Mediterranean Climate Forest Garden

Howdy y'all,

    I might be getting an opportunity in the next few months to design and plant a small forest garden at a school here in Los Angeles. What plants would you guys recommend using? The soil seems to be fairly low-humus and of a clay type. I'll be getting a better site assessment in the next couple of weeks.

I was thinking of first seeding with a drought tolerant legume green manure crop (need ideas for this) while other perennials are sprouting. There are some fruit trees already in place, so a few more trees could be added, along with lots of shrubs.

Lucky for you. You should take a strong look at herbs if you aren't already. I'm sure the kids would be thrilled with fragrant herbs and flowers. Many are from Mediterranean regions, like rosemary, lavender,fennel, thyme, oregano, marjoram, sage, and bay. Others can be grown without fear with the year-round warmth like lemongrass, basil, etc. Pistachios, almonds, figs, etc. are some trees that come to mind.

For a drought-tolerant legume, perhaps you could look at certain varieties of sub clover:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifolium_subterraneum

I notice it handles the heat, dry spells out here, my crappy lawn soil, and is popular in Australia as a fodder crop, and furthermore, is also shade-tolerant and self-seeding. It grows where white clover won't.

btw, although clay by itself can be a problem, clay amended can be a major boon. Oh and make sure to provide drainage for certain plants like rosemary, thyme, and lavender. They don't handle wet feet well.

Hi guys!!

This is my firs post on permies forum, I've been reading it for some time, but this post was trigger to join

I'm not from States, though I lived and studied there for couple of years (Heloooo Wisconsin ) ). I left in 2003, and I'm 32 now.

I'm from Mediterranean climate originally (Dalmatia)  so maybe I can be of some use.

For green manure you could use alfa-alfa... I think for the given climate best green manure plant.

Other planst to consider (without any specific order)

Carpathian(or English) walnut  long lived, drought tolerant plant.

Almond - Mediterranean king of nuts. very drought tolerant (fruits in time of a year when water in soil is abundant) where climate is not very cold very reliable nut producer

Cornelian cherry - Great plant, extremely drought tolerant plant, low maintanace, if surrounded with N fixers reliable cropper.

Siberian pea shrub- N fixer, again drought tolerant plan, better than black locust.

Black locust - invasive, and fast spreading N fixing tree. Needs significant amount of labor to contain, although drought tolerant, and  great for on site humus production.

Cherry - especially if grafted on prunus mahaleb, drought tolerant, reliable, although not very long living

Sour cherry - better choice, but you have to love specific sour taste

quince - drought tolerant, produce a lot of fruits for leathers, jams,... great in combination with other fruit.. maybe you didn't know but on Portuguese name for quince is marmelo  hence the marmalade....

Plum-  definitely plum is a great choice for this climate, for early desert plum, for autumn jam plums,.
 
Autumn olive, another N fixing tree, also good to combine with others (edible fruits, grows taller than Siberian pea shrub ) in forest garden.

Fig- If you are lucky to have conditions to grow this plant, you can say that it is one of the easiest fruits to grow. If climate is right, it doesn't need any fertilization, any n-fixing trees around to fruit heavily each year.  If climate is not very suitable, you have to compensate somehow... grow next to a wall, feed it somehow...

Hope it is helpful. 

If you can irrigate a bit you can grow all of these:  http://perennialvegetables.org/perennial-vegetables-for-each-climate-type/mediterranean-and-mild-subtropical/

That's some great stuff! Thanks, guys. Glad you joined, malus.

Heidi Guildmeister writer of books on gardening in a dry climate that are sold in America, who is an expert on mediteranean gardening, says that mediteranean plants such as olive trees, need to rest in the dry season they should not be watered in it.
  SHe also says and i think she got this from a californian gardening society, that mediteranean plants have a lot of surface roots that serve them to pick up all the surface water that might be around after an occasional shower before the water from the shower  dries up, so dont disturb the ground around the trees that will hold these more superficial roots.. A shower on dry soil is unlikely to sink into the soil much.
  Grapes olives and evergreen oaks do well in the mediteranean and on poor soils. agri rose macaskie.

when i lived in southern california, i could plant basically anything i wanted as long as it wasn't too northern of a crop. its best to consider rainwater catchment to get every drop possible and water holding soil. as well as a thick mulch layer or living mulch. once established most all of the trees i had needed very little water if any and produced bumper crops( one year we got 1100lbs of fruit off one peach tree) and regularly got over 500 easily.

I agree with soil, you should be sure to install rainwater harvesting earthworks to make sure you get as much moisture into the soil as possible with the rains.  You might want to do hugelkulter as well.

A good resource:  http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

During WW2, Chocolate was considered a strategic food source, most of it was sent to the troops overseas.  To replace chocolate in the diets of children, carob trees were planted around parks and school grounds.  The dark brown pod (husk) is what is edible, not necessarily the seeds.  This tree is evergreen in a mediterranian type climate, with the pods produced from summer to fall.  We have a lot of those trees here in southeast NM, I will send you some seeds if you would like.

Where in LA?  At the moment, I am up in the foothills on the north side of L.A. 

At the moment, I can offer you some Moringa Oleifera seeds.  Also have plenty of rosemary on hand, should grow well from cuttings.

In the future I may be able to offer cuttings of figs and grape, or scion from some of the grafted trees. (Wish I knew more about grafting.)  My family has a couple of properties up here, and maybe soon one down in hollywood, but I am not in charge of the trees...yet...and don't plan on living here full time. 

Soil up here is a lot of decomposed granite (DG)...gets very compacted and no fun to dig in.  (just dug a hole for an apple this morning ...ugh...)  Putting in deep raised beds with drip irrigation would seem the way to go around here. 

Thanks for the offers, guys. I PM'd you with my address and stuff. This will help a lot.

More permanent ground-cover than green-manure are the clovers.
Really drought-tolerant, supply  trees with nitrogen, draw beneficial insects and most are perennial.
My favourite cover-crop are broad beans, aka fava beans. Fast growing, huge amount of biomass, beloved by bumblebees and you even get beans!
Both are insanely easy to grow too.

According to heidi guildmeister, the bush  ceanothus is  the Californian equvilent to the cistus that covers spain hills when the hill has been so over grazed as to only support the hardiest of bushes.
  Ceanothus  fix nitrogen, Google them, wikipedias article on them mentions this as do other articles andthe wikipedia article is short, So ceanothus is a good mediteranean climate plant that woild recuperates damaged soils and could help crops in all places with this climate and in california is also a part of the natural habitat.  
 Ceanoothus fix nitrogen although they are not a leguminouse plant and they are forage for dear and porcupines their leaves are high in protiens and calcium so maybe they are good at getting calcium from lower levels in the soil if you have any in lower layers of your soil  with calcium in them. When the plants drop their leaves or die down they deposit the minerals they have taken up on the top opf the soil.

 Euphorbias are a good plant to plant under apple trees as a companion plant to apple trees maybe to all fruit trees. They take up lots of phosforus and apples like phosphorus, which with leaf drop and such the euphorbias will deposit on the surface of the ground and euphorbius  are mediteranean plants, many of them are at any rate.
   Water from  rain carries nutrients, minerals and such, down into the soil with it, causing tops soils with very low mineral values, practicall barren ones. People forget that soils can suffer more from being barren, from being more lacking plant nutrients than from lack of water, places with wet seasons should have good plant covartage in the wet season even ifthe plant coverage  dries off in the dry one, if htey don't have good plant cover in the dry season it is probable tha tthey are suffering from a lack of nutrients not a lack of rain fall.
    People tend to identify lack of plant cover with a lack of necessary rain falll, this means that when as is in many places the case their is a lack of nutrients in the soil they think of the wrong remedies.
     If the ground is planted up the trees and bushes that cover the land bushes and trees retrieve the minerals that have been washed out of the top soil into deeper parts of the ground, their deep roots taking them up from the depth of the soil and they deposit them on the surface in the detritus leaves and fruits, flowers, bits of bark etc that falls off them.
  I post as an example of the effect of putting manure on barren ground, a picture of the plants that grew on the bit of ground we use to park the car after my husband put feritliser on it, before nothing had grown there.  After the manure a whole lot of plants grew there, the leaf of an  iris is planted, the rest is what grew on its own and that is the year after putting down manure, after paving the area and leaving a margin for plants. agri rose macaskie.
 

      What you can do in a mediterean climate varies and depends on where in the mediteranean country you are, if the traditional farming in Spain is an example of what you can do. Depends on whether you are  farming by the coast, in the interior, on chalk, or acid soils.
      In Spain you get citrus fruits in the Levante, the east coast, that is mostly low lying and mild, where the summers aren’t as hot as they are in the interior in the interior th eclimate is more extreme than on the east coast with cold winters and hot summers. On the east coast the  the winters definately aren't as cold sas they are in much of Spain.  It must be pretty dry on the east coast too.
    Olive trees also on the east side of spain that has chalk soils while evergreen oaks grow on the west of Spain where their are mostly ingnateouse rocks. aslso in different places they grow different types of oaks, Cork oaks live in milder bits of the centre and west of Spain, while evergreen oaks grow where the winters are colder na dthe weather drier. the evergreen oaks  provide fire wood and fodder as in acorns for the live stoock grow in the many mountainouse areas of Spain though they dont grow on the highest and so coldest in winter, summits. Evergreen oaks also bare the climate of Extremadura province that lies next to Portugal, that is very hot in summer, being interior and having a very extreme climate. 
    Sheep are big in Spain as they survive on the sorry pastures of the country,  dessimated bythe over grazing for fear of fires that is normal where a dry season leaves all the undergrowth dry and highly inflamable for four mounths a year.
    In the northern seaboard of Spain that is cooler and wetter than other parts of spain  there is more dairy farming though hardy cattle also roam the dyier moorlands maquis o of spain in extensive farming mode, using cowboys to monitor them and occasionally round them up. Cowboys down to all details of their clothes and saddles and bridles are a definately a Spanish invention. Agri rose  macaskie

A thread on farming in california in a mediteranean climate should include a talk about fire prevention and the fatal results of having to much dry vegetation in summer and on the other hand of the fatal results to the climate and the amount of food you can produce of turning  the whole country in to a big fire break.
 You talk to  people from farming communities of how they should have more vegetation because if not they will have desertification and they will tell you that things have to be cleaned or they will be a fire risk, however if you say they over clear and graze for fear of fires they will deny it. They do some strange mental gymnastics when it comes to thinking of desertification alongside fire risk measures.
   In the mediteranean they need to find a more moderate way of reducing fire risk than their old one, eating down pasture so frequently that the plants are killed and only then moving on to fresh pastures. If the pasture was as strong as it could be, there would be to many acres of pasture to eat down just before the July heat. As they can’t hope to level all healthy pastures in August they make sure that the pastures are very poor a blade of grass here and a blade there, by overgrazing all the year round, then there are very few blades to eat up quickly in the dry season. That is excepting a few spots that are difficult to reach that fall through the holes in the net.
 I have seen the signs of the use of herbicides to reduce pature on the mountains. It is an excepted fact that it is important to do for vegetation to reduce the fire risk but i have also been given a hint that hunting is one of the reasons for use of herbicides. As it is hard to wak through woody cistus bushes, herbicides are used in order to reduce the number of cystus bushes, so that those that practise shooting have an easy walk over the decimated hills.
 In modern times, the last century  they have started to grow pine forest for wood in the mediteranean and to have, were these are grown, the problem of big fires rather than the problem of over clearing and grazing.
     Fire contention is a big part of the subject about how to farm places with a mediteranean climate as people in California who get their homes burned down every few years will know.  
   I think that talking about  fire breaks in pasture land as well as in forests should be a big part of threads like this. Fire breaks round villages would be another theme and a discussion abut were else locals would like fire breaks to be established and were they could have optimum vegetation.  
    Being able to flod some areas in case of fire migh tbe a pssibility in some places. May be it it could be possible to have seasonal mowing of hills were live stock werer insuficient to keep in control all the land availiable to landowners in summer. We get fruit pickers which is a seasonal work, it should be possible to get mowers too, except there might be no profit in mowing a hillside. It is ne of those jobs that need doing that are not part of the markets of work and profit, unless neighbors living in the vecinity decide to pay for such a job.  agri rose macaskie

Firebreaks can be planted with fire-resistant plants like Hardy Ice Plant (Delosperma cooperi), which grows so well in California.  Don't confuse with Carprobotus edulis, which is invasive.

http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2007/11/delosperma_cooperi.php

http://stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=416

rose macaskie wrote:
A thread on farming in california in a mediteranean climate should include a talk about fire prevention and the fatal results of having to much dry vegetation in summer and on the other hand of the fatal results to the climate and the amount of food you can produce of turning  the whole country in to a big fire break.
 You talk to  people from farming communities of how they should have more vegetation because if not they will have desertification and they will tell you that things have to be cleaned or they will be a fire risk, however if you say they over clear and graze for fear of fires they will deny it. They do some strange mental gymnastics when it comes to thinking of desertification alongside fire risk measures.
   In the mediteranean they need to find a more moderate way of reducing fire risk than their old one, eating down pasture so frequently that the plants are killed and only then moving on to fresh pastures. If the pasture was as strong as it could be, there would be to many acres of pasture to eat down just before the July heat. As they can’t hope to level all healthy pastures in August they make sure that the pastures are very poor a blade of grass here and a blade there, by overgrazing all the year round, then there are very few blades to eat up quickly in the dry season. That is excepting a few spots that are difficult to reach that fall through the holes in the net.
 I have seen the signs of the use of herbicides to reduce pature on the mountains. It is an excepted fact that it is important to do for vegetation to reduce the fire risk but i have also been given a hint that hunting is one of the reasons for use of herbicides. As it is hard to wak through woody cistus bushes, herbicides are used in order to reduce the number of cystus bushes, so that those that practise shooting have an easy walk over the decimated hills.
 In modern times, the last century  they have started to grow pine forest for wood in the mediteranean and to have, were these are grown, the problem of big fires rather than the problem of over clearing and grazing.
     Fire contention is a big part of the subject about how to farm places with a mediteranean climate as people in California who get their homes burned down every few years will know.  
   I think that talking about  fire breaks in pasture land as well as in forests should be a big part of threads like this. Fire breaks round villages would be another theme and a discussion abut were else locals would like fire breaks to be established and were they could have optimum vegetation.  
    Being able to flod some areas in case of fire migh tbe a pssibility in some places. May be it it could be possible to have seasonal mowing of hills were live stock werer insuficient to keep in control all the land availiable to landowners in summer. We get fruit pickers which is a seasonal work, it should be possible to get mowers too, except there might be no profit in mowing a hillside. It is ne of those jobs that need doing that are not part of the markets of work and profit, unless neighbors living in the vecinity decide to pay for such a job.  agri rose macaskie

Some of the fire problems I think must stem from the lack of herbivores to control and reduce the dry brush and grasses.

I wouldn't worry too much about fires in this situation. This is a school in the middle of Los Angeles, irrigation water is available, and a bazillion firetrucks are a few minutes away.

Try olives and dry them ....

I'd be planting all the things that I can't grow here in Michigan, like olive trees and lavender, tropically stuff too that won't grow here like citrus and avacado..

I love Michigan but we sure are limited on what we can plant..by our temps..

How fun for you

No Irrigation:

Emergent palm layer:
-Parajubaea torralyi var. torralyi
-Jubaea chilensis

Canopy:
-Albizzia julibrissin (will give full sun to understory during wet winter, and protect from dry heat and direct sun in summer)

Understory:
-Butia capitata (or similar species)
-Aloe vera

Bright patches:
Cereus peruvianus (repandus)

That's a good example system and fairly simple.

Cool project.  If it's at a school, I'm guessing the kids will be most impressed if they see plants that actually produce things.  Citrus does well here, and blueberries seem very happy in the filtered light under the citrus (assuming the canopy is not too dense; be sure to get a low chill variety of blueberry).  Pomegranates grow extremely well, and avocados do great once established.  Blackberries do well too, but in my experience raspberries struggle in the heat of summer (but would probably be fine if you're closer to the coast, not in a valley where the days are in the 100s in the summer).  Creeping thyme does okay so long as you establish it in cooler weather; oregano and strawberries grow very well.  Artichokes also do well here.  This all assumes that some irrigation is available; the trees might do okay without it once they are well-established but smaller plants generally don't.  Either way, use lots of mulch.  Good luck!

maikeru wrote:
Some of the fire problems I think must stem from the lack of herbivores to control and reduce the dry brush and grasses.

And also from a lack of high frecuency low intensity fires.  Many of the mediterranean plants are not very palatable.  Here we get Pinus, rosemary, Pistacia lentiscus, Ulex sp ... not many animals will eat those.  I don't know of a single animal that will eat rosemary, not even hungry camels. 

If anybody knows of an animal that does eat and control rosemary I would like to know, I've got huge extensions of it.

How is your soil?  acid, neutral, basic ...
Frost free?  almost?
Do you know chill hours of your area?
Can you water?
What do people grow there (fruit trees)?

In a mild Mediterranean climate you can grow many, many things as there's a long warm season, a mild cool season (great for many leaf crops) and enough chill for many things.  That means almost anything not too tropical, nor requiring too much cold (or not tolerating heat).

ilex wrote:
And also from a lack of high frecuency low intensity fires.  Many of the mediterranean plants are not very palatable.  Here we get Pinus, rosemary, Pistacia lentiscus, Ulex sp ... not many animals will eat those.  I don't know of a single animal that will eat rosemary, not even hungry camels. 

If anybody knows of an animal that does eat and control rosemary I would like to know, I've got huge extensions of it.

Yes, those are basically a thing of the past after European settlement.

Rosemary...I know plenty of hungry humans including myself who can gobble it up pretty quick.

Ulex, you're referring to gorse or furze, right? Some of the gorse species have a long history of fodder in European countries. As I understand it, horses in particular are fond of Ulex europaeus, and it was collected and mashed up by old Scottish farmers to make it more acceptable as feed for their cattle.

I do agree that several Mediterranean plants are spiny or a bit noxious. I was eating boiled artichoke tonight and it was a bit of a battle, a tasty one, but more difficult than most foods.

Hi permies!

Great forum, just joined.

I am moving to Greece soon, a Mediterranean climate, to create a permaculture project and establish a large forest garden. I was wondering if anyone knew of:

a.) Any books on Permaculture and/or Forest Gardening for a Mediterranean climate (I have lots on a temperate climate!). An equivelant of Patrick Whitefield's Earth Care Manual, or Martin Crawford's Creating a Forest Garden, would be fantastic!

b.) Any online sources of information on a list of crops that can be grown there,  and/or their characteristics (ie nitrogen-fixing etc).

Thank you so much for your help!

Mark

Hi Mark,

I am also starting a project in Greece. Where will you be? I am in the Peloponesse. Maybe we can swap information and help each other.. The weather here is hot with no rain for 4-5 months during the summer but enough rain during the winter months with some frost and no snow.

The tree list i have put together with what grows well here is:

Fruits: Figs, pomegranets, plums, pears, apples, almonds, oranges, blood oranges, lemons, mandarins, vines, cherries, sour cherries, quince, mulberry, Olives

Nuts: Pine trees, walnuts, pistachios, carobs, Hazelnuts (need cold winters though to produce - can grow here put will not produce where i am),

Other: Cypress, Pines, Hawthorn, Bay, Oak, Acacias, Eucalyptus.

Herbs: Most of the ones that produce essential oils and if you have a water supply most of what you can think of...

Ground cover: vetch, clover, alfa alfa. Alfa alfa is better for dry places or you can mix them.

As you can see there are plenty of things to grow even though I still have not finished but you can start with this. Most of these can survive after some time without water although you might have less produce.

Good luck
Thanos

Thanos: pecans also do well.  Avocado is possible if sheltered from harsh winds and extreme sun.  Dates could be worth exploring if you have space.  Bananas if you have wastewater to dispose of.

Burclover has naturalised here, it is an easy to spread N fixing groundcover.  Borage is a good plant to temporarily fill spaces and improve soils.

Berries are quite possible if you pay attention to chilling hours.  Here we get about 700-800 so raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, boysenberries will all grow (with a bit of water).  Gooseberries and currants don't get enough chill to fruit.

Freeconomist: Try this reference.  It gives an idea of some of the different plants and techniques required to move the temperate food forest concepts into a more Mediterranean type climate. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2029243/West-Coast-Food-Forestry

Apart from that I think we are making it up as we go along and sharing the info so that the knowledge base in this area grows over time.  I think the concept is perhaps even more valuable here as light shading can help understory plants a lot (not much truly likes 'full sun' in the middle of our summers).

Did someone listed persimon trees? yummm
also Opuntia ficus-indica (prickly pear) here in Spain, we eat the fruits. but also young pad segments are edible (nopales) like they do  in central and south America. plant also make strong fences, and old parts dried can be used as fire fuel.
Robinia pseudacacia (black locust) is not native here but grows very well, fix nitrogen, atract bees rapid growth and good wood for fuel
Crataegus azarolus (azarole, mediterranean medlar)  grafted on his wild parent Crataegus monogyna.
Zizyphus sativa from the buckthorn family, here we call it "Azofaifo"

jmy wrote:
Try olives and dry them ....

olive LOAIME variety is suitable to salt dry the olives, and they wil last  for very long (years)
need to rehydrate the olives several hours in water to eat them raw or ad them to salads  here is made a salad with this olives onions, garlic and orange bits. yummy

Tyler Ludens wrote:If you can irrigate a bit you can grow all of these:  http://perennialvegetables.org/perennial-vegetables-for-each-climate-type/mediterranean-and-mild-subtropical/

Great forum.

I am living in Athens Greece for now.

I have been asked to present Permaculture and start a garden into the backside of the Fine Art University. ;z)) Lucky me!

I see a grass area full of 1-2 meter citrus trees. some mature oaks.

Water is accessible, Ie, we can water sometimes, some places..

It has no layering at all for the moment. Just trees and grass.
it's flat as a pancake. So I want to dig berms and add mounds for various reasons.

However it's June now. I have to start this project before the school year ends and then maybe come back to it after summer.

-I'm thinking to try and collect as much Green/brown composting material as possible now. mix and mound it on site so during summer heat it can brake down and be ready when (hopefully) September means the return of Students and activity.

Design paths, around mulching / composting piles.
and add a canopy layer of some more choice N - fixing trees which can be watered over summer.

I am stuck on what perennials to add just before we hit our hottest driest period. it's already showing signs of being a hot summer.
Why or What?? to put down as a lower canappy and ground cover which will survive summer?
(kind of by definition that question doesn't make any sense... Lmao) --
nothing will protect them. except what I could put under the oaks, but that ain't shade just a dream of cover. There are shady areas but. >>> that's where the people stay. ;z)

I can decide to sheet mulch the grass, and set up beds for vegetables latter but. A lot of work now to plant in fall.

(soil isn't too bad, thick happy grass and the whole area was a horse pasture for I dunno how many decades so there was some manure mixed in before ;z))


This was dropped on me and Fez Miester will happily take it on. But I'll happily take your suggestions and support. Drop by if you want! ;z)

Καλώς ήρθατε στο permies.com

You might be interested in this Greek (English sub-titles) video:

2 small drought tolerant trees: jujube and mulberry. They produce right away and are easy to grow.

Thornless prickly pear.

Nick Garbarino wrote:2 small drought tolerant trees: jujube and mulberry. They produce right away and are easy to grow.

thanks Nick,
& thanks John!! that video is a great idea for a audence that will be all Greek.
I disagree that you never have to cut anything, he makes it sound like chop and drop is a if and when activity. ;z)
Which it can be, some cutting and mulching is very very useful when your not working on wooded property such as pictured there.
I love the idea, of doing that little work. I guess I love it so much that i resist it. lol

Other videos maybe 1 each for the 12 points of permaculture?

ground is good, when wet, it smells nice, isn't crumbly, it's hard as rock with out water however. but with water (hose) it digs up easily, and isn't clay. there is a lot of compacted material underneither. Not rock... ;z) dark brown,

photos of the site: Fine Art School as it is today:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117145810705119022618/albums/5754634886559365777
this link works for me, but i'm loged into the account anyway. ;z)

First meeting is on Wednesday! I have to prepare! ;z