Starting my food forest from scratch with only 1/4 acre space in Zone 8 - DFW

My 1/4 ac property garden site - Alpha Beta Orchards

I bought the property with home last summer 2016 and that coming fall/spring, dumped in a ton of items and haven't really stopped

the fruit trees
Asian pear
pear
2 plums
loring peach
nectarine
random peach tree
cherry tree
mulberry
granny apple
golden delicious apple
celeste fig
orange frost citrus
arctic frost citrus

Then vines
3 red grapes
3 green grapes
2 black grapes

Then canes
11 raspberries
2 blackberries

all the perennial herbs i could find

lemonade blueberries
an asparagus hill

I try to plant lovely pollinator flowers in with everything to make it both beautiful AND useful.

and hauling in organic matter from the neighbors. I'm trying to get my back fence line i share with the neighbors solid with my food forest.

Because I have limestone about 1 foot down, and just my trusty shovel... the going is slow. so, i move from task to task as the weather changes.
I'm in seed harvesting mode this summer.

I imagine i'll be in more fruit tree buying mode this fall when it's time to plant again.

A quarter of an acre is plenty of space, to provide for all of your fruit and vegetable needs. You may even be able to squeeze in a few chickens or fish.

Dale Hodgins wrote:A quarter of an acre is plenty of space, to provide for all of your fruit and vegetable needs. You may even be able to squeeze in a few chickens or fish.

That's the plan. I have an HOA so i keep the front of my property like everyone else's but the back is all about self-sustaining. HOA won't let us have poultry... I tried, no go. I'd like to get a fish pond tank deal going eventually. Unfortunately, the husband doesn't like fish.

Sounds awesome, you're going to have a thriving food forest.  I'm getting really close and excited to start planting mine.

I would put in some nitrogen fixing trees and bushes, and possibly cover crops.  

I would plant long term overstory nitrogen fixing trees if possible in a couple locations, and I would put short term nitrogen fixing trees all over the place, and next to the fruit trees, then I would chop and drop consistently until those short term trees and bushes won't come back.  There are a few bushes that affix nitrogen and give an edible fruit.  Autumn olive and goumi berry are two that I know taste good and affix nitrogen.  You can get bulk trees from lawyernursery.com

You may know this already, but most business that trim trees take their trimmings to the dump, and they have to pay to do so.  They are often happy to drop it off for free if it's convenient for them.  You can get a lot of free woodchips like this, sometimes it just takes consistency.  Just give em a call once a week and remind them that you are interested and eventually you'll get free woodchips.