doesn’t grow well it may be down to competition from surrounding plants, or an unsuitable microclimate within the forest garden; too sunny or too shaded.

Books and DVD on Edible Forest Gardening

Forest gardening by Robert Hart was the original groundbreaking book that inspired a generation of forest gardeners.

Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set) by Dave Jacke (Chelsea Green, 2005) is very detailed, authoritative and up to date.

A Forest Garden Year with Martin Crawford, DVD Martin Crawford, Director of A.R.T. in Devon, England, acknowledged expert in temperate forest gardens, takes viewers on an inspiring and practical gardening adventure.

In the spring the ground level plants appear first, in time to get a head start before the bushes come into leaf. In turn the bushes’ leaves develop before the trees’ buds burst, ensuring maximum productivity from the land. The yield of each individual crop is generally lower in a forest garden when compared to the yield of the same plant grown alone on an equivalent area. However the combined yield of the plants in a forest garden is higher than that of any one crop on the same area.

A wide variety of species is the key to a successful forest garden to create equilibrium to manage naturally pests and diseases. You may suffer an aphid attack, but it is unlikely to last when the ladybirds arrive in force! This is an organic gardening technique; do not use artificial pesticides or fertilizers which may disrupt this natural balance.

Edible Forest Garden Tree layer

It is possible to turn an existing orchard into a forest garden, indeed it is usually easier to let the trees and bushes establish themselves for a year or two before planting the ground level plants.

Many temperate climate fruit and nut trees are suitable. Put sun loving species, such as peaches, on the south side of the forest garden in the northern hemisphere, on the north side in the southern hemisphere. Unusual species that include a pine nut tree, such as pinus pinea, and the Siberean Pea Tree.

Edible Forest Garden Bush layer

Edible Forest Garden Ground level plants

The copyright of the article The Low Maintenance Edible Forest Garden in Organic Gardens is owned by Joanne E. Brannan. Permission to republish The Low Maintenance Edible Forest Garden in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.