Edible Forest Gardens

What a weekend at Woodbine Ecological Center! Andrew and I joined the likes of career permaculturists, hippie crusaders, species-identifying heavyweights and gardening urbanites. We were amongst people who get a spark in their eye when you mention concepts like polyculture design, model ecosystems and niche conditions. We were the green ones in the course, but more than one seasoned veteran told us with tears in their eyes that they are overwhelmed with hope when they see people of our generation perpetuating permaculture ideals.

We had the opportunity to learn the basics of designing an edible forest garden from one of the forerunners in the field, Eric Toensmeier. To start to describe this interesting concept, we can put agriculture and nature on two ends of one food-producing spectrum. The typical gardener would start at the agricutural end and kinda sorta make their way toward the natural end. What we learned to do this weekend was to start with the natural and edge our way back toward the agricultural.

The main idea with this style of gardening is to use native perennial plants in a way that mimic the layers of a forest, and to do so with plants that are good to eat! Perennial planting is the most wonderful and lazy way to garden--the plants come back year after year without much effort at all! And planting native plants not only guarantees the plant's success in your given area, it carries forward the history of an area unlike any other activity!

In really lush areas of the world, we could probably describe 6-7 distinct plant layers. Here in Colorado where the sun is harsh and the soil is dry, we typically see 3 layers at a time, if that: groundcover (grass/herbs), shrubs and trees. There are so many relationships between forest plants, we can only begin to copy the patterns we see.  We learned about some great native plants in each of these layering categories, and we learned how to pair them based on their ability to fix nitrogen, their ideal soil conditions, their ability to attract beneficial insects, their food products, etc.

 All three forest layers are here: trees, shrubs and groundcover!

What an ideal classroom!

After learning the concepts and taking a hike to observe the natural occurrence and patterns of native plants in the forest, we helped design and plant an edible forest garden for Woodbine!

Here is the area with which we were challenged:

Notice the steep south-facing slope and ultra dry conditions!



Here are the plants we used:

Included here are Sand Cherry shrubs (yum!), sagebrush, chokeless chokecherry shrubs, netleaf hackberry trees, burgambel oak trees, banana yucca plants, prickly pear cacti, silver buffalo berry shrubs, purple clover seeds, prairie turnips, mountain mahogany shrubs, black locust trees (from seed!), manroot morning glory, and buffalo gourd. Whew!

The process:

And our fearless leader and instructor assessing the final result:

I was encouraged by the plants that we could use in our own perennial polycultures someday: strawberries, raspberries, sand cherries, hazelnut shrubs, groundnuts, currants, perennial broccoli and climbing spinach. Our favorite polyculture design would have berries and nuts included in the three layers--with which we could make granola bars! We also heard rave reviews about a perennial climbing hearty kiwi. . . now that's a must try!

Here's a parting shot of the most lovely doe overseeing our activities: