Heinrich Kegeldank wrote:If I had to establish a 2-acre food forest with all kinds of plants, would it be best to plant everything right into the ground?
It depends.
I can't plant directly into the ground because of these things:
- lizards, rabbits & goats will eat the young trees
- there is not enough rainfall and the plot is 20 mins drive from where I live
- the seeds I plant do much better with assistance (on wet paper towels in a plastic tub in the sun, checked every day)
- some seeds have low germination rate. I could plant 3 seeds in a location but some locations would get 3 trees and some zero
Another problem I don't have but you might is frost killing young trees that aren't in pots inside over winter.
I could plant more seeds directly in the final spot to try to fight these problems but experience tells me the lizards would eat them all, and anyway I would have to water them every day when they are young.
Your conditions are different so you might be ok. Why not plant some directly in the ground but also plant some in pots as an insurance?