Fitting food into an already established forest

Later this year my wife and I will be moving to her childhood home on about an acre of land in the Chester Springs county area of Pennsylvania and beginning our permiculture journey. A good portion of this land is occupied by trees. My initial thought was to clear out trees, but as I've imbedded myself into permiculture thought and practice I understand that this would go against many principles. So now I ask what experience anyone else has had in a similar situation trying to fit edible food within an already established forest
Thanks!

Welcome to Permies.

The rules of Permaculture are not always set in stone as circumstances differ between sites.

What kind of trees exist on the property currently? Is this perhaps an opportunity to thin the woods and encourage undergrowth or food providing plants?

Thanks for the welcome! I'm very excited to have found this forum. Mostly Poplar with a handful of walnut and oak, maybe a hickory or ash. From what I've been told there seems to be a few dead elm. If it called for it I believe thinning out some trees would be a good opportunity for new growth

The things we cultivate in the forested area are ramps, shiitake logs, trout lily. Plus, we forage for mushrooms, berries, wood nettles, Solomon's seal shoots in our wooded lot. Sometimes, we use some of the forest duff (small amounts) and logs for hugelkultur. Aside from that, we use plenty for firewood. We planted some ginseng as well.

Welcome!

Taking out any dead trees might help open up some sunny spots.

Then maybe start with some fruit trees and berries where there is some sunny spots.

Here is a thread about shade loving edibles:

https://permies.com/t/40/10302/Shade-Tolerant-Edibles

Thank you all for the input!

Hi Diego and welcome! This question does come up occasionally and as ever there is not a 'cookie cutter' answer. It depends on your aspirations for the land and the vegetation and wildlife that live there currently.
Here are some threads where people faced similar issues that may give you inspiration:
https://permies.com/t/3066/cutting-trees
https://permies.com/t/146637/Starting-food-forest-forest
https://permies.com/t/16536/Convert-existing-forest-food-forest
https://permies.com/t/52934/creating-food-forest-existing-primary
Living in woodland can be a lovely experience, but remember that edges are the most productive!

I can relate myself being from a very woody area. Unless you have specific goals that call for clearing land, my take is that it is to disrupt as little as possible. Perhaps clear enough for your vegetable garden to get full sun, but otherwise focus on clearing dead trees, planting on the edges and in sunny patches, and incorporating shade loving plants, as others have mentioned. Perhaps graze animals in the understory. You can always clear more as your needs develop, but it is a slow process to bring cleared land back to it's original glory.

Something else I see a lot of folks building on raw land around here do is clear all the trees within a few hundred feet of their house and plant sod... Our house is the only one on our street with a lot of trees around us providing shade, and our air conditioning requirements are far lower than our neighbors. Not sure if that applies to your situation or not.

Tree cutting very expensive. Walnut bad for crops if you have no other sun pockets. More will come up if you have squirrels or second guesses.

Good to know! Was not aware of walnuts being an issue, that dang juglone! I've been debating whether or not to get some certification on tree felling to do it myself.

If a person does not wan to learn the art of tree cutting, it might be that just the dead limbs could be cut.  We have a tool that is a long rechargeable saw so getting tall tree limbs is easier and this also works for cutting down small trees and shrubs.

It's good that you're hesitant to fell a tree yourself if you've never done it before, there are definitely safety concerns, but you probably don't need a whole certification IMO. Of course if you can afford it and it makes you feel safer, by all means go for it. But I learned how to do it from my dad when I was like 12 years old, and now there's plenty of videos on youtube about how to do it safely. If it's not overhanging a structure / some other specific scenario that complicates it, then it's a relatively straightforward process.

One of the things I learned recently that made me much more okay with the idea of thinning trees -- even in my much less dense forest than yours -- is that total biomass production is actually higher in a managed forest at lower density than "natural" (i.e. unmanaged) old growth. Basically in closed canopy forest, the only things getting enough sun to thrive are the oldest trees, and anything that happens to be particularly shade tolerant. New plants only grow when a big tree dies and falls over. If you strategically thin the trees (which I think should be possible even on a relatively small plot, as long as it's not like a city lot measured in square feet rather than acres) then you can accelerate that process, and also make sure that the new plants are food-producing ones.

In your region, prior to colonization, the forests were heavily managed. Our modern dichotomy of "agriculture" versus "wilderness preservation" is somewhat of an insult, I think, to the indigenous people of what's now called New England, who had what we might call "food forests" on a massive scale. I've heard the argument, which I find plausible if not scientifically provable, that the entire ecosystem in that region was fundamentally structured with human management included, because it was basically a blank slate when the glaciers retreated, and humans were already there. They would have moved into the recently ice-free territory pretty much instantly in ecological terms, so there was never really any "pristine wilderness" ecosystem for them to displace. So if I were in that region, I would thin trees with that sort of perspective in mind.

Wow thanks Josh! Certainly a perspective I had not considered especially, taking into account how managed the forests have been. It'd definitely be my goal to create more biomass. Which in turn would create more biodiversity? I guess getting into the ethics of things has gotten into my head when it comes to trying to have minimal impact on the already established growth. Yours and everyone else's response has certainly helped me see things less rigidly. I've never cut a tree down before, but I'd like to believe in my sense of caution and after seeing some videos on the process it doesn't seem too difficult. So we'll see how things go.

I don't particularly connect biomass production with biodiversity, necessarily. Take kudzu in the southeast as a counterexample -- it grows like those vines in Jumanji, but smothers everything else, so high biomass production but basically zero diversity. But thinning a forest does create a less homogeneous environment, and that could definitely contribute to diversity. Especially with some strategizing specifically towards that goal, you could have a patchwork of various combinations sun/shade, wet/dry, etc., which will create niches where various different species can live, rather than only having full-grown trees and a couple of shade tolerant understory species.

Walnuts produce juglone, which kill many plants, but they also produce delicious walnuts. There are many juglone tolerant food producers and supporting plants you can put under a walnut tree - mulberry, hackberry, hazelnut, mints, witch hazel, dogwood, many others which tolerate juglone just fine.

For felling trees, since you're moving somewhere with woods, the must be licensed arborists you may want to form a relationship with - pay them, get their opinion on felling your trees, and watch them bring down the ones you decide on so you can decide if doing it yourself is for you. You might end up with a handsome sum of money for an old walnut tree if the lumber is valuable.

Thanks Alan! Good to know that there are plants able to tolerate the juglone. Forming a relationship with some arborist sounds like a great way to get familiar with tree felling

Diego Falcon wrote:Thanks for the welcome! I'm very excited to have found this forum. Mostly Poplar with a handful of walnut and oak, maybe a hickory or ash. From what I've been told there seems to be a few dead elm. If it called for it I believe thinning out some trees would be a good opportunity for new growth

Welcome aboard, Diego! You are correct to not just 'clear' the trees. The dead elms could be used to cultivate morel mushrooms, if you can find out how. In the meantime, you just might find these delicacies under elms, live or dead:
https://youtu.be/3zGVVSfSsSg?si=NnpMpOt0WQrv4R2k
Walnut, hickory and oaks are valuable trees that will give you mast, which if you are a hunter will help you to fill the larder with deer or turkey, walnuts hickory nuts, acorns. If you really have too many, you could remove the worst ones and cut them for firewood or lumber, depending on the quality, and sell them. [the logs and the nuts/mast].
Perhaps the underbrush isn't valuable, but the years of dead leaves falling must have created decent soil. You can improve on this by raising a few chickens: they will totally clear the area in one season.
That's where I would start for a garden. Folks say that for a garden, you need full sunshine. That's not really true: Most plants will do best in "dappled shade". [The real reason that folks 'clear' and area for the garden is that they are still using tillers, tractors etc. and the trees roots can interfere with the machinery].
You can then move the "tiller chickens" to another spot and, if you can, start small and use root crops that will open the ground [daikon radishes, sunchokes, forage beets, carrots... that sort of things.
Good luck on your new property.

I saw your post when you first posted it and it appeared you wanted (or I thought you wanted) to plant fruit trees in an existing forest. Fruit trees are not typically shade tolerant so I don't think that would work too well. I'm not entirely sure the route you want to take. Forest understory species that are edible have been suggested. These will be good food species but they are not trees. Your oaks and hickories are edible, although some species moreso than others. You may consider the pawpaw. That is a small tree that grows in the understory of forests, I think in your area, naturally. They taste somewhat like a cross between a banana and a strawberry. Depends somewhat on who you ask. Persimmons are another fruit tree that grow naturally. Again, I think where you are. I don't know that they would be that shade tolerant to start under a canopy, but I have them in the woods around me at the same height as the canopy and had a 70 ft tall persimmon cut in my yard a year ago. I had it professionally cut. Before I get criticized for having this naturally occurring fruit tree cut, you need to understand that it was about 20-22 inches in diameter with only a 2 inch wide band of solid wood on the outer circumference at the base of the tree with the inner 18-20 inch center completely rotted out. Also understand that this tree was next to a shed and about 40 feet from my house. In other words, it was a safety (and insurance) hazard. Also, so everyone feels a bit better, it was a male tree. Persimmons are diecious. One tree you should give consideration to planting though, is American Chestnut. Personally, I would plant some of the developed hybrids (Crossed with Chinese chestnut) that have been crossed back but retain their resistance to chestnut blight and are better than 90% American chestnut. I think they may actually be up to 98% American Chestnut for some crosses now. In argument for these 'un-natural' crosses, the blight is not 'natural'. So in essence, the blight isn't playing by the rules leaving us in a situation that unless we 'fight fire with fire' the 'cheating' blight is going to win, but this doesn't necessarily make it right. It does make it even.

Diego, you are wise to be cautious with tree cutting. I know a man who was no stranger to felling trees, but he was out one day by himself to cut a tree and sadly was killed by the falling tree. Listen to your heart, consider your strengths, and do not let money get in your way if you deem it better to have a professional clear what needs cleared. Take care, we'd like to see you here often!

If you haven't already, check with your county DCNR people. When I did a forester came our property and walked the acreage with us. He also handed out several Forest Stewardship circulars and a very detailed list of established foresters. These people are a goldmine of information.

At the edge of our woods we have successes with blueberries, honeyberries, and some vegetable garden plants hügelkultur style.

Good luck! Let us know how you do with establishing your forest garden.

Hello Diego, I'd consider cutting the Tulip Poplars, as they do not produce food (though their flowers are good for pollinators)  I've found that the mid-size (1-2 ft in diameter) trees pollard very well if you cut them in the winter while dormant; they will regrow as large shrubs basically.  Others have recommended paw-paws, persimmons, and chestnuts, which are good choices.  Black currants are also supposed to produce fairly well in partial shade.  Ramps and ginseng will do well in a forest.

Basically, you are slowly converting a forest into a food forest; you're using the existing shade to prevent weeds and maintain a fungal-dominated soil while planting your preferred trees and promoting their spread to dominate the canopy eventually (in perhaps 10 years or so).

I only saw this now! We're doing something very similar, although in a different part of the world. We are currently a bit more than three years into our adventure on some hectares of spruce forest on the norwegian coast. So not a solid lifetime's experience yet, sadly, but we did learn a few things already.

One thing I'm thinking of, is the fact that most of the plants that we've been brought up to think of as "food" (mostly any vegetables, grain etc that you can find in the supermarket) are not very shade tolerant, since they are early-succession species and/or adapted to a prairie-type habitat. These, you'll probably struggle to grow in a closed forest unless you create a disturbance of some sort, which would likely involve cutting at least most trees around your vegetable garden. You write that "a good portion" of the land is occupied by trees. On the part that's not tree-covered, is there a south-facing forest edge by any chance? If there is, this would be the natural place to grow annual vegetables. What's the topography like? Are there parts that are somewhat steep? If there are, and they're facing south (or at least not north) that will allow some more sunlight to reach the ground just above the steepest part. This effect is more pronounced the further you are from the equator.

We have been experimenting with both of these factors, combined with selective cutting of a few trees. So far our success with annual vegetables (potatoes, carrots, etc) has been extremely limited. However, apple trees, hazelnut bushes and such love it, and grow like crazy. They are too young to bear fruit yet, but once they do, they will hopefully provide quite a bit of our food. We've now started moving our annual gardens to the top of a hill, where the forest is very sparse pine and there is plenty of sunlight. Of course, the forest is sparse for a reason, namely, there is barely any soil. We are trying to remedy this by digging ponds next to our small stream and using the excavated soil (together with seaweed, biochar, leaves, etc) to build raised beds on the hilltop. Initial results are promising, and so far we haven't had to cut any trees on the hill. We might have to cut a few once our gardens expand, but probably not many.

Another thing I thought of: If you want your land to be as alive as it can be while also giving you food, I'd suggest that you might not want to cut the dead trees (unless there are special reasons for it, like preventing the spread of something like dutch elm disease?) Dead trees are important habitat for a lot of species (including, potentially, some that you can eat, like Cécile mentioned) and I'd say in many cases it's probably less destructive to cut some (but not all) of the living ones. Also, cutting living trees has a bigger effect on the light level on the forest floor since dead trees have no leaves.

I'm on a city lot measured in square feet rather than acres. We still had trees to remove, and trees to retain and trees to plant.
Initially we wanted to go slow so as not to lose our many wild birds.
The first trees to go were the ones that interfered with the roof and the foundation that we needed to put on our house. That opened up some light and air.
Even with a thick cover of feral plum and acacia, there were still some spots to plant right away.
We got the ivy off an almost-dead walnut and it's flourishing. I don't see the juglone doing any harm to nearby plants.
First we got rid of some of the acacias, which are an invasive weed here. That gave us a sense of the terrain.
Then we took out the plums with poor quality fruit - another invasive. Much less cleanup, and some space for vegetables.
This resulted in more light and air for the native trees, which support the native bugs, which support the songbirds.
Arborists pointed out trees that were structurally poor, and they have been gradually coming down, as the fruit trees I planted are gradually coming up.
So we have had a constant canopy and other layers as the individual species change gradually towards what I enjoy eating and will bother to use.
It has grown to the point of starting to cull those that don't get used, while some of the slower or more exotic trees are still only head high and have yet to be evaluated.
You may find that "full sun" isn't necessarily as full as you think. My apples, pears, and limes all bear well with about 4 hours full sun, and more hours dappled shade. And it isn't hot here, but it is dry.
The cuttings and woodchips have been improving the soil and providing habitat  - the weed cover is becoming less noxious, and the established trees getting healthier.
Taking it down slowly meant there was always time to observe, act, observe. Not a big overview plan, but many details fitting together. Little planting spots appearing as I become more attunded to what is here. Never too much work at once. Start slowly and have fun!

Sweet potatoes are shade tolerant

Beyond that, try to identify the species of the specific trees you think you’d like to remove.
Certain trees are better for inoculating specific mushroom species.  I had a good sized Sugar Maple taken down in a storm. It’s now growing Lions Mane and Shitake…. And according to literature may support those mushrooms for the next decade based upon the size of the logs.

I haven't necessarily been working exclusively towards that, just expanding biodiversity in general. I live in NE Ohio, BTW.

But, I did get a few things to work out. It's hard to do trees, unless they're a species that are likely to dwarf, but you can work to identify ares where more sun is reaching the ground, or investigate the edges for opportunities. I've tried wild plums, bladdernut, black cherry, Hackberry, serviceberry- nothing has made it to maturity & begun producing fruit. The one edible tree I added that actually is doing fairly well is a single, solitary Beech.

What it already had in there were tons of hickories & sassafras & a few Hawthorns, as well as tons of Sumac, grape, chokecherry & black raspberry. It also, unfortunately, had a pretty bad multiflora rose infestation, that I'm in the process of slowly taking down. There are a couple Japanese barberry, but as the only thing they seem to actually cause an issue with is stealing the potential environment of a plant I've never seen- Allegheny barberry- I'm not super worried about them. There's only a couple & they aren't very big & don't spread much. There is also a good bit of greenbrier & tons of mayapple, as well as a single Eastern Hemlock. There is a drive in theater backed up to it, with a small Plaza in front of that & the theater is completely surrounded by a vegetation screen that wraps around the whole place & connects to my little forest & I found a single chestnut on the opposite side of that. Across the general neighborhood, there was also Butternuts, hazelnuts, mulberries, crabapple, red cedar, a couple of seemingly very isolated wild roses, blackberries, dewberries, strawberries, cattails, salsify, etc.

Since someone or something ripped up my one Hackberry  seedling, I found an a decent sized clearing with a few younger spicebush trees coming up & since I have plenty of spicebush, I think I'm going to rip those down & add in a couple of Hackberry trees this coming year.

I have had some success with ground cover plants & a little bit of luck with volunteers that I had nothing to do with. I got several Onion & ramp plants to take hold, some wild gooseberries showed up (finally got a chance to try them this year. They were ok), I was able to get Downy Wood Mint to grow & in the last couple of months, I've put out some live partridgeberry, Wintergreen & American Dittany that seem like they're doing OK so far. I think I even got some wild lilies to grow &, despite not knowing how to plant bulbs at the time, it looks like I had some accidental success with a single Indian Potato plant taking hold. I just found some of my hops a month back, too. I might have gotten several plums, black cherry & at least one chokeberry to grow, but none of them have ever made it to fruiting maturity. I definitely got several elderberries, but same issue. Something eats them down to the ground pretty quickly after they come up, but they always come back a little stronger the following year, regardless, so that one is just going to be time consuming.

I'm slowly beginning to work out what a lot of my problems were- blueberries, I tried & tried with no success. Turns out it may have been the soil. The soil quality is extremely good, but they prefer acidic conditions, so while I assumed they would prefer it in the wetter, low lying areas, that is where the loam wants to naturally collect & the more acidic places are counterintuitively the highest points on top of hills. I also tried sweetfern, which love drier conditions. They both died from excess moisture where I put them. They probably would have done best on the outer edges, where they're more exposed to the sun.

I plan to try a couple pawpaw this year on the end of the forest without as much understory growth. I also want to get live plants of sweetfern, Scarlet Bergamot, gaylussacia & serviceberry put in & attempt to wild harvest some Strawberry & dewberry from the general area to see if I can get some to grow in these woods this coming year, but it's among some other things I am working on. I have lowbush Blueberry right now, so we'll try the seed one last time in the acidic areas &, if that doesn't work out, I'll just go for some live highbush plants.

The one thing the increase in biodiversity has done is that is naturally caused a massive, aggressive increase in density & variety of mushroom species. I'm not a mushroom person, but I have had more mushrooms in there than I have ever seen in one place in my entire life.