Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops - Hardcover

Martin Crawford

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1900322625 ISBN 13: 9781900322621

Publisher: Green Books, 2010

Synopsis

Filled with helpful tips and beautiful photographs, this guide contains everything you need to create your own forest garden.

Forest Gardening, or agroforestry, is a way of growing edible crops while allowing nature to do most of the work. Species are chosen for their beneficial effects on each other, creating a healthy system that maintains its own fertility, with little need for digging, weeding or pest control. The result of this largely perennial planting is a tranquil, beautiful and productive space, where you can cultivate your own fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms and even forage firewood and honey.

Whether in a small back garden or in a larger plot, forest gardens really benefit the environment and are also a viable solution to the challenge of a changing climate. The soil thrives from being covered with plants all year round and is also able to store more water after heavy rains, minimising flooding and erosion and helping plants to survive through drought. Forest gardens also store carbon dioxide in the soil and in the woody biomass of the trees and shrubs. The mixed variety of plants further boosts the health of the ecosystem by ensuring a balance of predators and beneficial insects.

Creating a Forest Garden is a bible for permaculture and forest gardening, with practical advice on how to create a forest garden, from planning and design to planting and maintenance. It includes a detailed directory of over 500 trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, annuals, root crops and climbers. As well as more familiar plants such as fig and apple trees, blackcurrants and rosemary shrubs, you can grow your own chokeberries, goji berries, yams, heartnuts, bamboo shoots and buffalo currants.

Grow a forest garden with this handy guide and become more self-sufficient while also enjoying the natural beauty and environmental benefits of these wonderful green spaces.

About this title

About the Author

Martin Crawford has worked in organic agriculture and horticulture for many years. He is director of the Agroforestry Research Trust, a charity that researches temperate agroforestry and all aspects of plant cropping and uses, with a focus on tree, shrub and perennial crops.

From the Back Cover

Forest gardening is a novel way of growing edible crops - with nature doing most of the work for you. A forest garden is modelled on young natural woodland, with a wide range of crops grown in different vertical layers. Unlike in a conventional garden, there is little need for digging, weeding or pest control. Species are carefully chosen for their beneficial effects on each other, creating a healthy system that maintains its own fertility.
Creating a Forest Garden tells you everything you need to know, whether you want to plant a small area in your back garden or develop a larger plot. It includes advice on planning, design (using permaculture principles), planting and maintenance, and a detailed directory of over 500 trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, annuals, root crops and climbers - almost all of them edible and many very unusual.
As well as more familiar plants you can grow your own chokeberries, goji berries, yams, heartnuts, bamboo shoots and buffalo currants - while creating a beautiful space that has great environmental benefits. In the light of our changing climate it is important that we find new ways of growing food sustainably, without compromising soil health, food quality or biodiversity. Forest gardening offers an exciting solution to the challenge.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Creating a Forest Garden

Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops

By Martin Crawford

Green Books Ltd

Copyright © 2012 Martin Crawford
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-900322-62-1

Contents

Foreword by Rob Hopkins, 
Introduction, 
Part 1: How forest gardens work, 
1. Forest gardens, 
2. Forest garden features and products, 
3. The effects of climate change, 
4. Natives and exotics, 
5. Emulating forest conditions, 
6. Fertility in forest gardens, 
Part 2: Designing your forest garden, 
7. Ground preparation and planting, 
8. Growing your own plants, 
9. First design steps, 
10. Designing wind protection, 
11. Canopy species, 
12. Designing the canopy layer, 
13. Shrub species, 
14. Designing the shrub layer, 
15. Herbaceous perennial and ground-cover species, 
16. Designing the perennial/ground-cover layer, 
17. Annuals, biennials and climbers, 
18. Designing with annuals, biennials and climbers, 
Part 3: Extra design elements and maintenance, 
19. Clearings, 
20. Paths, 
21. Fungi in forest gardens, 
22. Harvesting and preserving, 
23. Maintenance, 
24. Ongoing tasks, 
Glossary, 
Appendix 1: Propagation tables, 
Appendix 2: Trees and shrubs for hedging and fencing, 
Appendix 3: Plants to attract beneficial insects and bees, 
Appendix 4: Edible crops by month of use, 
Resources: Useful organisations, suppliers and publications, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Forest gardens

What is a forest garden?

A forest garden is a garden modelled on the structure of young natural woodland, utilising plants of direct and indirect benefit to people – often edible plants. It may contain large trees, small trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials, herbs, annuals, root crops and climbers, all planted in such a way as to maximise positive interactions and minimise negative interactions, with fertility maintained largely or wholly by the plants themselves.

The plants in a forest garden are mainly perennial, which gives the system its long-term nature. Many of the plants used are multipurpose; they may have a main function or crop but will very often also have a number of other uses. Plants are also mixed to a large degree, so there are few large blocks or areas of a single species, and each species is grown close to many others in ways that are mutually beneficial.

A forest garden is in fact a carefully designed and maintained ecosystem of useful plants (and perhaps animals too). The self-fertilising nature comes from the use of nitrogen-fixing plants and other plants that are particularly good at raising nutrients from the subsoil, and from the very efficient nutrient cycling that develops in a forest-like system. The soil is maintained in peak condition by being covered by plants at most times, and garden health is boosted by the use of plants that attract predators of likely pests, and plants that reduce disease problems. Diversity is important too: high diversity almost always increases ecosystem health.

The term 'forest garden' may imply something large and extensive, which is not necessarily the case – forest gardens can be cultivated on any scale, from a small back garden to a field, or several fields. 'Woodland garden' can sometimes be the same thing. Unfortunately, in our culture, 'forest' or 'woodland' implies a denser, darker collection of trees, which is not the case in a forest garden, as you'll see.

Although the history of forest gardens in the UK and North America is short – fo

Edition details

• Publisher: Green Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1900322625
• ISBN 13: 9781900322621
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384