The Real Know How

Forest Garden 411

Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust talks about the Forest Garden he planted at Schumacher College, Dartington, South Devon, United Kingdom over 14 years ago.

Forest gardening is an interesting (and new to me) concept – that in temperate climates uses a young forest as a model. Martin explains that in conventional farming/gardening we use a lot of energy just to keep the land from going to back to the wild state it wants to get back to. Using the forest model, he says that very little energy goes into that kind of policing and so forest gardening ends up being much more low-maintenance than other forms of farming.

Forest gardens allow you to grow a mix of food and medicinal plants (for example, nut trees, fruit trees, herbs, vegetables, etc.). He says you may grow up to 200 species of plants in any one forest garden.

Here is a closer look at a food forest garden planted by Robert Hart in the UK.