Food forest size for one person to maintain

Hi all!
First some context: I'm an experienced farmer (mostly organic veggies but also experience in permaculture orchard and animal care) I'm in the process of designing an market production scale food forest.  I'm planning on having goats and ducks to help with mowing etc. and, once enough crops are established, will have a u-pick CSA for a good portion of the crops.  I'll be working full time but likely won't have any hired help.

This question is mostly for planning purposes, both in terms of business (expected cash flows and all that) and landscape planning.  I'm going to be starting really small and building up depending on what I'm able to maintain no matter what.  My best guess at this point in the process is around 3 acres, does that sound about right to folks? Thanks!!

Quick question, do you already have land that you are planning this food forest for? to me, it sounds like you will be buying land.

If you already have the land it might help folks to tell us about the land and what part of the world it is in.

Hi Andy, This is so much a 'piece of string' question as it all depends. Mainly on how tidy you need things to look, also how you plan to maintain the property. I'm assuming 'chop and drop, but this can be anything from your hands, through scythes to ride on mowers or tractors. If you're planning mainly on u-pick, that tends to be most of the work, but most fruit will still need pruning and mulching. Although it will grow and fruit happily without (depending on the design again) yields are often higher with a bit of attention. I have 6 1/2 acres, which I pretty much maintain single handedly, but it's not very intensive on the production side - I have smaller areas which are more intensively planted. I will say that a food forest u-pick sounds heavenly as a visitor destination! An adventure playground and picnic site and you have a lovely family outing.

In syntropic agriculture they say that one man can usually take care of about one hectare which is 2.4 acres using syntropic methods which can be a little bit more labor intensive. And that's if you're working on it full time. But that's also an average if you're a hard worker I think you could handle a lot more than that I have been maintaining approximately one hectare but I don't work everyday. I probably work one day of 10. I'm working in a tropical environment which I think in the long run is less work because you have increased stratification more shade tolerant plants and it can really become a stable system. Of course initially in a warm environment with lots of moisture it will be difficult to maintain things. My advice would be to start on a small area and once those plants are well established and they can handle a little bit of neglect then move on to establishing more areas. If you're in a temperate area I would definitely recommend raspberries is one of your understory crops and some species of Dioscorea depending on your latitude. Another really great plant for maintaining the understory of an orchard is the Canna edulus these plants can take crazy amounts of shade and they can produce a carbohydrate rich tuber. Another plant that can take a lot of shade is capsicum pubescence but it is a long season crop and does not take Frost. Basically the more shade tolerant crops you have the easier it will be to maintain if you're trying to maintain the orchard while letting in crazy amounts of light then weeds will be harder to maintain. The best thing to do is to fill up those areas, block that light and also create competition for nutrients.

I think the key is taking into consideration the light requirements of the different plants when you're doing your planning. So in my case I'm in a tropical climate so I'll just give you an example of some of the consortium or polycultures that I am working with. So you could have a row of taller emergent tree species and then next to that row or even in the same row you can have your bananas because they have a lower light requirement. Then close to your bananas you could have pigeon peas and then farther from the trees you could have sugar cane and underneath the sugar cane you could have pineapples and underneath all of that you could have sweet potatoes.  A professional chili pepper grower once told me that habanero pepper plants that are planted in the shade take longer to produce but in the end they live for longer they produce a larger plant and the fruits are larger. So it might be a good idea to experiment with different types of chili peppers in the shade.

Hi Andy,
I think it can depend on the person and style of gardening. Permaculture tends to have things more dense, which means more for the space, but also more work per the space too.

I know a couple who takes care of a farm by themselves with a little berry picking help in the summer. I would guess it is an 8-10 acre traditional orchard. And several acres of berries and other crops. It is not really organic, but not really commercial either. They are in their 60's and make it work. It's not always completely perfectly weeded, pruned, manucured, etc, but what farm is?

You'll be working full-time?
At another job, or at your farm?

If you are going full time into this farm, I would suggest that you purchase a video called The Permaculture Orchard.

He explains exactly how he lays out his rows, and how he gets tired harvesting together for easier picking.

I forget the guys name, perhaps Stefan??
He is quite the character, and describes this efficient planting method quite well.

Much of my foraging happens from trees that have had zero labor ever. Things that planted themselves into the ecosystem, and have continued without intervention until now. I also plan for and plant that type of food forest.

It takes me a few hours per year to collect and scatter seeds into the wildlands. Huge numbers of seeds. In a decade or two, some of them will feed my grandchildren.

If I want to contribute slightly more labor, I can grow seedlings in the home garden, transplant them into the wildlands, and irrigate them once a week for a couple summers. Again, super low labor and maintenance.

Depending on your irrigation situation, there are these small solar panels with pumps that feed drip lines to 20 or 30 plants.  

This could be fed from a barrel that gets filled up less often. If you have access to a water spigot, then you might not need this off grid solution

Thanks so much for the replies!  To answer a few questions:
- I'm in zone 5b, southern Vermont USA.  I already have land, currently forested with mixed hardwood and softwood stands in different areas. The area closest to the road was maintained as a sugarbush in the past so mainly very young deciduous trees with some larger nurse trees.  It transitions to a mature hemlock stand with a perennial spring (such a lucky find!!) and then mixed deciduous trees with slate ledge and outcroppings.
- I'll be working full time with potential for volunteer labor and csa u-pick for some harvest work
- I plan on doing the majority of the maintenance by hand and using my goats to "mow" pathways but will consider a skidsteer mower if it feels necessary
-

My ideal setup (still very much a work in progress planning wise!) would be to clear the saplings wile leaving the larger trees for shade in the area closest to the road.  That area will be the most intensively managed with a silvopasture/alley cropping style food forest focusing on nuts, berries, and medicinal perennial herbs with goats and ducks rotating through the alleys for pasture.  Farther back will be woodlot as well as some more experimental and lightly/unmanaged wild-simulated forest gardening with things like lowbush blueberry (already present just encouraging), ramps, fiddleheads, etc.  All of the areas will be open as a csa style u-pick.  It only needs to be tidy enough for good production and for csa customers to find the crops, personally I love the chaos and "weedy" look!

So it sounds like the goat/ducks will be the main source of work for you, since the former will probably happily devour your crops as well if given open ranging abilities. They probably will need protection from predators at least overnight too? How are you proposing to contain/move them?