Help Planning Forest Garden in With Zero Average Chill Hours, Heavy Fog?

Hello! I recently bought a house in a foggy area, and I have a growing puzzle. My hope is to start a food-forest here, and have been racking my brain trying to select trees/other fruits, and thought I'd consult the experts .

My house has an average low temperature of 45 degrees F, and is an a very foggy area. Average high temperature is ~70F. To further complicate things, the growing area is on a north-facing hill; would be nice if I can get plants (including trees) that help with soil retainment as well. Some plants I have been considering are dwarf ice cream bean, ice cream banana, chilean hazelnut, and maybe avocado, but the hill may be too steep for some of these considering how tall they get.

Appreciate any help!

Welcome to Permies!
How exciting! I love planning fantasy gardens....My area is pretty foggy, but no where near as warm as you are so my experience is not much use for you. Are you in the Northern hemisphere? so your land is shady rather than sunny being North facing? You say you are considering chilean hazelnut, that needs an acid soil. Have you looked at the plants for a future database? You can input your climate zone, soil type and other criteria and get a list of useful plants as a starting point.
I suspect your main problem may be fungi and mould (although maybe there are ways of making this a solution?) so keeping the larger trees well spread may help. Will you need to harvest the mist for water? We have a great thread on airwells.
Hopefully someone in a more appropriate area can chip in for you.

Welcome to the forum!

Is it possible to post some picture of how steep your hill is?

I am not familiar with the plants you mentions so as Nancy suggested it might be helpful to know your USDA growing zone, what part of the world you are in or something that we can relate to.

Forest gardens have several layers.  Maybe starting with the berry bushes and ground covers would be a good start for your soil retention.

These layers:

Shrub Layer.
Herbaceous Layer.
Vining Layer.
Root Layer

I wish you the best!

Nancy Reading wrote:Welcome to Permies!
How exciting! I love planning fantasy gardens....My area is pretty foggy, but no where near as warm as you are so my experience is not much use for you. Are you in the Northern hemisphere? so your land is shady rather than sunny being North facing? You say you are considering chilean hazelnut, that needs an acid soil. Have you looked at the plants for a future database? You can input your climate zone, soil type and other criteria and get a list of useful plants as a starting point.
I suspect your main problem may be fungi and mould (although maybe there are ways of making this a solution?) so keeping the larger trees well spread may help. Will you need to harvest the mist for water? We have a great thread on airwells.
Hopefully someone in a more appropriate area can chip in for you.

Appreciate the help/insights! Yes, I am in the Northern hemisphere in Pacifica, and looks like one of the foggier parts, hardiness zone 10. I haven't tested my soil, but there are a couple of pine trees there (I plan on taking them out once I can establish some other plants there), so I suspect the soil is acidic. Haven't tried the plant database yet, but I'll check it out. From scouting out the neighborhood, I haven't seen a lot of fruit trees, and 0 berries. There seems to be some form of strawberry on the hill (I suspect beach), but they may have been introduced by the previous owner, and I am not sure they will fruit- I plan on encouraging it either way to see.

And yes, I have considered mushrooms (maybe starting with lions mane), but that won't help with the soil retention. I don't think I will need water that way (my hill is wet every morning from the fog). Good call on spacing the trees out- will definitely keep that in mind.

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum!

Is it possible to post some picture of how steep your hill is?

I am not familiar with the plants you mentions so as Nancy suggested it might be helpful to know your USDA growing zone, what part of the world you are in or something that we can relate to.

Forest gardens have several layers.  Maybe starting with the berry bushes and ground covers would be a good start for your soil retention.

These layers:

Shrub Layer.
Herbaceous Layer.
Vining Layer.
Root Layer

I wish you the best!

Thanks for the help. See attached (it feels steeper than I was able to convey with the pictures). Trying to encourage some potentially useful plants that are already there (I see what looks like wild radish and beach strawberry). I've been looking for berries, but haven't been able to find any that I think I'd like yet, based on my combination of 0-ish chill hours and full to partial shade.

There are some citrus trees in the neighborhood, and I have an improved Meyer lemon that came with the house on the opposite side of the hill, right next to the house. I did find one apple tree with some fruit on it by one of the houses I believe on the south-facing side. Other than that, not finding any fruit trees in the vicinity, and I have been looking

When you stand at the bottom of the hill how does your height relate to the top?  Maybe this will give folks an idea of the steepness.

Is that a pine tree?  If so plants that grow well with pine would be a good consideration such as blueberries because they like acid soil.

Anne Miller wrote:When you stand at the bottom of the hill how does your height relate to the top?  Maybe this will give folks an idea of the steepness.

Is that a pine tree?  If so plants that grow well with pine would be a good consideration such as blueberries because they like acid soil.

My guess is it's maybe 1/8ths ish. I think the slope is somewhere between 15-30 degrees. And yes, that is a pinetree. Unfortunately, I don't think blueberries will work due to both chilling requirements and a lack of sun. Appreciate the brainstorming though.

Found a 0 chill raspberry variety that I believe should work well!

https://www.emcocal.com/kokanee-raspberry/

Mostly trying to figure out the tree layer, as those will take the longest to grow

I have been to Pacifica once. It was actually sunny.
Your climate is opposite of mine: freezes, scorching mountain sun, high temperatures, dry. I think yours is way more challenging, because plants that enjoy 70 F would expect to experience freezing winter and tropicals that like your minimums would enjoy sun and heat.
I would try tea (Camellia sinensis) - it would grow to bush size and it may like it.
From natives that produce fruits I would recommend Sambucus cerulea - last winter spring it grew from 50 cm (20") to over 2.5m (8-9'') and it produced fruits - I'm waiting till they are ripe.
Maybe Strawberry tree?

Cristobal Cristo wrote:I have been to Pacifica once. It was actually sunny.
Your climate is opposite of mine: freezes, scorching mountain sun, high temperatures, dry. I think yours is way more challenging, because plants that enjoy 70 F would expect to experience freezing winter and tropicals that like your minimums would enjoy sun and heat.
I would try tea (Camellia sinensis) - it would grow to bush size and it may like it.
From natives that produce fruits I would recommend Sambucus cerulea - last winter spring it grew from 50 cm (20") to over 2.5m (8-9'') and it produced fruits - I'm waiting till they are ripe.
Maybe Strawberry tree?

Good thoughts, thanks! I'm still familiarizing myself with the native plants in this area.

Hello everyone! I apologize in advance for somewhat hijacking this thread; however, it was closest to my situation and I need help fast! I too live in a cloud forest and I am planting out ice cream bean seedlings. Unfortunately the seeds were already starting to grow when I received them and the taproots are now bent. Can I safely trim the taproot right above the bend? Thanks so much in advance!

Hi Hanna, I have zero experience with ice cream bean (what a great name!) However I wouldn't like to trim the tap root if at all possible to plant it as it is, just in case it introduces a disease to the root. It looks like it will grow into a big tree so chances are the root system will be fine in time. Can you find a big enough pot to plant it in as it is? Quite often legumes will push the seeds right in time given enough space - they know which way is up and which way is the sun.

Nancy Reading wrote:Hi Hanna, I have zero experience with ice cream bean (what a great name!) However I wouldn't like to trim the tap root if at all possible to plant it as it is, just in case it introduces a disease to the root. It looks like it will grow into a big tree so chances are the root system will be fine in time. Can you find a big enough pot to plant it in as it is? Quite often legumes will push the seeds right in time given enough space - they know which way is up and which way is the sun.

Hopefully I’m doing this right (replying); sorry, not only am I a permie I’m also a newbie!
Thank you so much Nancy for responding and for your advice! The whole taproot is bent and I didn’t realize it until I took one out to transplant. I am transplanting it into the ground. Should I try to straighten it out? Or just place it in the soil and it will self correct?

I think it will self correct. Plant it as you would if it had not started sprouting, in such a way that it has the best chance of 'unfolding' and pushing the seed/leaf sprout out, and I'm pretty sure it will be fine. Please let us know how they get on though!
Here's a cool video on a bean seed sprouting - you can see how it pushes the soil away to emerge from the surface!

Nancy Reading wrote:I think it will self correct. Plant it as you would if it had not started sprouting, in such a way that it has the best chance of 'unfolding' and pushing the seed/leaf sprout out, and I'm pretty sure it will be fine. Please let us know how they get on though!
Here's a cool video on a bean seed sprouting - you can see how it pushes the soil away to emerge from the surface!

Thank you again, Nancy; I appreciate it!