Permaculture and Building Your Own Food Forest

In this third part of our blog posts on permaculture and perennial fruits, we will offer some thoughts on how to incorporate a “food forest” into your home landscape.

Define Your System

The most important lesson in permaculture regarding re-design of our outdoor/natural living spaces is that of beginning to regard the space within your grasp as a “System.” This space might be your patio, yard, garden, acreage, farm, ranch, neighborhood, town etc. For now, we are focusing on the yard.

When thinking of your yard as a system, you will consider all current uses, all desired uses, and all possible uses in relation to your site’s available resources.

If you are a gardener, or aspire to be one, one of your desired uses is to produce food. Other uses may be space to relax, space to dry laundry, space for shade, space for gathering and possibly others. You’ll want to determine how much space to allocate to each need. From there you can determine how to best re-imagine your landscape.

Map Your System

The best way to start is to grab a notebook, pencil and a measuring tape, and go out into your yard. Your goal is a map and an accurate picture of the square footage available for gardens. You can use simple graph paper to make a scaled drawing of your lot, or you can make a rough sketch.

The idea is to measure the perimeters of your property, and to draw it on paper. Any permanent fixtures (trees, buildings, fences) should be included, because you will need to plan around these. Now you have the base map for your plan. In order to begin a successful long term plan, you will next need to spend time doing something thoughtful, fun and hopefully enlightening observation.

Observe Your System

Observation means wandering about your yard, clipboard in hand, dreaming about the possibilities while digesting current realities, and making note of it all.

What will you observe? The existing patterns and resources of your property! Patterns such as foot traffic, sun and shadow, wind, water flow, neighbors, wildlife, plants, and anything else you can relate to your “System.”

Pay very close attention to the directional alignment of your yard; where is the southern boundary, where the light is strongest and for the longest part of the day? What exists on your boundaries, or in your existing landscape to create shade? How much available space with full sun do you have? What structures exist that you can utilize to your gardening advantage, such as by functioning as the site of a trellis, or even for a fruit tree trained in espalier? How can you make use of rainwater, roof-top runoff, or how will you manage a site that is exposed to wind or snow load? How do your pathways through the space affect its use?

Plan Your Food Forest

Once you have inventoried the size of your plot, and sketched in the prevailing circumstances that exist on it, you are ready to determine its capacity for growing food. Don’t discount the possibility that to achieve the best practical use of your yard, you may need to consider removing some existing plantings (if you are very committed and willing to undertake a project of this sort for the long term).

By identifying the resources available, you can accurately plan for a permanent food productive landscape. During this observation, note on your map where the sunlight falls…and the shade. Where will your water come from? Where will you house your compost pile, poultry trio, tools? The functional elements most often accessed, or tended should be placed closest to your home, like your perennial herb garden, vegetable plantings, and clothesline. The less tended elements, such as your perennial food guild or compost pile can be placed out in the further reaches.

Now that you have observed, draw these observations on your map! Do you see enough available light and space for a mature fruit tree or trees, or for a permanent patch of berries? For fruit trees you should allocate approximately 15 to 25-square-feet depending on the tree’s rootstock. For the many berry choices, this will vary, so research the size at maturity and planting information of particular berries online.

Fruit trees, the upper story of your permanent guild, can be then interplanted with berry bushes or cane patches, though you should initially plant the berries at approximately 4 to 5-feet-away from the trunk of the tree to allow for growth and to encourage partnership, not competition. The berry bushes are now the middle story of the guild.

Now, consider the ground cover story, and fill it in with perennial edible, medicinal herbs or strawberries for example, leaving enough space around each plant for its mature size, and not planting closer than about 2 feet from the fruit tree’s trunk. Again, the idea is plant partnership, not competition!

If managed well, this guild will become an interplay of mutually beneficial relationships between the plants, shrubs and trees, increasing biodiversity in your yard while providing a sustainable yield!

Order Bare Root Plants from Cloud Nine Catalog

The particular plant combinations are many, so check out our Bare Root Plants Catalog. We are offering 33 different varieties of fruit trees, berry plants, asparagus and rhubarb roots, and edible native species that are hardy to Zone 3 or 4. Our catalog is easily emailed in PDF file format, so please email us, rooneymontana@imt.net or call 406-578-2144, to request one. It contains details about bare root planting, each species and variety, photos, and an order form.

Once you’ve planned, and chosen your varieties and species, and reviewed maintenance requirements, you will implement your plan! (Yep, the warm weather will return, and you want to be ready!) Break some ground this spring, and get busy out there!

Suggested Readings

The Backyard Orchardist and The Backyard Berry Book by Stella Otto.

Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway, a more thorough explanation of permaculture principles and techniques.

Permaculture Workshop in Livingston

Also, for the first time in recent memory, a highly exciting Permaculture Design Workshop is being taught this spring in Livingston. Check it out here

Did you miss Part 1 and 2?

Part One The Rooneys of Cloud Nine Farm are offering 33 different varieties of fruit trees, berry plants, asparagus and rhubarb roots, and edible native species that are hardy to Zone 3 or 4. Order yours for 2010 today!

Part Two What is Permaculture? Allison and Seann Rooney of Cloud Nine Farm in Wilsall delve in to permaculture and how it relates to home gardening and the backyard cultivation of perennial edibles.