Small Food Forests

Any ideas what the minimum amount of space you would need for a food forest? I'm thinking if I start out too small,  its going to be needy and if I start larger, more diversity will make my food forest more healthy. Does anyone have any ideas or experience about this?  Anyone have a successful and really small food forest?

Stewie

Food forests ultimately are the peak ecosystemic expression that includes the human factor as the center and driver of its development. In order to get there a succession path must be set in motion and this is defined by the constraints present and wants specific to your situation. What you’re looking for is the establishment of the selected productive species and for them to continue to thrive on within a closed loop system dependent on the natural energies available and support of the developing biome. Here earthworks and support species come as key in order to create the conditions and then aiding to maintain the established system. So I’d suggest starting by determining what the function of the system as a whole will be; Will you gain just your food from it? Do you want a bigger yield from it in order to sell? What other needs can this system provide, like wood? What specific yields are you looking for? What grows best within your environment? How quickly do you want this food forest established?... The size and success of the project can rather be a consequence of flipping the design view, but rest assured it can get really small in fact when designing on large scale, which is my experience, the conditions of different portions the land completely change the requirement needs in order to set the actors and then play in motion creating different kinds of small food forests within a wider system.

Hi,
I have this same concern. Our NGO is managing an urban lot that I want to make it work like a food forest, but without irrigation or animals, they are not allowed by the authorities. I've come up to a solution to the lack of water I hope it works, creating many small catchment areas. Thing is, we will end up with many separated beds that are no bigger than 1,5 sq metres. I am certain that this is too small for an ecosystem to develop in the soil, but there are going to be several beds of this type, so maybe they can cooperate.

This system must provide a good shaded climate, nice vistas and above all, tasty food. The idea is to have a garden in the middle of the city where people can walk, protected from the summer heat, enjoy the vegetation and remember how mature vegetables harvested directly from the plants taste like. All this with the least effort, given our lack of money and manpower.
We already have some stablished species: figs, olives and carobs. And a few more growing: jujubes, almonds, loquats, pommegrenates, lemons, oranges, custard apples, quinces (to be grafted for pears), apples, bay, moringas.
In our list, but not yet planted: plums, mulberries.
Planted but dying: bananas, mangoes, grapes, blackberries (not exactly dying, but the fruits are too dry).
Not edible but useful: cannes, rosemary, thyme, sage, broom, dandelion, portulacaria, purslane, fennel and now trying to introduce nettle and clover.
Ornamental: roses, bluebells, and many cactuses and aloes.
As for animals, we have some rats, snails, birds (sparrow and goldfinch), bugs, a few ant hills and the occasional curious dog. Not many bees or wasps.
For the anual beds we plant what people like to eat here, but lacking irrigation not much of it is growing successfully: letuces, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, beans, carrots, potatos, garlic, onions, zuccini, artichokes, cabagges, sweet potatos, strawberries, tobacco (not exactly edible...), pumpkin, melon and watermelon, eggplant, chard, beet, ... So far, the only things that are really producing without irrigation are sick tomatoes, potatos and radishes, the rest is already dry or dying. Admitedly, most of it was planted with irrigation in mind, so the beds were not optimized for dryland farming.

We are not in a hurry, but the city hall would want to see some progress if they are going to leave us working the lot. Manpower and money are issues here. Many people gave up the garden when the water was cut, some others when the pandemic hit. Now we are 4-5 irreductible people trying to keep it alive, and adapt to the new circumstances. Anyways, a food forest would not be very resilient if it depended on human irrigation to survive, would it?

That may be difficult to put into words, but I suppose it should be large enough that it has an outer layer of thick bush & a more open interior. So, honestly, not that big. The spot next to my home is maybe about 2-3 acres, I want to say.

Still, if you have something smaller, or thinner, it's a start. You could still experiment with adding some plants that will grow easier in that type of environment where you have room. Especially, presumably after clearing invasives. Basically, things that say they'll do well at forest edges, or whatever you can get to go under those trees.

Sound's like you could do with Zach's book - one of the things it goes into is "How to get started with as little as 25 square feet of land"!!!

Anne Curtis wrote:Sound's like you could do with Zach's book - one of the things it goes into is "How to get started with as little as 25 square feet of land"!!!

Exactly.  One central tree with bushes, vines, support plants, ground cover is the smallest food forest I can think of.  My advice is start far smaller than you think you can handle.  It's easy to expand.  I'm guilty myself of trying to do too large an area and then lose the ability to keep up.

Mine is 1/4 acre because that’s the size of my back yard, and because of some orthopedic problems it’s probably as much as I can manage. I do have chickens in an enclosed coop, and a goat in a pen, and they provide the animal input and eat up any prunings, and there’s abundant food for two people and fruit for winemaking. I’m glad that Zach writes about small-space food forests, because it’s really rewarding.

Trace Oswald wrote:My advice is start far smaller than you think you can handle.  It's easy to expand.  I'm guilty myself of trying to do too large an area and then lose the ability to keep up.

I'm just setting up my food forest now and am being pretty ambitious with the scope - I've got a under a quarter acre of space and I'm aiming to convert it all ASAP.  That said, I'm hoping that once it's established, this garden forest will largely look after itself. What are the aspects of food forest maintenance that you find hard to keep up with?

Starting small would be good for me.  I have a  tendency to want to keep adding to the plan.  And then I want to add more to the plan.  Plus I got a small lot.  Actually thinking about what realistic goals I want for my food forest would be a big step  before I get bogged down thinking about what I want to plant.  

Stewart

Ivar Vasara wrote:

Trace Oswald wrote:My advice is start far smaller than you think you can handle.  It's easy to expand.  I'm guilty myself of trying to do too large an area and then lose the ability to keep up.

I'm just setting up my food forest now and am being pretty ambitious with the scope - I've got a under a quarter acre of space and I'm aiming to convert it all ASAP.  That said, I'm hoping that once it's established, this garden forest will largely look after itself. What are the aspects of food forest maintenance that you find hard to keep up with?

You're right that once it's established it should largely take care of itself.  The establishment can take a few years though.  My biggest problem was that I would go in and start an area, put in my trees and bushes, plant some support plants, and then move on to a new area.  While I was working the new area, quack grass and weeds would move back in from the edges and overrun the part I started with.  So I would find myself going back to areas that were already "done" to fight quack.  If you have too many areas going at once, you can't keep up and can end up with just trees surrounded by quack grass.  

The Edible Ecosystem Solution BOOK shows strategies for starting on as little as 25 square feet (5x5) and how to expand from there.  This might be right up your alley :)

Best Zach



For more go to
www.ecosystemsolutioninstitute.com and www.EcosystemU.com

Trace Oswald

“You're right that once it's established it should largely take care of itself.  The establishment can take a few years though.  My biggest problem was that I would go in and start an area, put in my trees and bushes, plant some support plants, and then move on to a new area.  While I was working the new area, quack grass and weeds would move back in from the edges and overrun the part I started with.  So I would find myself going back to areas that were already "done" to fight quack.  If you have too many areas going at once, you can't keep up and can end up with just trees surrounded by quack grass. “ .  


This is what I am foreseeing in my own situation.  I have fruit trees started and I need to find some kind of good ground over that will keep the grass at bay and not compete with the young fruit trees.

Stewie Spada wrote:Anyone have a successful and really small food forest?

When I was doing some reading about Miyawaki plantings, i saw some pretty awesome ones on tiny lots.

Here are some pics https://www.afforestt.com/results

My forest garden is perhaps 1/8 of an acre. The soil is very thin and sandy, so it’s taking time to become established, which means the canopy is very open. On the other hand, this does mean that I can grow lots of other stuff besides trees and bushes.

The ‘forest’ does largely look after itself. Certainly, at this scale it requires very little work apart from planting, pruning and watering (which I try to avoid but which is inevitable with low rainfall in summer and nowhere to store any).

Any ideas what the minimum amount of space you would need for a food forest? I'm thinking if I start out too small,  its going to be needy and if I start larger, more diversity will make my food forest more healthy. Does anyone have any ideas or experience about this?

Stewie, great thread!!! and great replies already! Clearly many people have experience with this! :)

To get started, you'll want be certain you've defined your terms, as I explain below, but my experience has been that starting out smaller is better. You will gain more knowledge and skill as you go and will, later, inevitably regret some decisions you made at the start. Small systems can be very healthy, if designed carefully, and can leave plenty of room for growth.  If you can't design a small system, designing a large system will be a disaster! Going overboard at the beginning almost always leads to dysfunctional systems and disillusionment, unless you are a very experienced Permaculture designer.

Since a hard and fast definition of "food forest" is elusive, you first need to either decide whose definition to use, or create your own. You should feel free to disagree with (or augment) my definitions below.

It is handy to first define the concept of the "guild", since guilds may be considered the theoretical building-blocks of food forests. For simplicity, we can define a guild as a collection of plants/organisms/objects which functionally, and/or symbiotically, support each other. To put it into context, here is a picture of my fig tree guild, with rue and hardy artichokes below:


With that definition under our belts, a food forest can now be defined as a collection of guilds, working together to create an edible surplus. This micro-ecosystem is, preferably, self-sustaining. Humans are at the apex of food-forest micro-ecosystems, so "self-sustaining" includes human work and waste products.* Ideally, the calories expended by (and extracted by) the human(s) from the food forest are not greater than the output of the food forest. Also, practically speaking, since they tell us that "energy can neither be created nor destroyed", sufficient external energy must enter the system as sunlight, rain, wind, debris, and visiting organism poo to offset the amount of energy that the human extracts - usually by flushing it down the toilet or forgetting to compost.

For the sake of argument, a well designed terrarium of edible species could be defined as a (somewhat impractical) "food forest". Therefore, the above definition of "food forest" doesn't depend upon size as much as it does upon design and intent.

 Anyone have a successful and really small food forest?

Quick answer, yes.

My combined "food forests" and related plantings are probably right around 1000 square feet after about 6 years of slow expansion. They evolved somewhat organically, if you will pardon the expression, as I had time to add new guilds. That space is more than sufficient for my purposes and abilities. I continue to expand, out of habit and curiosity, but some of the food already goes uneaten when I get too busy to harvest it.

My practical suggestions would be:
1. Observe yours site through at least 12 months, planting only annuals during this time and making minimal changes to the site.
2. Plan your site carefully: how will you recycle water, mulch, food waste, human waste, seeds, etc? Where will you find initial inputs, and how will the space become self-sustaining?
3. Start with a manageable number of guilds and expand slowly over time.

It will be tempting to plant lots of perennials right off the bat. If (when) you do this, make sure to only plant things that can be relocated later, like blueberry bushes. If you plant raspberries or Jerusalem artichokes and later decide you need to move them, you will have a remediation project on your hands.

So that's my been my experience. If you would like to see what my version of small-scale food forest gardening looks like, check out my latest video:
Spring 2021 Food Forest Tour


* Side note, most "food forests" that have been abandoned by humans (or improperly managed) either return to the natural state of the surrounding eco-system, or contribute new, opportunistic, species to the eco-system and are, therefore, not necessarily a good thing.

I've worked on food forest establishment on sites of 1/10acre, 1/2acre, 1.5acres, 3 acres and 25acres (my property/project I am procrastinating on getting back to work on now, and really I'm only a couple acres into planting). It is getting pretty exhausting and I am having to find ways to do things with less material, labor and time input per sq/ft. What worked great on a smaller site is just impractical at the scale I'm working on now.

So I would look at the advantage of a smaller site as being able to luxuriate in deep soil built with opulent amounts of mulch and the ability to do things inefficiently but thoroughly. If on 1/2acre or less, I'd lean towards dwarf trees, potentially with multiple grafted varietals on each root system. On the poleward side of the site I might have a larger semi-dwarf that could also trellis vines. Consider how any structure, living, dead or inorganic, can potentially be a trellis (but be wary of kiwis ripping your house apart). Deep wood-chip bedding with poultry can produce all the soil/fertility you need.  Hugelkulture can get you away from irrigating. Woody debris trenches can help catch and filter your water, and the runoff from bird runs. You can do everything better and with more focus on a small site. The main upside of a larger site is the ability to plant so voluminously and diversely that more failure is acceptable, but on a smaller site with more focus from the gardener, it will have less failures.

This brings to mind a thread topic I've been considering:

"When to go deep, when to go broad?"...Where do you all find greater value in focused, deep attention to a smaller area? On the other hand, where does having a "Johnny Appleseed" approach make sense to you?

Kelli Boggs wrote:I have fruit trees started and I need to find some kind of good ground over that will keep the grass at bay and not compete with the young fruit trees.

As a groundcover, I love the Attila variety of alpine strawberries. They are the longest-lasting, least demanding, most enjoyable groundcover I've found. plant them a foot apart in 4-6 inches of woodchip mulch and, by the time the mulch breaks down, you'll have total coverage that can survive without much replenishment.

Attila alpine strawberry groundcover

I've also used creeping thyme, but it seems to wear itself out in a year or two by forming dense mats. I'm a bit less enthused about creeping thyme these days.

Creeping thyme groundcover

Marjoram is pretty good. It's like creeping thyme but it doesn't seem to wear itself out by forming quite as dense a mat as creeping thyme. It doesn't spread as quickly as Attila, though, so broadcasting the seeds into woodchip mulch is probably a good way to get started.

Hosta also makes a nice groundcover, but it's a higher groundcover, needs to be manually placed, and can form a very tight root system that you won't be able to plant into. Also, hostas die back in winter, leaving little protection if you don't get enough snow. So does marjoram, for that matter, but it seems to leave a bit more biomass behind.

Hosta groundcover

Karl Treen wrote:

Kelli Boggs wrote:I have fruit trees started and I need to find some kind of good ground over that will keep the grass at bay and not compete with the young fruit trees.

As a groundcover, I love the Attila variety of alpine strawberries. They are the longest-lasting, least demanding, most enjoyable groundcover I've found. plant them a foot apart in 4-6 inches of woodchip mulch and, by the time the mulch breaks down, you'll have total coverage that can survive without much replenishment.


Hosta also makes a nice groundcover, but it's a higher groundcover, needs to be manually placed, and can form a very tight root system that you won't be able to plant into. Also, hostas die back in winter, leaving little protection if you don't get enough snow. So does marjoram, for that matter, but it seems to leave a bit more biomass behind.

Hosta groundcover

So, it wasn’t a bad idea to place hosta under one of my apple trees!

Karl Treen wrote:

Kelli Boggs wrote:I have fruit trees started and I need to find some kind of good ground over that will keep the grass at bay and not compete with the young fruit trees.

As a groundcover, I love the Attila variety of alpine strawberries. They are the longest-lasting, least demanding, most enjoyable groundcover I've found. plant them a foot apart in 4-6 inches of woodchip mulch and, by the time the mulch breaks down, you'll have total coverage that can survive without much replenishment.


Hosta also makes a nice groundcover, but it's a higher groundcover, needs to be manually placed, and can form a very tight root system that you won't be able to plant into. Also, hostas die back in winter, leaving little protection if you don't get enough snow. So does marjoram, for that matter, but it seems to leave a bit more biomass behind.

Hosta groundcover

So, it wasn’t a bad idea to place hosta under one of my apple trees!

Helen Butt wrote:So, it wasn’t a bad idea to place hosta under one of my apple trees!

Hi Helen! It will probably be fine, but I wouldn't go so far as to make promises to that effect. That may depend on the height of the hosta, the variety of the apple tree, and the dampness, pests, diseases, and spores of your region.

I am not an expert about interactions between hostas and apple trees. If the apples are close to the hosta leaves, it is conceivable that rain may splash back up from the flat leaves and carry spores. There may also be a downside to anything that keeps the trunk too damp.

It is always a good idea to do a little research on the needs of specific plants, just in case. Of course, I often disregard the advice that I find online if the benefit of possible success outweighs the cost of possible failure. From that, you can probably tell that I am not an overly cautious person. That is why I like to give as many disclaimers as possible. ;)

I’m an experimenter by nature, so follow your drift, Karl 😊

The one hosta is only about a foot high and ordinarily dampness is not a problem (the problem is lack of rain, generally). However, I had never considered issues such as spores and dampness next to the truck.