I’m in the process of establishing a food forest as well. It will eventually be 12 fruit/nut trees. I have 6 currently with comfrey and various herbs underneath. Be sure to get a sterilized comfrey variety :) I’m excited to see it all fill in 3-4 years from now! Little by little!
@@IndyHomestead I have a contrary opinion on the comfrey. The cloned variety will not produce 5eed (I have a broken key ;) ) but it will multiply like mad from the root. The natural variety that produce 5eed actually ha better medicinal propertie . Canada did work re5earching the relative performance due to certain health concern related to alkaloid concentration. Cloned varietie have more of potentially harmful alkaloid. People talk about how "inva ive" comfrey iz, but I'm working hard to get it to grow at all in 6b Michigan.
Wildlife food is always a good option. Shagbark/shellbark hickory are great long term successional trees that your grand kids as well as many habitat will get to enjoy for hundreds of years. Hazelnuts do well in the shadier parts of the garden. As well as papaws, they actually prefer a dense shade. I love what you all are doing here. Excited to get to follow along. I’ll be working on a forest garden myself in zone 6b. We have around 90 different apple/pear varieties in our orchard and We plan to surround them with native wild flowers and flowering shrubs for pollinators.
This is great! I'm working on a food forest using guilds in my front yard in East Central Indiana. I shared a video this summer with 18 plants I've got growing there as of now. I love a lot of ones you mentioned. One good thing is that a lot of them, like the herbs, will just spread and fill in over time. So I feel like we only have to do half the planting work, and let it do the rest itself:-)
Don't put shrub layer under your subcanopy. If your canopy is an n-fixer like alder pruned high then it's ok to plant some apples or so under, but planting berry bushes under apples will get you frustrated when it's picking time. You need space for picking and maintenance. Try Martin's Crowford spacing for this. For instance: you have one canopy 10 ft, second 8 ft so 10+8= 18, 18:2 = 9, then 9:2= 4.5 or 9:4=2.25, so distance between your canopies should be 4.5 or 2.25 ft, depends on your trees/shrub positions toward sun and each other.
Additional things to keep in mind: how large will the fruit/nut trees grow? How long will they live? What pest and disease issues do they have in your area? Also, in terms of the herbaceous layers, do consider what the different plants require and how compatible their needs are. You list watercress in multiple contexts, but it has serious water needs that are not compatible with some of your other choices.
If you can, do your plantings on contour so you can harvest rain/water and snow melt in your climate. You can look into keyline design as well, Yeomann's scale of permanence is awesome for getting a good layout based on water and long term soil health. Really liked your drawings for your fruit trees, what software are you using for illustrations?
I’m in the process of establishing a food forest as well. It will eventually be 12 fruit/nut trees. I have 6 currently with comfrey and various herbs underneath. Be sure to get a sterilized comfrey variety :) I’m excited to see it all fill in 3-4 years from now! Little by little!
Thank you for the tip- hadn't heard that before! Sounds like you have a nice start.
@@IndyHomestead I have a contrary opinion on the comfrey. The cloned variety will not produce 5eed (I have a broken key ;) ) but it will multiply like mad from the root. The natural variety that produce 5eed actually ha better medicinal propertie . Canada did work re5earching the relative performance due to certain health concern related to alkaloid concentration. Cloned varietie have more of potentially harmful alkaloid. People talk about how "inva ive" comfrey iz, but I'm working hard to get it to grow at all in 6b Michigan.
native food forests will feed us all, id love to see yall add some native versions around the border or something!
Plant/Tree Guild is a new topic for me so this has been very informative, Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. It is a very helpful video for beginners like me. Appreciate it.
Love the planning involved! Y'all have taught me tons w/ this video. Glad to see more of this in the Midwest!
Wildlife food is always a good option. Shagbark/shellbark hickory are great long term successional trees that your grand kids as well as many habitat will get to enjoy for hundreds of years. Hazelnuts do well in the shadier parts of the garden. As well as papaws, they actually prefer a dense shade. I love what you all are doing here. Excited to get to follow along. I’ll be working on a forest garden myself in zone 6b. We have around 90 different apple/pear varieties in our orchard and We plan to surround them with native wild flowers and flowering shrubs for pollinators.
This is great! I'm working on a food forest using guilds in my front yard in East Central Indiana. I shared a video this summer with 18 plants I've got growing there as of now. I love a lot of ones you mentioned. One good thing is that a lot of them, like the herbs, will just spread and fill in over time. So I feel like we only have to do half the planting work, and let it do the rest itself:-)
Don't put shrub layer under your subcanopy.
If your canopy is an n-fixer like alder pruned high then it's ok to plant some apples or so under, but planting berry bushes under apples will get you frustrated when it's picking time. You need space for picking and maintenance. Try Martin's Crowford spacing for this. For instance: you have one canopy 10 ft, second 8 ft so 10+8= 18, 18:2 = 9, then 9:2= 4.5 or 9:4=2.25, so distance between your canopies should be 4.5 or 2.25 ft, depends on your trees/shrub positions toward sun and each other.
Additional things to keep in mind: how large will the fruit/nut trees grow? How long will they live? What pest and disease issues do they have in your area? Also, in terms of the herbaceous layers, do consider what the different plants require and how compatible their needs are. You list watercress in multiple contexts, but it has serious water needs that are not compatible with some of your other choices.
If you can, do your plantings on contour so you can harvest rain/water and snow melt in your climate. You can look into keyline design as well, Yeomann's scale of permanence is awesome for getting a good layout based on water and long term soil health. Really liked your drawings for your fruit trees, what software are you using for illustrations?
Thanks for all the great suggestions, we appreciate any feedback! The illustrations are part of Canva, an online digital media producer