Zone 3 Edible Forest

Hey All

I live in Manitoba Canada - Zone 3. My partner and I just moved to a 5 acre lot that is almost entirely grass. Our plan is to convert part of it back into a prairie aspen parkland and another part into an edible forest. This will be a multi year project. This year we've purchased the following trees and fruit bushes from Boughen Nurseries:

Apple: Goodland
Raspberry: Red River 5 Pack
Crabapple: Rescue
Raspberry: Heritage 5 Pack
Apple: Fall Red
Raspberry: Boyne 5 Pack
Crabapple: Dolgo
Raspberry: Heritage 5 Pack
Tecumseh Plum
3x 25 pack for all-star strawberry
3x 25 pack for seascape strawberry
3x 25 pack for kent strawberry
5x 10 pack for asparagus

Now I'm looking for the herbacious and rhizome layer to plant for this year. Right now I'm thinking of the following but some may be put off till next year. Thoughts on which to prioritize and/or which to companion plant together (e.g., how to make the guilds)? Or can you just put things together willy nilly?
Walking Onions
Chives
Welsh Onions
Garlic
Sea Kale
English Sorrel
Broad Leaf Dock
Good King Henry
Rhubarb
Sweet Cicely
Hyssop
Lavender
Mint
Oregeno
Sage
Thyme
Beebalm
Chamomile
Lemon Balm
Yarrow
Comfrey
Hostas
White Clover
Horse Radish

So, are you putting all of these in a garden, or in the food forest?

The only reason I'm asking is because several of these, I think, are European plants, not North American. It's kind of hard to know which of them will work well alongside the local plants, or, for that matter, if some of those will even grow in a woodland-- especially if they're domesticated crops. Obviously, any of the native ones should do fine together, so long as they can handle the level of shade you're putting them under. Starting from scratch, I guess give the individual plants the space they need to set in.

Is there already a tree area that you're converting, or is it all tall grass?

We are converting the acre of grass into a food forest. Right now nothing is there other than grass. We took a class on edible landscaping - https://www.ecosystemu.com/course/edible-property-design

We're adapting the patterning that he suggested. Finding which plants will make good companions with one another has been a bit tricky though we have read some do not go well together:
Asparagus does not grow well with garlic and onions but does grow well with strawberries.

We've not read much about the ability of European vs North American plants to do well together. Just focusing on zone 3 though. Have you had bad experiences with mixing European with North American plants?

Not necessarily, just being cautious.

Most of what I'm doing is rewilding with native plants & there's a lot of more dangerous invasives that I'm removing & not a great deal of planning going into design.

For a few of the crops you mentioned, I'm not sure if anyone has ever studied what happens if you put some of those in a forest environment in North America. A few of those are already escaped & rampant here, like the Yarrow, so no big deal with them. Also, I don't think fruit trees would be a major issue, nor should the Raspberry plants, assuming you have domesticated ones, so long as they aren't made hybrids (Boysenberry, Loganberry, Ollalieberry, Tayberry, etc). That's as far as I can really say for sure.

Oregano and sage will just die they're not hardy to zone 3 (they both die here in zone 7 although most sources say zone 5 is the limit) lavender and thyme are also borderline, so before spending money on things I would check their suitability for your area.

The only thing I look at is size and harvesting issues, so since Rhubarb gets massive I wouldn't put it close to something that cannot take getting smothered, maybe it would fight well with mint. equaly since you will want to be digging up the horseradish to harvest don't put it right next to a tree or something where you don't want to damage the roots.

PS. if you get sweet cicely to germinate tell me how! I keep failing :(

We are in zone 1b, northern Ontario. Lavender did not survive here and we have not tried welsh onions, sea kale or broad leaf dock. Otherwise, what's on your list grows here, so you should do fine. Chamomile is doing really well here, but shouldn't.

Thanks all! We're going to be taking it slowly. This year will be focused on the woody plants - trees and berry bushes. Do folks tend to trellis the raspberries in this type of set up? It seems it would make it easier to get fruit. But at the same time detract from the natural look we'd like to have.

I am continuing this thread if only because there may be others out there - like me - who want to grow a food forest in zone 3. I have been thinking of using strawberries as a ground cover for the food forest. Question - should we pinch the blossoms this year (we're planting them today) to encourage spreading? Or should we let the strawberries go to fruit?