CURRENTS THROUGH USELESS BAY

We consulted recently with Eric, who is a local  expert in forest gardening.  Our site is shady, and although we’ll have some sun in the summer, we are focusing on fairly shade tolerant plants.  Eric gave us some good ideas about plants to use for borders that are also edible.  He told us about the local conservation district plant sale where we can buy natives.  He looked at the roots of an alder that had to come out for the drain field, and commented on how healthy the nitrogen fixing nodules looked.  It looks like we have very good conditions for growing .

An edible forest garden, from what I am reading, makes use of permaculture principles to create a sustainable and self-sowing garden that is in harmony with the local ecology.  It is the least destructive sort of gardening or farming we can do.  While providing nutritious food that one “forages,” the self-sowing plants work in harmony with how a natural ecosystem develops, and is actually restorative to the soil, building rather than breaking it down.  The plants used in forest gardens are perennial, and as such, no tilling or disturbing of the soil is required, once the garden is planted.  The amount of work to create the garden is initially more, but the maintenance in future years is minimal.  This is a garden that will go on for many years, even after we are gone, even if no one comes to tend it.  Some believe that forest gardens are really the only sustainable gardens of the future.

Forest gardens not only provide food, but can also grow plants that one can use for building materials, baskets, and other projects.  One source I read spoke of the practice of using coppice, (my spell checker doesn’t even know the word!).  When a tree is cut down, it is done in such a way that it sprouts.  After a few years these many sprouting branches can be cut off and used for furniture or other small items.  This can be done over and over on the same tree.  Other forest gardeners use bamboo (carefully, because of spreading rhizomes).  With some imagination, one might imagine all sorts of ways to grow and forage both food and supplies necessary for our lives.  And it sounds like fun.  Additionally, forest gardeners are sustaining wildlife habitat, feeding birds, and enhancing the beauty of their local areas.  In addition, the activity required to create and forage this kind of garden is health giving.  Being careful to use plants that are in harmony with local environs, I see few if any drawbacks.  If one is thinking in terms of mass production–then no, this isn’t a great method.  There will be ample food to share, but this is not a high yield system of mono-cropping.  Thinking in terms of sustainability and long term environmental and human health, these will be better yield for a much longer period of time, and will provide many additional benefits in addition to those that are nutritional.

I think of all of the land I see around me that is sitting idly in vacant lots, or lying fallow in fields that are not much more than mowed, and especially of the millions of acres of lawns in this country onto which are poured toxic fertilizers and chemicals–and I might add, require a lot of fossil fuels to keep mowed.  What if we converted these spaces to forest gardens?  Let them self sow, and take back some control of our food supply?  Even a tiny yard could grow a small nut tree, a few berry bushes and some edible ground cover.  We could talk to our apartment managers, get our co-renters involved, and start pulling up some lawn, (and perhaps some cement) and planting some food.  In areas where people have done this, neighbors have felt less isolated, kids have been more integrated into the community. and a lot of loneliness has been eased.

As you can see, the notion of edible forest gardening extends far beyond planting a few trees in a particular way.  It’s a larger ethic.  It’s owning our food supply again.  It’s about owning our own health, and land, and neighborhoods and communities.  It is also a vision for how we might survive the coming crises we will experience with regard to food and seed supplies.  The more of us who begin this type of practice, the better situated we will be when the overly large systems of food production begin to break down.  We are already witnessing this.  Not only are these practices laced with cruelty, they are contributing to our mental distress, deteriorating our health, and degrading the environment.  Edible Forest Gardening solves many of these problems.

Be sure to check with your county, however, before starting your own project.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Edible Forest Gardening, Maxwelton Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.