Starting with bare land vs converting orchard to food forest vs land with house

Hi,
My family and I are looking for a larger piece of land to create a food forest with the goal of feeding ourselves and regenerating the surrounding environment. We're on Crete and so far it has been very difficult to find  anything close to what we're looking for here. Initially we though land with an existing house would be best cuz it's a lot less work upfront but then it's virtually impossible to find houses on big plots here, so I've been looking for fruit orchards that I could transition into a more diverse food forest that would also provide potential income and food from the beginning, but again that seems to be very hard to find here other than olives. If you were starting from scratch, looking for land to start a food forest, what would you look for and what would you be prioritizing?

Dareios,

I like your ambition, it reminds me of my own.

It would be helpful if you could give us an idea of your soil & climate type (I think I know that it is a Mediterranean climate), but for my thinking, I would go with the house and the bare land.  Here are the reasons:

1)  With a house you have a place to live.  This is no small consideration and no small cost.  You could start on the land right away.

2)  Olives, Olive oil, and Olive trees are all very nice, but in the end they are all--Olives.  This would make for a challenging diet.  Instead I would start with cleared land, the house, and start planting those trees & bushes to get the food forest (and a nice fruit patch!).

3)  Since you would be starting from scratch, you could tailor your ground to suit your trees.  I am somewhat notorious around here for spreading the gospel of Wine Cap mushroom decomposition.  I would be tempted to adjust the soil around your newly planted trees by doing some version of the following technique:
      1.  Make a circle around the dripline of your new trees.  If they are brand new and basically have no branches, I would make this circle have a radius of about 1' or 30 cm.  
      2.  Divide that circle into three 1/3 sections.
      3.  On one of those thirds, make a little arc of wood chips.  Inoculate with Wine Cap mushrooms.  Wait till next spring
      4.  On a second third, make a little arc of compost.  Wait till next spring.
      5.  On the last third, (normally left fallow) pile wood chips/straw/dried & shredded leaves/sawdust/Something "brown"/etc.  and just wait till spring.

4)  In spring, check for microbial activity.  Encourage whatever activity is there.  
5)  In fall, rotate by one third.  Expand as necessary to fit the dripline (probably does not matter the first year)


The goal is to get good, healthy populations of both fungi and bacteria.  The compost will load up the ground with helpful bacteria.  The Wine Caps do the same but for fungi (actually, mostly just Wine Cap fungi and they push everything else out.  But they work really well with soilborne bacteria.  That last layer is for the populations to balance out a bit.

This can make for some fantastically fertile ground for fruit-bearing trees.




Eric

If I had a choice between an established orchard or a house with a bare land I would pick the orchard. House can be built relatively quickly and it's easy to live in temporary setting in a warm climate. Trees in hot arid summer climates are difficult to establish, grow very slowly and can die easily in extreme temperature events. The most desired feature in such climate is shade that can be readily provided by mature trees. Without shade any small bushes or vegetables are quickly getting roasted, especially if the property is at higher elevation with a south facing slope.
In this case I would be looking for an olive orchard with possible other fruit trees: figs, almonds, maybe some grape vines. I would also make sure that the soil has some fertility and good depth, because olive trees will survive conditions that will kill other trees so good soil will help to establish more species.
And last but not least - water. The properties that you are seeing have olives only, because they are native to Mediterranean and extremely resistant to drought - most resistant from all trees I have. It may also indicate that the property does not have reliable water source and without sufficient water it's very difficult to start anything in such climate.