Food forests have become increasingly popular in permaculture circles as a way of planting a low maintenance, diverse, abundant garden. While “forest” conjures up pictures of a large, wooded landscape, you can design the smallest of gardens following food forest principles. The idea is to have plants growing in different layers. By doing this, you can pack a large number of plants into a small space.
The tree canopy makes up the top layer. In larger gardens these may be tall trees. But in most UK suburban and urban gardens the trees are likely to be smaller, or this layer can be missed out completely. Below the canopy is the small tree or large shrub layer. This might be a small apple tree, a bay tree or a coppiced hazelnut for example. Under this is the shrub layer which might include some of the many currant species. The herbaceous layer is next which might include shade tolerant perennial herbs such as the mints, lemon balm, comfrey or hostas. Groundcover such as siberian purslane, wood sorrel or creeping brambles protect the remaining bare soil from the weather.
Once trees have grown big enough, you can add a vine layer to climb up through the trees. Caucasian spinach,hardy kiwis or grape vines have a vining habit. You can also add plants grown for their roots such as oca and yacon to the garden. Finally don’t forget to add some delicious mushrooms, either on inoculated logs or in the soil among the plants.
My old way of picking plants was generally haphazard and resulted in many fatalities. Wrong plant in the wrong place! I would be inspired by Gardeners World, or see a plant for sale and want it. I would plant it wherever there was a space in the garden and hope for the best. Now I realise that it is important to look at your garden as a whole, thinking about your goals. I make sure to include plants that help other plants, such as comfrey which has deep roots that bring nutrients up to the surface. Also nitrogen fixing plants which take nitrogen out of the air and add it to the soil can help. I include flowers that are good for attracting beneficial insects so that all the pests are kept under control. The insects also pollinate plants which then produce good fruit crops.
Finally I think about what I like to eat and in which part of the year those plants crop. After drawing up a plan, you might find that you have a glut of berries in summer, but few salad leaves in autumn. You can then tweek the plan to include more of what you are short on. If short of space plant less of what you will have too much of. That is unless it is something you really love or are able to preserve to eat throughout the year. Each year I also like to include some plants in my food forest that I have never come across, to try out for flavour.