Jane Payne

I've been carefully reading through everyone's responses, and I truly appreciate your input and thoughts. I agree that a guild will be the way to go, and I will work on relating that guild to the larger structure of a food forest to my gift recipients.

I have also been cautioned about the water needs of the plants together, so the lavender and strawberry have very different water needs, so that wouldn't be a good fit.

I believe I would be assembling them at home, and maybe even letting it get established a bit so I know my gift isn't going to die or struggle too much.

The giant rosemary made me lol, I've seen them overwinter here rarely, but I've never seen one that big, and they tend to struggle outside. I'm in zone 7b.

I haven't decided yet whether or not to include annuals, or plants that could stay outside or would need to overwinter indoors? That might depend on the gardening skills of who I'm gifting it to? If I include annuals I would prefer varieties who readily re-seed.

I'm brainstorming a gift idea for friends and family members who love gardening to introduce them to permaculture in a way, but more specifically the idea of a food forest.

I would like to source or build rather large planters (24" square?), then do a plant grouping that mimics a food forest on a micro scale, but I need plant ideas and suggestions! To make this a gift that I can duplicate in the future and that stays reasonable in terms of cost I would lean heavily toward plants I can propagate easily or that I already have. For the vining layer I would probably choose Apios Groundnut, for example. 1. I have them. 2. Plopping one little tuber in at the base of a taller plant and watching it vine makes me smile. 3. They're a nitrogen fixer

So the seven layers of a food forest are (as I'm sure y'all know):
Overstory
Understory
Shrub layer
Herbaceous layer
Root layer
Ground cover layer
Vine layer

Combine overstory and understory into one woody plant in the center of the plant? I'm struggling with this one. Plant suggestions?

Shrub layer: lavender, rosemary? Too small?

Herbaceous layer: purslane, oregano?

Root layer: I've got nothing. Especially in a planter. Call the Apios both the vine and root layer??? Help?

Ground cover layer: strawberries, really really want to do strawberries.  

Vine layer: Apios groundnut

I've been window shopping potted lemon trees, and different setups to keep them alive indoors through my zone 7 winters, and I'd love to get some advice! I'm a fairly novice gardener, and I can just about keep succulents alive inside through neglect and a nice South facing window.

1. The cost on the potted lemon trees available locally is a little prohibitive for my current budget. Is there any benefit to buying them potted? Are they grafted onto dwarf rootstock? Or could I sprout a seed and keep it alive in a large pot?
2. 25 gallon pot? Larger?
3. All tips on getting store bought lemon seed to sprout. Do I need to hunt down organic lemons???

I'm also contemplating a bay tree once I get my setup for indoors. Would that be worth it?

I'm a few years behind on this thread, but another use to add to list is storing breastmilk! I had to pump at work and I always used mason jars rather than those terrible ziploc bags they sell specifically for breastmilk.

I did "baby led weaning" with both of my girls, so my focus has been on planting more of a snacking garden they can go graze in? They are now 5 and two, and for them I plant strawberries, mini cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and peas. Basically anything I like, but with a focus on items that can be eaten straight off the plant with minimal prep. They're both very very good at identifying what is food and what isn't! My youngest just turned two, and this last spring/summer I was astonished at how easily she could tell what was ripe and yummy, and what wasn't.

I have a small plot in my front yard I'm converting from lawn to a food forest, see my previous post if you want to see how it's (not) going.

I want to try to mimic succession, and requested a BUNCH of seeds from my library's seed library. This is primarily financially motivated, seeds are free, and the bushes I want I can't afford yet. But on the plus side maybe they will suppress the seeds, provide food, and improve the soil! I got:

Mint Mountain
Pycnanthemum Virginianum

Bean Earliserve Bush
Phaseolus Vulgaris

Bean Cherokee Wax
Phaseolus Vulgaris

Bean Pencil Pod Wax (Bush)
Phaseolus Vulgaris

Mistflower
Conoclinium Coelestinum

Pea Dwarf Grey Sugar
Pisum Sativum

Pea Wando
Pisum Sativum

Radish Champion
Raphanus Sativus

Radish Chinese Green Luobo
Raphanus Sativus

Radish Daikon Japanese Minowase
Raphanus Sativus

Radish Misato Rose
Raphanus Sativus

Scorzonera Duplex Russian Giant
Tagopogon Porrifolius

Soybean Shirofumi
Glycine Max

I put all the radish seeds in an empty spice container, and shoved all the beans and peas in my pockets, grabbed a yard rake, and went to work. Of course my 4.5 year old and 1.5 year old daughters were hot on my tail! I began by using the rake to break up the soil some, and break out clumps of grass. As I was working a classic Oklahoma summer thunderstorm started rolling in. The wind picked up, and was whipping the tree tops. One strong gust almost knocked over the toddler! My four year old was running around sprinkling radish seeds, and me and the toddler were rushing to poke all the beans and peas into the soil we could before the storm hit us, the toddler whispering "night-night" to each seed.

Just thought I'd share in case it gives anyone a chuckle! And of course any input or advice would be much appreciated.

I just read through this article from a local university to get an idea what cover crops would do well in my climate:

OSU Cover Crops for Weed Management

In one of the studies they combined radishes, peas, and rye. I love this idea! I think I'll do a fall cover crop over existing lawn to prepare it for a spring vegetable garden. My soil tends rather heavily towards clay, so in my mind the radishes will break up the clay, the peas will provide nitrogen, and the rye much needed organic material and in the spring mulch.

Even better, my local library has radish seeds and pea seeds for free, so I will only have to purchase the rye seeds.

Thank you for the suggestions, this evening you will find me with my yard cart in the corners where the wind has raked the leaves....probably bashing the leaves with a rake to drive off snakes first!

I love blackberries as well, there is huge thicket of them on land immediately adjacent to my property to the North. (I call them blackberries. The names of all the different hybrids and subspecies is discussed fervently in a foraging group I'm in.)  

It is wonderful to watch the different species it provides habitat to, see the different plants interact, practice my novice foraging, and watch succession in action. If the blackberry thicket wasn't there that would be the obvious choice, but I have an abundance of blackberries right over my back fence. What a hard life, am I right? So far I've ID'd cattails, blackberries, mullein, vetch, and honeysuckle.

I live on an acre of land in zone 7a, and I'm trying to establish an teeny food forest in my front yard. Dreams are big, but for practical and financial reasons I have to start small.  I started with apple trees, marked a perimeter, then filled the whole thing with a truck bed full of mulch. Hindsight being 20/20 and all I didn't sheet mulch, and it really wasn't enough mulch.  I then got a bunch of strawberry plants from my mother, and some yarrow from runners off of a bigger plant in my garden.

Fast forward several months, I now have a simply lovely bermuda grass apple garden. The strawberries are also living their best life, so when I pull the grass I inevitably also pull poor innocent strawberry runners. Funny that the desirable plant and the unwanted one both have such a similar growth pattern...

I have now started planting any type of bush bean seed I can get from my local library's seed library, and I planted a full packet of crimson clover from Baker Seeds. What are my best options to kill out the grass and keep the strawberries?

Also, what berry bushes would be excellent for the bush layer? I would like something my small children could go pick and eat, so not elderberry. It is full sun, but VERY damp.

Any and all tips and advice would be so appreciated! I am very much a novice. Two years ago the husband and I decided to stop bagging lawn clippings, now I'm organic gardening, sewing, composting, and trying to convince him to do away with the lawn all together, On the Paul Wheaton eco scale I've gone from a 0 to a 2 in about two years, with an envious eye on level 3.