Showing posts with label food forests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food forests. Show all posts

Wednesday 6 November 2019

Forest Garden With 500 Edible Plants Requires Only a Few Hours of Work Per Month: EIC

An example of a cold climate food forest and the rationale behind developing a food forest.

 "Mother Nature has been growing plants for 460 million years and trees for 370 million years. According to fossil records, humans appeared in Africa around 195 thousand years ago and thrived on nature’s bounty. Fast forward to the early 1900s, which saw the beginning of a new era of growing food crops, monoculture, or single crop farming.
Instead of rotating crops to restore nutrients to the soil it gets depleted. Modern man’s solution was to use chemicals and fertilizer, wiping out natural habitats in the process.







Nature was doing rather well and our ancestors followed her example before the single crop idea took hold and thankfully, many people have since realized that working with nature one can create forest gardens for food that are designed to mimic natural ecosystems and restore our soil.



Martin Crawford, a forest gardening pioneer, based in the UK, explains in a short film by Thomas Regnault, “What we think of as normal, in terms of food production is actually not normal at all. Annual plants are very rare in nature, yet most of our agricultural fields are filled with annual plants. It’s not normal. What’s normal is a more forested or semi-forested system.”

Forest gardens mimic natural ecosystems by using perennial plants and trees, which live for a long time and/or reseed themselves. The garden would have various vertical levels of growth such as tall canopy trees, shorter trees, shrubs and bushes, vines, consists of various vertical levels of growth, from canopy trees to shorter trees, to shrubs and bushes, vines, herbs, ground cover and roots. The levels work together, offering shade, wind protection, support and nutrition. Starting a forest garden from scratch will take time, work and money but once done, it will basically take care of itself for years with very little maintenance but plenty to harvest.



 
Crawford explains, “With such a diverse system, whatever happens with the weather, most of your crops will probably do fine. Some may fail, some may do better. That’s very important going into the future. Because we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen to our weather. So by having a diverse system, it gives you maximum resilience.”

See the original EIC article 
Published on By Jade Small"









Sunday 16 December 2018

A tropical low is not unusual and welcomed.

We have had showers over two days and now seven hours of continuous heavy rain. We expect more rain. Parts of the district have had over 100ml. Our landscaping copes well with such rainfall events. Our sloping acre of food forest loves the rain and the warm days that follow.

Food Forest: Heavy rain but our landscaping copes well.

Tuesday 19 December 2017

The Guardian: Using food forests to prevent floods and hunger

Permaculture in Malawi: using food forests to prevent floods and hunger

   Read original story

"Permaculture projects in Malawi are developing sustainable food systems. It is time the development sector took this ‘marginal hippy movement’ seriously."

"Forests regulate water flow and protect topsoil. Restore the forests and you will go a long way to preventing flooding. Design the forests along holistic permaculture principles and you will achieve much more: water harvesting, fuel wood, high-quality timber, indigenous forest restoration and highly diverse food production. In a country where almost half the children under five are malnourished and chronic hunger is common, any holistic solution must consider food sovereignty."