Hello all you plant lovers and learners, I’m excited to share my backyard permaculture food forest journey with you.
Three years ago my husband and I decided to turn half of our small suburban backyard into a garden.
I spent so. much. time. researching in order to decide what kind of garden to start.
You know what I’m talking about don’t you….till or no-till? permaculture? raised beds? container? Ruth Stout? Back-to-Eden….etc. Who knew there were so many methods of gardening?
I live in zone 7b….although I think now it’s technically zone 8a because ya know, those things change??? (Scratching head)
All I knew was that I wanted fruit trees and bushes that would grow throughout the years, as well as all the usual annual vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, beans, okra, lettuce, potatoes, peppers etc.).
PERMACULTURE FOOD FOREST METHOD
YouTube was my main source of research and while I have learned from many wonderful channels, I landed on – the gardening channel with James Prigioni. There, he convinced me that I should start a permaculture food forest.
The idea is to mimic nature with various layers of taller trees, smaller trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants and ground cover. The method -simply put- is to lay down cardboard or other brown paper on the ground and pile wood chips on top of it and allow those to break down and decompose over time creating beneficial micchorizal fungi.
And yes…I know you can find plenty of people who dislike this method for various reasons, In this post, I hit on what I feel are the pros and cons to this method. BUT, that’s the beauty of gardening, there are so many methods and you just have to find what works best for you and your space.
Additionally, I have put my own twist on the food forest by utilizing raised garden beds for many of the annuals.
Details….details…
Ok, so incase you’re wondering…the wood chips were sourced for free from a local arborist who delivered them. And even though we did buy some brown paper, we primarily used old cardboard boxes to go under the woodchips.
PLANTS IN YEAR 1
The first year, we ordered 2 apples trees, 1 self-fruitful pear tree, 1 self-fruitful sweet cherry tree, 3 blueberry bushes, 3 blackberry bushes and 50 strawberry crowns. All were bare root and all have done wonderfully except the cherry tree – we lost it early due to water log and root rot.
I purchased these from Ison’s Nursery located in south Georgia and I would highly recommend them if you live in my zone.
If you live in another part of the country, or world…do your own research and find a reputable nursery near you. Purchasing from a nearby nursery is not ABSOLUTELY necessary, but it will help you with varieties that grow well in your area.
So, the plants I listed above were the foundation of our food forest layers. We have since added a few raspberry bushes and the strawberries have exploded exponentially in number due to spreading.
With that being the foundation, every year the food forest gets a new look because of the annuals. When you plant the tomatoes and okra, beans, cucumbers, squash, potatoes, corn, watermelons etc. are added, the backyard REALLY fills in and looks like a forest. The watermelons add another ground cover layer, the tomatoes, okra and pole peans add an intermediate height layer and the squash add likewise a bushier lower layer.
YEAR 2
Here, my raised beds have several lettuce varieties, kale, collards, onions, a couple zucchini and some potatoes from my kitchen that were sprouting – I threw them in the ground to see what would happen.
The raised bamboo poles mark where I planted my baby tomatoes that I started from seed and in the back right corner are the blackberries.
As a rule – tomatoes, okra, cucumbers and pole beans get planted straight into the ground.
Everything else goes in my raised beds. – peppers, lettuces, zucchini, yellow squash, bush beans and potatoes.
In this picture, the sunflowers are growing tall and I have peppers planted in my smaller bed. And over in the left back corner are cucumbers on a tee-pee trellis.
antic-dote…
You know how I said, I threw some sprouting potatoes from my kitchen into the raised bed to see what would happen??
This happened…
YEAR 2 YEILD
Aside from our single meal of potatoes….year 2 was a real motivator for me…..the blackberries came in so abundantly that I got overwhelmed and stopped picking them because I didn’t know I could just freeze them.
Once, I figured that out…I did just that and froze about 20 cups of blackberries. The cucumbers also came in strong and I learned to make refrigerator pickles. (I will link to posts about all these things later, for now…enjoy some produce pictures from year 2.)
YEAR 3
This year has been a delight…it’s early in the growing season as I’m writing this and I’ve already learned quite a few lessons – mostly related to pruning and pollinating. I just finished making my first batch of refrigerator pickles for this year and I’ve frozen over 20 cups of blackberries and 10 cups of strawberries.
In another month the potatoes should be ready to harvest and I’m quite excited because this is the most potatoes I’ve planted to date…about 10 lbs.
The pest pressure is intense as usual and I think blight will take out my cucumbers and pole beans before anything else.
But, that’s in the future – which has yet to be determined….so stay tuned for my gardening adventure and let’s learn together and share tricks of the trade to revive this beloved tradition of backyard gardening.
Enjoy these pictures from year 3 garden.
