Hi Katrin,
I'm in the awkward position of being in the category of rich
enough (or maybe just stupid or spendthrifty enough) to buy these kind of books. Most of them that I've read are not worth the list price. As others have mentioned, YouTube has at least as much good information with the added benefit that you can often see if what the presenter is saying lines up with the results shown. It at least shows how much of the info is tried and tested versus just theoretical.
The basic takeaway for a food forest is to have various layers of plants (tall tree, short tree, big shrub, low shrub, annual herbaceous plant,
root plant) and have them all be useful plants that grow happily together. If you're not on a time limit I think a fair approach is to plant a mix of anything desirable you can get at a low cost and let it run its course with a bit of guidance. A lot will die but if you can propagate a whole lot of different plants en masse on the cheap, that shouldn't matter too much.
Having read lots of said books I think if you have 80 bucks to spend you're best off spending it on 80 bucks worth of edible perennials at your community's annual plant swap. Last year I spent 20 bucks total across two sales for a bunch of raspberries, fennel, a variety of annual veg and a whole
cardboard box of free strawberry runners that someone literally abandoned because they just wanted to be rid of their extras. Best part of buying at your
local plant swap is that you know it will grow locally. You can also get perennials extremely cheaply if you start from seed. I suspect one could build a small forest garden on the cheap for less than the cost of one of the more expensive books. (I think 200 dollars has been the most egregious so far.)
I also suffer from chronic depression and anxiety so I think I get the deal. I grew up poor and not in the greatest home environment and my first memory of suicidal ideation was when I was eight. My most recent was last year. I'm wary of the medications because my last one made me feel like so much of a zombie that it in itself made me feel more depressed and detached from life. Things have gotten much better lately, mostly because of lifestyle and attitude changes. Moving out of the city and into a more peaceful and friendly-neighbor area helped immensely, as did gardening and other constructive homesteading type hobbies, as did some work on assertiveness skills and better self talk. Instead of looking at all the areas of life that aren't up to my standards yet or berating myself for mistakes or shortcomings, I try to look at what small things I can do to get closer to my ideal and celebrate the small steps I've made. This feels very strange and fake at first, since I grew up in a home where anything short of perfect was brutally punished, but after some practice, it's a much happier way to live. It also makes me more productive from a practical perspective. If I only have the
energy to do something halfway, and it's better halfway than not at all, then I'll do it halfway and be at peace with that choice. I still get anxious and depressed but I'm getting better at pulling myself out of it before it spirals. Nowadays I see it like any other life skill.
For the roundup I wonder if you could kick up a fuss with the press. There are lots of local reporters looking for stories and you might find one or two interested in an environmental human interest thing. Many local papers have a scoop email address so you don't even have to call them, just write one message and BCC it to all the different papers. I've done this and gotten stories printed that created awareness and change.
I feel like a lot of this homesteading and
permie stuff comes down to a can do attitude and a willingness to fall down seven times to stand up eight. It's very scrappy stuff which can be hard for us natural perfectionists, but I think it's a mindset worth adapting to.
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