Practice Highlight: Food Forests

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Image courtesy of  Permaculture Action Network

Food forests are designed to mimic a forest ecosystem and are mainly made up of edible and medicinal perennial species, with some annual crops mixed in. 
 
The layers of a food forest often include: 

  • Fruit and nut trees (full size and/or smaller ones grown on dwarf rootstock)

  • Shrubs such as currants, blueberries, hazelnut

  • Culinary and medicinal herbs, pollinator and poultry-loving plants

  • Ground cover of edible plants like strawberries

  • Shallow root crops such as garlic

  • Vines like kiwis, grapes, pumpkins

  • Mushrooms

When designing a food forest, it’s important to remember that it takes time to integrate all of these layers. Many landowners start with fruit or nut trees and shrubs and then add in the lower layers over time. Alternatively, you can start with standalone tree guilds and link them together. (Plant guilds are a community of plants that support each other by recycling nutrients back into the soil, providing shade and conserving water, attracting beneficial insects, repelling pests and diseases, building soil, and preventing erosion. If you think of a food forest as a whole unit, then a plant guild is a sub unit.)

Benefits
The end goal of a food forest is to create an edible ecosystem that is relatively low-maintenance and self-sustaining. Here are just a few examples of how that happens:

  • Less tilling and planting. Because food forests are made up of mostly perennial species, they don’t need to be replanted every season. Reducing the need for tilling means less work (and more carbon sequestration!) It also prevents the loss of topsoil and allows the organisms that live in the soil to thrive and cycle nutrients, which improves fertility.  

  • Diversity benefits plant and soil health. The diversity of plants in a food forest provide habitat for a wider range of those helpful little soil organisms, further improving soil and plant health. Diverse plant species also provide habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects and wildlife that help to control pests, reducing the need for pesticides.

  • Less watering required. The deep roots of trees and shrubs make them much more drought tolerant than annual crops. They also shade the smaller plants below, protecting them from extreme heat. The natural mulch created from the leaves falling from the trees feeds the soil and reduces the need for water. This natural shade is also beneficial to the health of livestock.

The word “forest” may make you think a food forest needs to be large, but it actually refers to the way they emulate the layers and natural cycles of a forest. Because they layer species in close proximity, food forests can actually be quite small and even work well in urban spaces. Not only can they produce abundant harvests, food forests can also provide natural spaces for people to gather, recreate, and deepen their relationship to the land, reminding us that, we too, can be a beneficial part of the ecosystem.

To get advice on designing a food forest, or other agroforestry topics, contact Snohomish Conservation District’s Agroforester, Carrie Brausieck, at cbrausieck@snohomishcd.org or 425-377-7014.