the forest garden

©2007 mark laurence

design note no. 3011

subject:	forest gardening
problem:	All human landscapes need to be natural and productive

We have established in design note “2011: trees & man” that we have a special relationship with trees, and that when we lose that relationship, civilisations decline and disappear.

problem:

The twin problems of global warming and energy decline mean that we face grave difficulties: a hotter, more hostile environment with erratic weather, less rainfall and water available, energy shortages as the world's oil supplies start running out and food shortages as intensive agriculture fails us. Mass starvation and migration, chaos and disorder will result unless we do something fast.

solution:

There are a number of issues to solving this problem: national agriculture and international trade, and local agriculture and community/individual food production. Soon (I'd say by 2010) it will not be economically viable to fly fresh produce around the world, and you cannot ship it because it takes too long. Therefore much of our agriculture will have to revert to supplying local demand, because this is most energy efficient. With an average 10:1 ratio of energy input/output (calorific values) modern farming is grossly inefficient and this will soon become uneconomic as energy prices continue to rise as demand outstrips the diminishing supply. Much of this is because of our insistence of eating meat, which is the most inefficient of all agriculture, especially when we can eat the crops that are grown to feed cattle. Nutritionally, western diets are overloaded with protein, fats and sugars, so moving towards a vegetarian diet will become a necessity, as well as healthier for us. Some meat will still be produced, as well as diary and this should be combined with agroforestry.

On a personal level, most people will have some involvement in producing their own food, much as we did during the war. Many people are recognising the benefits of organic home produced veg and this will be a crucial part of future food security. Moreover, far more could be made of gardens and communal landscape by utilising these spaces as edible landscapes or forest gardens.

A forest garden simply mimics the natural order of growth that covers much of the landmass as “ecological climax”. Wherever woodlands and forest grow (if man didn't interfere) then there we can grow forest gardens. There are up to seven different layers identified within a forest garden, each with it's own cropping potential.

Exploiting each of these layers to the full means the maximum of return in a given space. Small areas, however, might not manage to incorporate all these layers, especially the “upper canopy” layer, which equates to large trees such as walnut or sweet chestnut. It is quite possible to grow such trees trained on appropriate rootstocks into smaller forms, in which case they form the lower canopy.

Forest gardens would be unlikely to substitute for well stocked organic vegetable beds and I believe the two are complimentary, not exclusive. We need the widest range of local food that is possible and forest gardens can form the basis of all ornamental landscape. Think about this when you buy a new shrub for your garden - choose one that has edible fruit or nuts! See edible shrubs for a few examples.

With their potential to feed and cloth us, keep us warm and give us shelter, heal the Earth and restore harmony, forest gardens are the new (and probably the old) gardens of Eden. We have come so far, now we should return to our roots.

You may wish to read the following design note 2016: trees and man
and articles: edible landscapes and edible shrubs.