A small nursery in Haiti.



Will says

Local nursery for perennial fruit trees and bushes

I think it’s a great opportunity to start a small business growing useful species of trees and other perennials for one’s local community.  It’s an excellent opportunity for young greens of modest means. I am not an expert, but i have some resources and tricks that i’ll pass on here now.

Growing from Seed – adapting to zone and local species

My favorite species for growing from seed, remembering that i am in the BlueRidge mountains of Virginia USDA zone 6b,  are:  american persimmon, pawpaw, various chestnuts,  hicans, hardy pecans, and various walnuts, hazelnuts, and red mulberry. There are many places online where you can check what zone you live in and what grows best in that zone.

There are many others that are suitable.

Here are some sources I have used for seeds… and while some of my old favorites are no more,  there are new ones too:

http://trees-seeds.com/

http://www.treehelp.com/items.asp?Cc=SD420

http://www.sheffields.com/

Grafting and Root cuttings

It is a great idea to learn to graft and then you can graft improved varieties of scionwood on your seedling.   Most berry  plants are better propagated from cuttings or root cuttings and this is an excellent! and this is easy and a great  thing to learn.

Just take wineberry, raspberry or blackberry cultivars ( cultivated varieties)  and put a piece of root in a pot full of good dirt and a very salable plant results first season. I used to find cuttings in the classified section of Progressive Farmer that were very reasonably priced and I would think that they would be folks selling them on ebay or other sites because selling root cuttings is pretty simple too.

Growing and selling locally

There are disease problems with the rubus tribe  (mostly rust and with blackbery and raspberry etc but  not with wineberry) to watch out for in both buying and selling these. Disease and pest problems are one of the reasons I stress LOCAL and urge caution and education  in choosing what to bring to one’s area and to avoid shipping to other areas entirely. Real plant people ( you know who you are) have an intuitive feel about these things and they should listen and others should find another gig for sure.

Hardy kiwis are a good choice from cuttings , remembering that except for the “Iassai” cultivar they need a male for every several females to produce fruit so you need to root both.

Blueberries are a great crop in my area and are easily reproduced from hardwood cuttings taken in late winter , stored in wet sand in the bottom a refrigerator until the weather settles and then put in a frame with hardware cloth bottom and several incheds of growing media (remermbering that they are total acid heads needing a pH 4.0 to 5.0)covered by a poly humidy tent with burlap over that. Misting systems are awesome and thensome but i never had one.

http://www.stuewe.com/

Goji berries are easy from seed and you can soak regular berries you get in the store, blend them up just enough so the seeds all come out with isn’t much and then the seeds settle to the bottom.  Drink the juce, plant the seeds and jillions of the buggers come up easily and you do not need to buy the seed people are selling at ridiculous price or need any special fertilizer , but remember they are real alkies, mening they need an unusually alkaline soil. They have a a ph of 8.2 to 8.6 in their natural habitat..

Also remember that if the roots get warm in a black pot in the sun they will look like crap and be unsalable, key info i found out the hard way.  Here is info on growing them remembering that you do not need to buy their seed.

http://forgojiberries.com/HowToGrowGojiBerries.php3

Nut Trees

Nut trees will take a while to mature, but many people interested in permaculture are looking to the future and wanting seedlings to plant.   Local varieties always do best.

Walnuts,and hazelnuts, Chinese chestnuts, pecans and buratnuts hicans and butternuts ,true i am a nut nut loving all nuts  but peanuts.

Here is a very good overview of these species:

http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications/spfiles/sp307-p.pdf

Acorn seeds! This looks like a great source for seed

http://www.acorno.com/

Here is a great article on acorns and how to use them.  Looked throught quite a few before i found this and this far the best:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/clay79.html

Acorns and other wild nuts have been a far more important source of food for our species for far longer than most folks have any idea. I strongly believe that they also will play such a role agian in the not too distant future. For those wanting extra tree nerd credits, here is a totally excellent pdf  called “

http://www.swsbm.com/ManualsOther/UsefulPlants/Useful_Wild_Plants-3.PDF

Containers for Bushes and Trees

The place i like to get containers is Stewie and Sons because they are real nice folk , but a whole lot more because their “tall one” one gallon tree pots are perfect for growing trees to salable size because they taper, have vertical ridges running down the inside to prevent root spiraling and have half open bottoms to promote air pruning of the roots.

All of these are perfect and the choice of professional growers. Plants experience transplant liberation rather than transplant shock this way if planted properly, in my opinion.

Buying, Selling and Trading Tree Seeds

Ebay is an awesome source of tree seeds.  Remember pawpaw seeds are easy to germinate if they have not been allowed to dry, and only buy  fresh or properly handeled of these.

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=tree+seeds&_armrs=1&_from&_ipg=%EF%BB%BF

This looks like the way of the future for tree seed trading and buying and selling.  Selling tree seeds is a pretty good way to makes some money!  The internet hugely fascilitates this.  Here is an agricultural swap site with subcategories for seeds> forest tree seeds, fruit tree seeds and bush seeds as well as vegetable seeds and many other things.  Looks very good to me.

http://www.agriseek.com/buy-sell/e/Crops-Seeds/Seed/?AUT&FF_UMX=Y

http://www.agriseek.com/buy-sell/e/Crops-Seeds/Seed/Fruit-Tree/?AUT&FF_UMX=Y

http://www.agriseek.com/buy-sell/e/Crops-Seeds/Seed/Forest-Trees/?AUT&FF_UMX=Y

Buying bareroot stock in quantity and potting them up is cheap and quick way to salable plants!!  Here is the source i used for that:

http://www.lawyernursery.com/

Will recommends this book on Trees

http://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Woody-Plants-North-America/dp/1604691123/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

This book is fairly expensive but if you are really! interested in tree seeds i recommend getting it.  I loved this book, and still do i reckon.

The reason it was so important to me is that every different species has different requirments for germination; wet stratification, dry stratification, scarification, light, temp. requirments and for each process a time period minimum and by golly it is pretty close to necessary to know these things if you are doing them, and years back having this book was the only way i knew to get these.

Nowadays one can supply the supplication ” ginko seed germination requirments”  without the quotes into the Great Google and answers will almost always come forth.  Here is an  excellent thumbnail guide to the terms and basic processes involved such as  statification and scarification etc.

This site i found writing this note and is far far and away the single best source of information on growing trees i have ever seen. Praise the web and pass the information and we’ll all stay free!

http://www.treehelp.com/howto/howto-grow-a-tree-from-seed.asp

Tree Seed Technology Training Course

This manual is intended primarily to train seed collectors, seed-plant managers, seed analysts, and nursery managers, but it can serve as a resource for any training course in forest regeneration. It includes both temperate and tropical tree species of all intended uses. The manual covers the following topics: seed biology, seed collection, seed handling, seed-quality evaluation, seed protection, seed basics for nurseries, and seed programs. It also includes practical exercises.

Tree Seed Technology Training Course – Instructor’s Manual More Details Tree Seed Technology Training Course

http://www.rngr.net/publications/tst

Plant Health is Vital

APHIS stands for Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and is the thin green line trying to stop the rising tide of pests and diseases such as gypsy moth and emerald ash borer. Here is their website on plant health.  When in doubt, don’t do it.  Education and awareness are absolutely necessary in this matter.  The USDA is not the enemy in this,  human ignorance is.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/index.shtml

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes

The indoor composting toilet

Here is a video from a composting toilet manufacturer.  It makes a great case for changing to a composting toilet.  You can buy the expensive one OR you can make your own using an RV porta-potty or wood, buckets, sawdust and more buckets.

Ingredients for a basic composting toilet

• A wooden flat top box with a hole cut in the top  [screw on a regular toilet seat for extra comfort]
• A bucket that fits under the wooden top.
• Sawdust – put 3 inches of sawdust in the bottom and then add an adequate amount of sawdust to cover the contents of the bucket each time you use it
• When bucket is full, remove, take into the garden, throw in a bit of soil, seal and leave or put it in a composting pit [dig a trench in the pit and then cover each 'dumping' with leaves or hay. In a year you'll have wonderful mulchy organism filled organic compost.
• Or you can dig a large hole in the ground and empty the bucket into it, covering it with soil or hay or old leaves and use that as a  rich growing patch for veggies after at least a year

The Forest Gardener Composting Toilet

Forest disappeared into the yard for an afternoon and the result was this

Everything, except the padded seat [$6 from the dreaded Wal-Mart] was found in a dumpster or stuff we had laying around. The wooden box and step up was made from wood we’d retrieved from the moldy cellar we cleaned out. One side ‘wall’ was a fold out door from an old RV and the other a piece of old trellis.  The fancy toilet roll holder was found in a dumpster.  Even the ‘reading material’ was a free give away.

As you can see from the picture above, the bucket is contained in one of those $4 lidded plastic storage boxes.  When you want to go, you slide out the brown box and take off the lid then slide it back in again.

At the back of the platform on which the bucet and container sits are wood blocks that keep the container in the right position.

The RV sliding ‘door’ wall is secured with wire attached to hooks screwed into the ceiling of the car port.

On the wooden platform where the seat is mounted, we have room for reading material and a small spray bottle of colloidal silver mixed with a drop or two of oil or oregano. This makes a great hand cleanser as opposed to chemical hand sanitizer.

One friend suggested having a plastic bottle of sweet and nasty soda and a small glass bowl. Empty a drop or two of the soda into the bowl and it will keep the flies occupied and away from the poop!!

The entire toilet can be broken down and stored in the RV should we have to take to the woods !

Toilet in the Woods

Friends of ours building a log home have gotten the camping lifestyle down to a fine art, including potty stuff.   Digging a toilet in the woods is respectful, natural and feeds the earth with our waste.

Their outdoor earth-based toilet’pit’,   is almost invisible such that it blends into the natural setting. Clue – look for the twig toilet paper stand crossing one of the tree shadows.  Our friends set up this gorgeous homely camping site to live in while they work on constructing the log/earth house.

Kitchen Composting

By the kitchen prep area we keep a 5 gallon bucket for the compost and a cardboard box full of sawdust and wood chippings from our wood cutting [we use a woodstove in winter for heating AND cooking].  Just like the pooper, I line the bin with the chippings and each time I throw something in, I sprinkle a handful or two of chippings onto it.  This stops the smells and also begins to compost the material before you throw it onto the main compost pile.

Composting – 4 ways to do it

If you are going to grow food in a garden, it makes sense to compost.    This concise article by Ernest Wilmington outlines four methods of composting.

There are four methods of composting. Hot, Cold, Sheet and Trench

Hot composting is the fastest. However, it is also the most labor intensive.

When hot composting all of your ingredients have to be ready to go at once. You start your heap by placing sticks or twigs on the ground. This is for air circulation. Next you pile about four inches of brown dry material. Then four inches of fresh green material.

You want you pile to be about 3 ft sq. and 3 ft. high. This can be done using some kind of a wire cage. While you are piling this material, you are wetting it as you go. When you pile is 3 ft. high, you need to cover it with heavy plastic or a blanket (or old piece of rug, etc).

After three days, check the temperature. When the pile reaches a least 140 degrees, its time to turn the pile. From now on you must turn the pile every other day until its finished, which is in about four weeks. This is the method that is used by commercial compost makers. Of course, they don’t turn by hand.

Cold composting. This is quite easy, but takes the longest. The plastic bins that are sold for making compost, uses this method. You simply toss all of you compostable material into the bin. After 6 months, lift the little door at the bottom and you have compost, all the while, you are still throwing stuff in the top.

Cardboard composting is used to create new garden bed or plot. Like hot composting, all of your ingredents must be ready at once.

Choose a site where you want to create a new bed. Cover the area with a couple of inches of newpaper or non-waxy cardboard.

Then pile on alternate layers of brown [leaves, coffee grounds, twigs, torn up cardboard and paper and green manure [fresh garden mowings, green leaves]  in layers of 2 – 4 inches each.

When you get to at least 18 inches, cover the pile with heavy duty black landscaping plastic cloth.

In six weeks, remove the plastic and you are ready to plant. Nothing else needs to be done.

Trench compost is simply burying your food waste and other compostable material in your garden. The earthworms will work on it and it will be gone in about a month. This is the easiest and best to get rid of household garbage that might otherwise smell in a regular pile.  Some composting gurus suggest that you can compost anything including meat and bones [which is what we do] and others say ‘no meat or dairy’.

Here’s another video on composting which has a good tip on starting the pile with crossed over branches to allow air pockets in the bottom.

Compost Tea

I got this recipe on my permaculture design course.   It’s really easy and makes a great addition to the garden.

Ingredients: 1 x 5 gallon bucket with lid.  A mesh bag.  Comfrey or Garden weeds, Yogurt liquid.

Recipe: Fill the  bucket water [put it out in a heavy rainfall and let it collect the water from nature].  Stuff the mesh bag with weeds or preferably, comfrey [it grows wild or you can cultivate it most anywhere].  Put a rubber band round the bag to close it off and put it into the water.  Pour in  the liquid from a large container of natural yogurt.  Seal the lid

Leave this for a couple of weeks and you have 3 – gallons of rich compost tea.  Water your plants with it once or twice a week.

It’s natural, way cheaper than ready-made plant food and it’s loving and kind to the planet.

Heirloom Seeds

And once you get your compost pile built, you’ll want to plant some really great organic heirloom seeds.   We love this company because they sell a vacuum sealed variety of seeds for every situation be it the single urban liver, a family of 4 or a larger homestead or farm. They also sell specialist packs such as medicinal herbs, tomatoes and tobacco!

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes

A community forest garden is a vital cog in the wheel of transition, that we must inevitably spin into. It is a transition from oil based consumption and materialistic lifestyles and emerge into simple satisfaction, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, local sustainability and smaller group inter-dependence. 

There’s no doubt that big changes are pushing their heads above ground and that we must begin now to prepare.  If we do we WILL ride this wave and emerge refreshed and renewed.. landing on new shores of potential. 

To us, as long time observers of the social shifts, it does seem that we, today, are present to a crumbling of ‘what was’ and an emergence into a new way. 

As information spreads and things seem to happen much much more quickly [people can connect, share ideas, start groups, research through the internet] more people are aware.   Ideas are beginning to synchronize like women who live together experiencing their menstrual cycles synching with each other.  

We are being pushed towards finding creative alternatives for our basic needs which are safety, shelter, food, wellness and connection to other from intimate, family, friends, neighbors into the community and beyond.

And it seems that the place to begin is really at grass roots, one or two people, adding more as the idea spreads, neighbor to neighbor, neighbor to community, community to other communities…and our role exists within our individual community yet as part of the entire whole…ain’t that cool!

 Forest Food Gardens are one part of the great web of emergence.  It is one [jolly good]  way of ensuring abundant, localized community  food and wellness.

Natural Building methods and all the variants thereof offer effective, localized, low cost and resource friendly solutions to providing shelter for all

Shared Land in the form of people offering parts of their land for community shelter/food growing spaces knowing that they will be supported and helped by the community as their generosity melts the divide between have’s and have not’s..

Shared Labor in the form of people working on projects and knowing that they will be fed and sheltered as they help create an abundant world for future generations not just for themselves.

Free energy solutions from those who are fascinated by experimenting with solar/wind, magnetic, water and whatever power.  Like this we can step over the  spirallingly expensive grid electricity and gas-fuelled transportation.

Connection to Other and Community  is the spirit that fuels us to come together and pool our resources, ideas and skills. It is also the spirit that connects one community to another and thus springs the spider network of local communities, trading, bartering, sharing, caring helping….

Living v Working to Live.  In living we bypass the ’middle man’.   Instead of going to work for someone to earn ‘money’ to pay for heat, light, food, entertainment, transport and keeping up with ‘them’, we will expend our energy on living.  

We forsee that there will be a shift towards people using their ‘time’ to dig, plant and tend food forests, collect herbs and concoct tinctures, preserve and prepare food, collect wood, tend the fires, build homes, care for the livestock, school the children…..

This alone would consitute a good enough ‘work’ day. The fruit of your labor is the home, the eggs,the warmth, the nutrition, the healing and the children delighting in playing in ‘secret’ hidey hole under the large fruit bushes. 

We are going to have to learn to make do with less, be more independent and self-sustaining, become more hardy and resiliant and come up with creative ways to utilize what we do have in abundance.

And thankfully, something we humans have in abundance is the ability to transcend through adversity via creativity and soar to heights of magnificence and when we pull together.   The evidence is there.

Past Evidence of the Great Human Spirit

A friend’s mother who grew up in the Great Depression of the 30′s said to us the other day ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about the ‘great depression’ and how people had to live – that’s the way we’d always lived.    Rural folk know how to survive, how to adapt, make-do and use the natural resources. And they know how to pull together as a community from taking food to bereaved neighbors to sharing the surplus of their gardens with those less well off.   They had no other choice.  It was live off the land or die!  And they had a sense of caring for their community.

Anyone in the UK who knows someone who is in their 80′s will have heard tales of how they managed in the 40′s WW2.   Food shortages, nightly bombings in big cities, people being made homeless in an instant were all part of their everyday reality.  A woman recalls how living rurally they had lots of orchards. During WW2 her father dug up the orchards, by himself with the help of a neighbor’s son and planted vegetables that he gave away to locals so that they would have fresh food to eat.

Riding the Wave of Transition Together

So how do we begin to energize a transition wave in our community.   And before you get all scared about official stuff, there is none.   One of the pleasures of living in the rural South is that people just do things… they aren’t too fussed about what the officials think.    They don’t get all bogged down in ‘what about the codes’ or ‘you can’t do that’.  

Here are some initial guidelines…

1.  We have to find our bliss, the thing we love doing that fit into this new kind of living

2.  We may need to develop new skills or link together with others to pool our skills

3.  We have to work with the greater good in mind, knowing that we will be taken care of as long as we are genuine and doing the right thing

4.  We can’t just sit around talking, we have to start doing NOW.  We’ve talked a lot over the last year about how it is and what’s going on and now we are acting.  We went out into the world and connected and followed the leads and found the like-minded energies and we asked for connections, help, guidance…and it comes in

5. We have to be prepared for a bumpy ride as we shift gears, but we must also allow ourselves to experience the vision of living a more natural, earth-based, community centred life… and all the joys that it brings.   There really is nothing like good honest labor to have that feeling of being in the moment and alive. 

 The increasing research and talk around global warming, carbon footprints, oil running out aka post-peak oil combined with evident economic challenges [to use a mildly inoffensive word] and price-hikes everywhere is making a pretty LOUD statement.They are the result of people waking up and getting that we can’t go on living the way we do.

Across the globe people are preparing for transition. There’s even official transition sites and examples of what people in communities are doing to create a more earth-based less oil dependent life.

Forest Food Gardens are part of a transition initiative that is designed to help communities become less reliant on oil derivatives which includes all manufactured items, electrical goods, grid lighting and heating, truck/plane/rail transported food and more reliant on producing what they need for themselves within the community.

THIS is NOT THAT

Please don’t start to label this and compare it to any political movement.  It is not that way.  This is NOT that other ‘c’ word.  It is about human challenges, emergence, freedom and working together and finding creative solutions.

We don’t just need to create food, we need to find ways to harness free energy, build affordable or even free shelter, utilize our land for the community, share our labor and the fruits of that collective labor.  And NO this is NOT anything like the com****** word.    That was awful.   That system was heirarchical and worse still hypocritical. This is something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

This can and will become a global initiative.  The global initiative will not be orchestrated at global level.  It will consist of each individual playing the instrument they play best and all coming together in harmony with others to allow community initiatives to unfold.  We like to think of this transition as a harmonic emergence of humans, a return to earth.  H.E.R.E.

More on the topic of Community Transition

Transition 2 – The just do it’s 12 steps to creating a self-organizing community initiative coming soon

How to set an initiative in motion and avoid energy sapping bureaucracy whilst surprizing and then  inspiring the authorities with what you all achieve.

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes

 by David Jacke  author of Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set)

 

Picture yourself in a forest where almost everything around you is food….Mature and maturing fruit and nut trees form an open canopy. If you look carefully, you can see fruits swelling on many branches—pears, apples, persimmons, pecans, and chestnuts. Shrubs fill the gaps in the canopy. They bear raspberries, blueberries, currants, hazelnuts, and other lesser-known fruits, flowers, and nuts at different times of the year.

Assorted native wildflowers, wild edibles, herbs, and perennial vegetables thickly cover the ground. You use many of these plants for food or medicine. Some attract beneficial insects, birds, and butterflies. Others act as soil builders, or simply help keep out weeds. Here and there vines climb on trees, shrubs, or arbors with fruit hanging through the foliage—hardy kiwis, grapes, and passionflower fruits.

What is Edible Forest Gardening?

Edible forest gardening is the art and science of putting plants together in woodlandlike patterns that forge mutually beneficial relationships, creating a garden ecosystem that is more than the sum of its parts. You can grow fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, other useful plants, and animals in a way that mimics natural ecosystems.

In many of the world’s temperate-climate regions, your garden would soon start reverting to forest if you were to stop managing it. We humans work hard to hold back succession—mowing, weeding, plowing, and spraying. If the successional process were the wind, we would be constantly motoring against it.

Why Grow an Edible Forest Garden?

While each forest gardener will have unique design goals, forest gardening in general has three primary practical intentions:

•High yields of diverse products such as food, fuel, fiber, fodder, fertilizer, ‘farmaceuticals’ and fun;
•A largely self-maintaining garden and;
•A healthy ecosystem.

These three goals are mutually reinforcing. For example, diverse crops make it easier to design a healthy, self-maintaining ecosystem, and a healthy garden ecosystem should have reduced maintenance requirements. However, forest gardening also has higher aims.

“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” Masanobu Fukuoka

Where Can You Grow an Edible Forest Garden?

Anyone with a patch of land can grow a forest garden. They’ve been created in small urban yards and large parks, on suburban lots, and in small plots of rural farms. The smallest we have seen was a 30 by 50 foot (9 by 15 m) embankment behind an urban housing project, and smaller versions are definitely possible. The largest we have seen spanned 2 acres in a rural research garden. Forest gardeners are doing their thing at 7,000 feet (2,100 m) of elevation in the Rocky Mountains, on the coastal plain of the mid-Atlantic, and in chilly New Hampshire and Vermont.

Forest gardening has a long history in the tropics, where there is evidence of the practice extending over 1,500 years. While you can grow a forest garden in almost any climate, it is easiest if you do it in a regions where the native vegetation is forest, especially deciduous forest.

Edible forest gardening is not necessarily gardening in the forest, it is gardening like the forest. You don’t need to have an existing woodland if you want to forest garden, though you can certainly work with one. Forest gardeners use the forest as a design metaphor, a model of structure and function, while adapting the design to focus on meeting human needs in a small space.

While you can forest garden if you have a shady site, it is best if your garden site has good sun if you want the highest yields of fruits, nuts, berries, and most other products. Edible forest gardening is about expanding the horizons of our food gardening across the full range of the successional sequence, from field to forest, and everything in between.

Ecology

Edible forest gardens mimic the structure and function of forest ecosystems—this is how we create the high, diverse yields, self-maintenance, and healthy ecosystem we seek for our garden. It is therefore critical to understand forest ecology and its implications for design. Four aspects of forest ecology are key: community architecture, ecosystem social structure, the structures of the underground economy, and how the community changes through time, also known as succession. Brief discussions of each of these aspects and examples of their influence on garden design and management follow.

Architecture

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom on forest gardening, vegetation layers are only one of the architectural features important in forest garden design. Soil horizon structure, vegetation patterning, vegetation density, and community diversity are also critical. All five of these elements of community architecture influence yields, plant health, pest and disease dynamics, maintenance requirements, and overall community character.

For example, scientific research indicates that structural diversity in forest vegetation, what we call “lumpy texture,” appears to increase bird and insect population diversity and to balance insect pest populations—independent of plant species diversity. Learning how and why plants pattern themselves in nature and about the effects of the diverse kinds of diversity on ecosystem function can add great richness to the tool box of the forest gardener.

Social Structure

The unique inherent needs, yields, physical characteristics, behaviors, and adaptive strategies of an organism govern its interactions with its neighbors and its nonliving environment. They also determine the roles each organism plays within its community. The food web is one key community structure that arises from each species’ characteristics. Organisms also form various kinds of “guilds” that partition resources to minimize competition or create networks of mutual support.

When we design a forest garden, we select plants and animals that will create a food web and guild structure, whether we know it or not. It behooves us to design these structures consciously so we can maximize our chances of creating a healthy, self-maintaining, high-yield garden. For example, the vast majority of solar energy captured by natural forest food webs ends up going to rot. We can capture some of this energy for our own use by growing edible and medicinal mushrooms, most of which prefer shady conditions.

We can design resource-partitioning guilds by including plants with different light tolerances in different vegetation layers, for instance, or mixing taprooted trees such as pecans and other hickories with shallow-rooted species such as apples or pears. We can build mutual-support guilds by ensuring that pollinators and insect predators have nectar sources throughout the growing season. Insights into the guild structure of ecosystems provides clear direction for design as well as research into many aspects of agroecology.

The Underground Economy

The workings of nature’s “underground economy” are a mystery, but the dynamics of this ecosystem are fundamental to the workings of all terrestrial communities. What is the anatomy of self-renewing soil fertility? How do plant roots interact with each other and their environment? What roles do microbes and other soil organisms play in our forest gardens, and how should we interact with them?

Plants are critical components of the structure that creates self-renewing fertility in natural ecosystems. They plug the primary nutrient leaks from the soil and energize a networked system of plants, soil organic matter, soil organisms, and soil particles that gathers, concentrates, and cycles nutrients conservatively. Maintaining perennial plant cover greatly aids this process.

In addition “dynamic accumulator” plants like comfrey (Symphytum officinale) selectively accumulate mineral nutrients to high levels in their leaf tissues, adding them to the topsoil each fall. As we enter the post-oil age, our understanding of the anatomy of self-renewing fertility will become more and more critical to our success in temperate climates.

Understanding the dynamics of woody and herbaceous plant roots is critical to learning how to design and manage forest gardens. In what patterns do plant roots grow, why, and when? While the majority of tree roots grow in the top two to three feet of soil, it turns out that fruit trees that can get even a small percentage of their roots deep into the soil profile produce more fruit more consistently, resist pests and diseases more effectively, and live longer than those that have only shallow root systems. Good pre-planting site preparation is therefore a highly worthwhile endeavor. Root system understanding provides a solid foundation for plant species selection and polyculture design.

Soil organisms perform numerous critical functions in forest and garden ecosystems, and we can easily disrupt these allies and their work with unthinking actions. Luckily, basic forest gardening principles like using mulch and leaving the soil undisturbed provide just the kind of benign neglect our tiny friends need. However, good soil preparation can make all the difference, as well.

For example, compacted or poorly drained soils can severely hamper the development of healthy soil food webs, and hence healthy forest gardens. Understanding the soil food web also provides insight into how to manage for healthy mycorrhizal fungi populations and how to ensure that nitrogen-fixing plants actually do their soil-building work.

Succession

Ecosystems are dynamic, and ever-changing. Plant succession used to be thought of as the directional change of a community over time from “immature” stages toward a “mature” “climax” community typical of a given region and environment, such as a field changing to shrubland and then to, say, oak-hickory forest. However, new models of succession have arisen in recent years that articulate the complex reality of plant community change over time without so blatantly projecting human cultural constructs upon natural phenomena.

Plant succession is nonlinear and occurs patch by patch within the ecosystem, and rarely do ecosystems ever attain a climax or equilibrium state. Disturbances of various kinds are a natural part of every successional process—windstorms, fires, insect attacks, and human intervention.

Nonetheless, linear succession to a “horizon” is a valid model to use when designing forest garden successions, as are various other permutations that mimic garden crop rotations or represent an ever-changing dance responding to the forces, needs, and whims of the moment.

While the practical applications of these new successional theories are of necessity somewhat vague, we do know that the most productive stages of succession are those in the middle—such as shrublands, oldfield mosaics, and woodlands—not necessarily full-fledged forests. In addition, most of our developed tree crops are species adapted to such midsuccession environments.

Our highest yielding forest gardens are therefore most likely to contain, not the dense tree canopies of late succession forests, but lush mixtures of trees, shrubs, vines, and herbs all occupying the same space in patches of varying density and character. Succession theory also teaches us many different approaches to directing ecological succession in our gardens.

Design

At its simplest, forest garden design involves choosing what plants to place in your garden in which locations, at which times. However, these seemingly simple acts must generate the forest-like structures and functions we seek, and they must also achieve your design goals. A forest garden design process, then, must be information intensive if it is to achieve even moderately complex objectives. Therefore, begin by articulating your goals and assessing your garden site. Then you can select and apply design patterns, ecological principles, and plants in such a way that you integrate your goals and the site into a coherent whole.

The challenge is to array the available design elements to create a set of ecosystem dynamics that will in turn yield the desired conditions of high yields, maximal self-maintenance, and maximum ecological health as inherent by-products of the ecosystem.

You can use design patterns drawn from natural ecosystem examples or invent your own patterns that solve specific problems your design faces to help you do this. Patterns also arise from the requirements of the goals themselves and from a deep understanding of the site’s characteristics. The goals guide the site analysis and assessment, and the site assessment discovers the design.

We recommend designing on paper, at least initially, so you can make as many mistakes as possible there, and correct them before putting anything into the ground. On-site design techniques can also work well, especially for those who prefer to avoid the mapping process.

Careful design of plant spacing is a critical piece of the puzzle, in any case. Planting too closely together is the most frequent mistake that forest gardeners around the world have made. We hope that a more robust and explicit design process will help us all avoid such common mistakes and make some newer mistakes that are more interesting so we can learn from the experience.

Practice

Good site preparation is a critical precursor to planting your forest garden. Your site analysis and assessment should help you understand your site’s limitations so that you can decide whether or how to alter the site, or how to adapt to the conditions present.

Soil compaction, for example, is exceedingly common in most urban, suburban, and even rural sites, and it can severely restrict root growth, water movement in the soil, and the health of soil organism communities.

Double-digging, chisel plowing, radial trenching, and other techniques can help you deal with severe compaction, while the simple act of mulching the soil and planting deep-rooted perennials will eventually address slight compaction. Other common site preparation challenges include poor soil texture, shallow soil depth, road salt, and persistent weeds.

Proper stock selection, planting, and mulching techniques can also have major long-term effects on plant vigor and productivity. Many woody planting specimens have been transplanted multiple times, and these can have kinked, circling, or damaged roots that will result in plant stress and even an untimely death.

Carefully examine your specimens before you buy to ensure a quality root system, or purchase bare root stock so you can see the whole root system before planting. In fine-textured soils, the edges of the planting hole often become smeared to a smooth, impenetrable surface as a natural part of the digging process. This can severely restrict root growth and cause water to pool in the planting hole.

Breaking up the edges of the hole with a spading fork allows roots and water into the surrounding soil. This needs to become a common planting practice, as do proper planting depth, proper mulch depth, and effective sheet mulching techniques.

Once the garden is in the ground, the longest and most satisfying phase of forest gardening begins: management, harvest, and coevolution. Potentially the hardest part of this phase is learning to do less and let the system take care of itself, as well as knowing when to intervene and how.

These questions are, however, part of the process of shifting from a paradigm of command and control to one of cocreative participation as part of a natural system.

As we observe ourselves and our gardens through the dance of the seasons, we will learn the most effective ways of guiding the garden ecosystem’s evolution, we will select and breed ever more delectable crops for all the niches of the garden ecosystem, and we will begin to realize the full potential of forest gardening as a tool for cultural and personal evolution, not to mention cultural and personal survival in a post oil world. Welcome to the adventure!

Good information on plant, animal, and mushroom species and their ecological characteristics is essential for good forest garden design. You’ll need data on the plant’s size, form, and habit, its rooting patterns, hardiness and other tolerances and preferences, as well as its native habitat, human uses and ecological functions.

Information that helps you design habitat for beneficial wildlife such as insects, frogs, toads, salamanders, and birds is also crucial. Ideally, this information will come in a variety of formats and levels of detail that relate to different parts of the design process. The appendices of Edible Forest Gardens provides this kind of information on over 600 useful plant species and a plethora of beneficial wildlife for your designing and gardening pleasure.

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes

We all have a dream

I Pierre, have a dream too.   I have had this dream since I was a child when I wrote a poem called ‘Does the Land have feeling?’.      Ma [Mother Earth, Gaia, All-that is] has always spoken to me.   I only felt at peace in her presence.    And in my early years I spent much time in her loving arms.

My genetic roots are French, German and Native American.  I grew up hanging out on the reservation near my home in Western Montana and my exposure to the ways and philosophy from my early days has given me what I call the Indigenous Spirit.     This indigenous spiritis present in all of us as earth children.   

In my late twenties, I was on my way to a meeting with a medicine woman in Nevada when I was diverted to Atlanta.     There began a long sojourn where I was mostly physically separated from Ma.  But her spirit never left me.

In the twenty years I spent in the asphalt jungle,  I was plunged into the alien nation and came into contact with a world of what I call ‘lost children’.  I met so many whose lives had no meaning because they could not fit into Machine.   They knew something was wrong but they were emotionally, physically and spiritually lost.  And in their unhappiness they were seeking answers they could not find in their everyday lives.

There is a reason for all the experiences we have in life if we could only see the grand pattern of the universe we would get get it.

But ours is not to see the pattern, it is only to know that it is there and that OUR role in the universe will make itself known in sometimes huge and sometimes small but significant ways.

Forest Dreaming

Recently my dream has reawakened and I knew it was time to leave the asphalt jungle.  My soujourn there was done and I was being drawn to move closer to the forest.  I now know that Ma was calling me home again.

And once there, I found myself driven to walk the trails, to uncover hidden pathways and places for people to gather and celebrate and commune with Ma.  

And each time I went out I found magical openings in the forest that were crying out for the mankind to walk gently and lovingly in their hallowed grounds as humans once did in the time of our indigenous ancestors.    

And awed by the wonder of these places we took photographs and displayed them online.  I only knew that this felt like the right thing to do.

And then a friend sent me a link to their house on Google Earth.  I never got to see the house because I was drawn as if in a trance to follow the contours of the places I’d been exploring 

As I navigated the land through the miracle of my computer, I saw a huge green mass moving towards me.   It was the backside of the Big Frog Mountain.  And then I got it like a punch in the guts.  Ma is calling me to gather people on the Big Frog.    She is saying ‘I will save you when you return to me’.

Cellular Transformation – an epiphany

In 1987 I spoke on Mt Shasta at the Harmonic Convergence.   I was a different person.  My voice roared across the mountain, I found myself speaking and not knowing where it was coming from.

Two years earlier I had a transcendant experience of what the Native Americans call Rolling Thunder.    I felt a total the connection to the universe  I was part of the trees and the fire and all that was.  It wasn’t a quick flash, it was a transformation at a cellular level that shifted the very fabric of my being.     

 I knew that in some way I had to play an active part in restoring harmony, not just to nature but to all  mankind.  

Harmonic Emergence – pathfinding humanity

That was nearly 22 years ago.      Today I see what I call the emergence of humans.  It has been a tough road, but the numbers are ever increasing as people wake up to what has to happen for the earth to survive and to ensure the continuation not just of the mankind but of all living things.

And there are many, like me, who have their dreams and receive guidance to follow a path.     And all of us are playing our part, appealing with our wordsay and song to different people calling the lost children to come home just as we are bringing ourselves home. 

Finding our way back home

We are all lost children in some way and we are all seeking to find our way home.    We are on this journey to manifest the wonder of our genetic keycodes and to play our part in harmonising and restoring balance to the Earth.

 My dream is to help people find their place in the world by inviting them into close communion with Ma.      And like all dreams the HOW’s are only revealed as we take the next step.

Pathfinder Camping

I recognised that one of my ’how’s' is to call people into the woods, to spend time communing and living with the Earth, harnessing the natural elements, foraging, building fire, chopping wood and carrying water. 

Just Camping Weekends

Every full moon we run pot luck just camping events that we call H.E.R.E. gatherings.  We invite people to come camp with us in the groves and hidden spots that we have discovered in the forest.   It is an opportunity to commune not just with the earth but with like minded spirits. There is no charge for participation and we only ask you to contribute food and your energy to the group.

My wife, Sunny,  and I run intimate workshops, camping in the forest, experiencing working with others to build something from nothing, harnessing the elements, chopping wood, carrying water, building fire, foraging and eating simply.  

In this 5-day workshop we facilitate people to examine their life and their patterns, in the nurturing and profound atmosphere of the forest.   We share our experiences round the camp fire in circle talk.  We build a sweat lodge together and participate in the sweat ceremony.  Individual assignments and explorations help this emergence.  We also offer opportunities to get involved in crafting and repurposing art from junk.

The workshops are held on the GA/TN Borders.

The Earth can Save YOU

There is a lot of talk about saving the planet, but few recognize that the Earth wants to save us.  In benefiting from her nurturing presence, we learn what she likes and how to treat her tenderly and with love.

Ma is here to save us because we are an intrinsic part of her existence.  She is here to teach us that when we focus not on self, but on doing the right thing for the entire system, we will survive.    

Ma is here to help us find that which was lost and restore life to a natural harmonic balance.     Time is running out and we must act now and follow our dreams.

I am my dream and my life work is to help people save themselves by returning to earth.

With love and respect
Pierre Soleil

Harmonic Emergence – Return to Earth H.E.R.E.

http://www.panoramio.com/user/2861230  Photos of the Hallowed forests we roam

© 2009, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes