Table of Contents
A food forest, also known as a forest garden, is a place where a variety of edible plants are grown for the purpose of mimicking the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. The Food Forest is a three-dimensional design, with life extending in all directions – up, down, and out.
In general, we recognize seven layers of woodland – the upper layer, the lower layer, the shrub layer, the herbaceous layer, the root layer, the ground cover and the vine layer. Some also like to express the mycelium layer, the eighth layer (fungi/mushrooms). By using these layers, we can fit more trees into an area without causing problems due to competition.
When creating a food forest, you receive many advantages over a regular garden or forest!
But what defines a food forest?
This is the basic structure of the forest:
- Tall canopy trees
- Medium canopy trees
- Low trees
- Shrubs
- Vines which can grow over trees
- Ground cover
- Rhizosphere / root crops
The main benefits of food forests come from 3 main characteristics. The food forest consists mostly of perennials, making the most of the vertical space and filling all the vegetative cavities (growth spaces).
Perennials include trees and shrubs, but also include perennial vegetables.
The benefits of a Food Forest
By creating a system that is made mostly of mainly perennial vegetation, you avoid having to replant every year as you would in your vegetable garden. As a result, you will need to perform less maintenance and this means less energy spent! The roots will be deeper and the forest will retain more water and with this, less watering will be needed.
Another benefit to add is the fact that you will need to engage and perform less invasive activities to disturb the soil! This will then allow life to flourish in your soil, thus creating a healthier soil and thus a healthier ecosystem, which is directly related to our own health and holistic wellness.
A food forest leads to an increase in your crop, when you use all available space, including vertical space, this is how we grow better with regenerative practices and learn from the regenerative systems of nature.
This system can provide you with fruits, nuts, berries, vegetables, herbs and much more in the area around the trees. If you repeat this pattern dozens of times with more fruit trees and seeds, you will have a real and thriving food forest.
This food forest will yield a truly enormous harvest, eclipsing what an ordinary garden of the same size can provide. In addition, food forests will produce a much more diverse harvest!
A diverse and nourishing forest greatly reduces potential disease and pest problems. Even if pests become a problem to one species of trees, they will not likely spread to others because of their own natural built resilience, and so you will not lose all your harvest.
The Breakdown
The overall result is a system that produces rich and varied crops, requiring less input and less maintenance than a normal garden: When creating a food forest, you receive many advantages over a regular garden or forest some of them being :
- Increased harvests by stacking crops and growing vertically.
- Less diseases and pest issues because of the overall diversity and complexity which has more ability to face adversity
- Very low maintenance once it’s established.
- Improves soil life
- Requires less watering (or no watering at all!)
- Due to the diversity, you will have food all year round!
- It is a beautiful and abundant space for Nature to thrive and you along with it!
Food Forests serve as an ultimate healthy ecosystem for humans, animals, and plants that can benefit and thrive. Gardens play an important role in providing fresh produce to small groups of people. Food forests will have much more impact than a garden because this natural system also creates the habitat of birds, insects, and other wildlife which are essential for the continued growth of our multidimensional existence which depends on diversity. Diversity of nutrients, minerals, vitamins, and thus life!
Our own Food Forest
We are planting in our Food Forest in Portugal center Alentejo, Pavia on a piece of land that facilitates the holistic well-being of the interconnected life that it touches.
The Food Forest will also improve the quality of the soil, so that species of plants can grow more than what locals believe to grow in this region. We will serve as a pillar of awareness to raise the local and collective consciousness to showcase how, when we work together with nature, we can create more abundance.
Showing how important it is to care for Nature, and how caring for Nature means caring for ourselves.
Do you feel called to support nature and the elements that it touches, you can support our environmental and holistic crowdfunding, which we are hosting to reforest the land, planting in an agroforest, food forest and biodiverse forest. This crowdfunding will help reforest the land by financing the implementation of keyline water designs, rainwater management and integrating a diversity of endangered species of flora and fauna. If you feel called to support this financially or just help raise awareness you can learn more here on our Food Forest page or go directly to our Crowdfunding hosted on Indiegogo , bringing back biodiversity to Portugals eroding soil.
Do you want to help grow and be part of an evolving and regenerative way of life? You can check out our volunteering opportunity in Alentejo, Portugal here.
You could be interested to learn from and teach us, evolve together with the planet, co-creating with us, or host a regenerative or holistic-centered event. Explore the ways in which we can synergize through our website Purposeflow or reach out to us directly on social media @purposeflow_living.
Here are some external resources that you can explore to learn more about food forests :
What is a Food Forest – The Permaculture Research Institute (permaculturenews.org)
What is a Food Forest? (And How to Get Started) – Growing with Nature