temperate climate food forest/savanna: food, recipes ?

Hi,

Welcome, Mark Shepard!

I'm just starting to learn about food forests/savannas. Is there a resource for recipes for food from a temperate climate food forest/savanna? Is there any effort to produce a food forest/savanna recipe website?

I would think that such a resource would draw more people into creating food forest/savanna if they knew how to prepare the food to provide nutritious, delicious meals that replaced recipes based on annuals.

Thanks for you input!

I just google each thing. I have not heard of some integrated book with recipes for this type of agriculture. I would buy it if it existed but I think the market is not large enough to get a publisher.

If anyone thinks of writing this type of book, I would suggest making it a locally grown produce book or some such obfuscation which will none the less cover this subject .

You might want to buy a book on cooking wild foods. Wild foods are pretty much what we are planting.

All the herbs that you know and love grow in a temperate savanna.
All the vegetables that you know willingly self-seeds in the wild, the same goes for beans.
The biggest change will be grains. But there are already alot of recipes online that does not have grains aka paleo deit.
And you can make chips from alot of root crops and flour from chestnut.

So meat from animal+vegetable+root starch+flour from chestnut+beans+nuts+fruit. I already feel good.
Also the "grass" in the savana can still be the regular grains

Here is a link with a few HUNDRED recipes.
http://www.elanaspantry.com/paleo-diet-recipes/

Its called the caveman/paleo diet

Thanks for the resource S Bengi!

I wonder how many more people would be interested in food forests of there was a resource of recipes focused on regional food forests?

Thanks again for the input

Oh my, I do hope you do not think i wouldnt love to see such a recipe book on my shelf...particularly for my region. I just have to admit that there are hundreds of new cookbooks submitted for publication each year and I do not think the new york city types will choose one written with such a purpose in mind unless they are convinced there is more of us.

I am always happy to be on the winning side....we are strong in your beliefs and we are right. I believe we are simply on the early side of a winning revolution in agriculture...hold strong. Collect recipes all around, sooner or later they will make some just for us. Perhaps even you could submit such a book for your publication.

S Bengi wrote:
All the vegetables that you know willingly self-seeds in the wild, the same goes for beans.

Really? There are wild carrots? Potatoes? Corn? Tomatoes? Not trying to be skeptical but this is the first time I've ever heard that. Please expound on your statement. Thanks.

they are all wild some place. carrots yes, potatoes in peru, corn is indiginous to the united states and with persistence can still be found in the wild...unfortunately much of it has cross bred with the other stuff. Not sure about tomatoes, i understand they are an american find.

they are right, grains have been the most cultivated crops. Really difficult to locate wild wheat when prehistory has shown wheat was cultivated.

What is the point of this, i think you understood what was said

Jeremy Laurin wrote:

S Bengi wrote:
All the vegetables that you know willingly self-seeds in the wild, the same goes for beans.

Really? There are wild carrots? Potatoes? Corn? Tomatoes? Not trying to be skeptical but this is the first time I've ever heard that. Please expound on your statement. Thanks.

We are reproducing the wild food forest or a wild savanna and on our savanna we are harvesting. stuff that we only plant once. So yes you plant the chestnut once and you can reap for years to come. You plant some mint/thyme/cilantro and it will still be in the same area for years to come. Why because in this wild savanna that we have created they will self-seed. How do I know. Because it happens in my tiny backyard. And all of our food crop came from the real wild not or food forest/savanna "wild" ecology.

Try Chef Keith Snow at http://www.harvesteating.com/

I've heard him talk about preparing things like jerusalem artichokes.
He has a podcast and a TV show on RFD TV and through roku boxes.
Podcast:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-harvest-eating-podcast/id372047514

Interesting discussion. I have been on a gluten-free diet for 30 years due to health issues. Just recently I have tried to cut back on even my gluten-free grains, such as corn, rice, millet, teff, etc, but am having difficulty figuring out how to get enough to eat without those fillers. It is a little easier in the summer when my garden is producing an abundance of good food, but harder in the winter months. I do have a nice patch of Jerusalem artichokes, but those are only really available in the autumn--the ground freezes too hard, even with bags of leaves on top, to be able to get at them in the winter, and they don't store very well in the fridge.
I am still trying to learn what calorie-rich trees and shrubs will even grow in my area. I know coconut, almond, pecan and most other nuts I know about don't grow here. I think hazels and black walnuts might make it. Do any of you know of any other hardy perennials I might try? I know of one mature cherry that produces a crop most years (kind of a cross between sweet cherries and pie cherries, and self-fertile), Nanking cherries, a couple of apricot and apple trees, raspberries, and rhubarb are about the only edible perennials I even know that are being grown in this area.

I would really like to develop a Food Forest or Savanna type ecosystem here, so any ideas you might have would be helpful.

Thanks, djn

Tubers, bulbs, and roots traditionally have been non-grain calorie crops. Many are on this list: http://perennialvegetables.org/perennial-vegetables-for-each-climate-type/cold-temperate-east-midwest-and-mountain-west/

Thanks, Ludi, for your reply. I was just looking at that site, but Eric SKIPPED MY REGION. His Cold Temperate seems to cover more humid areas than mine, his Arid only covers Hot, and his Extreme Cold deals with high mountains and far north, with cool summers.

I am located on the western shoulder of the 'Rockies, where we do have the extreme cold in the winter, but not dependable snow cover. We also have very hot summer days --often in the 90 to 100+ range for several weeks in the summer, but cooler nights in the 50s or 60s, which is great for sleeping but not so good for veggies. We often have killing frosts even in June, but May can be so hot in the daytime that lettuce bolts before it is big enough to eat, with killing frost possible in Sep, even while the sun is still so hot it is hard to get cool weather fall crops to grow. Yet the cool nights in summer make it hard to grow warm-season crops like tomatoes, peppers, and melons, except under cover. And even with plastic tunnels over some of my beds, I only made it through the first cool nights before the big frost came that left everything blackened. Not even the kale survived past October. I would like to erect a large greenhouse, maybe with a rocket mass heater built in, but that is not possible for me to do right now, or practical for a food forest.

So I really need plants that are adapted or can adapt, to a place with such extremes. I did grow a pretty good crop of potatoes last year, now need to figure out how to improve my storage area so they don't freeze in the winter. I also grew some nice chard, kale, beans and other veggies, but those are only available in the summer, unless I can or freeze them.

I do have several nice plants of rhubarb, some chives and perennial onions, a few berries etc just starting to produce, so I am starting to get some variety of things but wondering if anyone knows any more that might tolerate this Extreme Change kind of climate. I have a few small day-lily plants, some mint and thyme, some currants and gooseberries and Siberian Pea Shrub. After I starting reading these forums, I made a list of the things I had growing here last year, and came up with almost 50 species. I love summer in my garden, when I can just wander through my paths and pick whatever is ready and looks good.

Some things I have planted didn't survive, like raspberries and elderberries. Guess I need to try again. But while those things add variety to my diet, there is not a lot that can replace grain as a main food to supply calories. I do have a flock of about 15 laying hens, so we do have eggs to add protein, but too much protein isn't that good for you either. So I need to keep looking to see what I might be able to add to that to have a more complete food system. (Not that I think I have to grow ALL my own food, but with the price of good produce, and trying to avoid gluten and grain, etc, etc, the more I can grow, the better. I don't know of any local farmers or market gardeners within 35 miles, and I never manage to get into town on the one morning a week that the farmers market is open.

By the way, I did go look at that site with the alternate baking recipes and found a recipe for muffins using coconut flour and pumpkin. I used some of my homegrown squash, and they turned out great. It is nice to find something I can fix and not feel so dependent of the pricey prepared "gluten -free" offerings in the stores. Thanks for that link.

djn

Hi Jeremiah, thanks for the ideas. I will do some research on those crops.

Neowerdermannia vorwerkii is a well known staple of the arid Andean Altiplano region, a clumping cacti the after skinning and boiling is eaten like a potato.

The oscillating temperature of your garden is a benefit because it requires those fluctuations to germinate well.

Kaniwa and Maca too even though I only say that because I read the Lost Crop series like a thousand times

If you pm me I can send you to an American source for neowerdermannia.

the Encyclopedia of Country Living ..Emery...has how to grow, harvest and cook just about everything with LOTS of recipes..this is a BUY not BORROW book..a must keep

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I can see that I have a lot to learn and try.

Levi, I am interested, but I don't know how to do a PM.

Hi all- we've discussed some similar issues in this thread, lots of possible perennial food options:
https://permies.com/t/23030/forest-garden/menu

As a non-meat eater, I've come to the conclusion that, as romantic as the 'food forest' idea sounds, I have yet to see any realistic set of plants that could fuel a filling and balanced diet in a cold winter forest garden without including animal foods (which I'm not going to) or some annual crops on a permanent basis. There are interesting nut possibilities for sure- we discuss them in the thread above..

Re: cold and dry regions- my area is probably colder in winter than most of Colorado, but also cooler in summer, and less dry. However, there are chestnuts that are hardy here, so that could be an option. Also, as annuals, I don't think Quinoa was mentioned above- a great staple option which is not a cereal (grass) and also provides greens. Maybe Amaranth as well, if your summer nights aren't a problem- here short/cool night summers are a real issue for any of those hot summer crops, but I'm hoping some heat trapping hugel designs may help!
Outside of those staples, tons of native plants that provide berries, greens and some roots-- we need to look outside the veggie seed catalogues and develop selections from some of the native plants
You could look at Camassia ( a beautiful 'lily' with edible bulbs), Hedysarum ( a pea relative with edible root), there is an Astragalus also, from the prairies, (another pea relative) with edible seedpods, etc etc..

Neowerdermannia is not going to be a fast grower (understatement!), so even if they are hardy enough for Colorado (not a whole lot of South American cacti are hardy enough for North America) you would be waiting many years to get a plant the size of one potato. If they were hardy, I'd be putting them in a rock garden and never eating them...lol but that's me as a cactus lover Frankly, I'd have the same problme with Camassia- if I were ever to get a big patch going, I'd hate to dig any! No such qualms with daylilies
However, cacti is not a bad idea- you'd want mostly Opuntia/pricky pear of which there are many species, and quite a few growable in various parts of Colorado. Not all have juicy fruits, but many do, as well as edible pads- lots of info available on that subject, and many of them will grow quite abundantly, giving you a good harvest once you get a patch going.

We do have several patches of prickly pears growing on our land, but they are very small, and I have never seen them fruit. We tried but haven't figured out a way to get the many prickles off that leaves anything left to eat.

We also have had volunteers of Amaranth, that got very large, but did not have time to ripen the seed heads. I did get a few ripe winter squash last year, and a few ears of corn that made it to harvest size, and a good crop of potatoes and carrots.

Our biggest challenge is the sharp contrast between hot days and cool nights, so many crops that are winter hardy in cool climates, like kale, get wiped out by the constant freeze-thaw cycles all autumn. We don't have a gradual cooling off at the end of summer, just a sudden jump from hot to bitter cold, so plants don't have a chance to adjust and prepare for winter.

Do you know any sources for those hardy chestnuts? We have looked but most sources we have seen list warmer zones than we have here (we are borderline USDA zone 4/5, according to some charts, and Sunset zone 1, according to the Western Sunset garden book.)

Hi DJ- I agree the smaller, really spiny Opuntias would be a drag to de-spine- burning would be one approach, or heavy gloves and a sharp knife. However, you should be able to grow in your zone some forms that are larger and less spiny (they all have glochids- small insignificant looking hairy fuzzy things in the areoles around the spines that will stick in your skin- never tough them bare handed even if they look spineless) and would be better. There are a lot of cactus growers in Co, so if you start googling you should be able to find some good stuff.

We don't have the hot days, so we can often grow cooler weather crops all summer, but definitely long season things have a hard time ripening here, and I wouldn't even consider planting things in the fall unless they are hardy enough to live over winter- the season is not long enough to accomplish anything, so I can relate to you on that!

Someone mentioned Eric Toensmeier, he doesn't list tons of things for either of our areas, but some interesting things- mesquite and buffalo gourd might be possible for you..
http://www.perennialsolutions.org/perennial-farming-systems-organic-agriculture-edible-permaculture-eric-toensmeier-large-scale-farmland.html
You should be able to do well with most of the traditional annual crops, there are varieties adapted to most regions, and I'm sure various permaculture strategies- mulching, hugels, water management should be able to help you get the most from your site; for perennials, I'd be looking into what native peoples in your areas ate... nothing more adapted than native plants!


RE: nut tree sources, on the thread I list above, we discuss a couple of Canadian sources; for the U.S. you could try googling unless any american forumists have suggestions

Frankly don't think it matters a whole lot regarding what climate zone your are in, Sepp seems to know how to push the boundaries of what you can grow. If it gets to maturity then there will be a recipe for it. Found a website that might be what you are looking for. <www.yummly.com> You just type the name of an ingredient (s) you want to use, (or exclude) and it will come up with a list of recipes.
I've already tried, dandelion, chicory, mustard, rose hips with good results. Good Luck. Jim

Thanks, all. Definitely need to do more study on this.

I don't know too much about what native peoples ate. We do have 'sarvice' (service berries) growing up on the mountain not too far from us. I just picked up several varieties of plants from the local Conservation District office that we are planting as a Food Forest/Windbreak/shelterbelt/chicken forage/privacy hedge etc: Serviceberries, Nanking Cherries, chokecherries, American Plum, and Golden Currant. we will also be putting in some Caragana (Siberian Pea Shrub), buffalo berries, and sand cherries. They are all supposed to be adapted to the climate. If they grow, we should have a good beginning of some perennial food and fodder etc.