Food forests

Food forest gardening is a fantastic way to grow edible crops where nature can do most of the work. The design mimics a young natural forest, with a wide diversity of crops that remain productive for years in growth layers of different heights.

The term 'food forest' often conjures up images of a natural, densely wooded forest, but this is not the case: while the growing conditions of a young natural forest are simulated in a food forest, the canopy layer (regardless of its height) is designed to allow sufficient light through in most places for what grows beneath it.

A wide diversity of crops grows in layers of different heights. The crops are chosen based on the functions they fulfill, including providing food for humans, animals, and soil, as a windbreak, but also as a source of coppice wood, weaving material, dyes, etc. Unlike conventional annual food cultivation, the majority of crops are perennial.
In a well-designed food forest, natural processes can unfold optimally. The need for soil inversion, weeding, or pest control is therefore minimal. A healthy and resilient system is formed, in which soil life recovers and soil fertility is maintained. It is nourishing and beneficial as a natural habitat for people, birds, insects, and other animals, and also a delight for all senses.

The Practical Handbook of Food Forests contains everything you need to know, whether you want to create a small forest garden in your backyard or develop a food forest on a large plot of land. According to Martin Crawford, for a 'true' food forest, with trees over 10m high in the highest growth layer, you need at least approx. 1000m2. With less land, you can omit this growth layer and the canopy will consist of lower trees; you will then have to spend more energy on pest control and maintenance.
With over twenty years of experience in his 0.8-hectare food forest, Martin Crawford provides insight into the important aspects for understanding this complex self-sustaining system.

To name a few: working with crops of diverse heights, working primarily with perennial crops (in contrast to conventional annual food cultivation), ensuring that as few external fertilization sources as possible are needed, ensuring that there are sufficient food sources throughout the growing season for birds, insects, and small animals that can act as pest controllers, ensuring that the design is such that everything reinforces each other as much as possible, and as little maintenance as possible is required.
Once you understand the coherence between all the aspects discussed in the book, you will have sufficient starting points to observe the relevant terrain and can then give your own unique interpretation to your design.

The book includes advice on planning, design, planting, and maintenance, a large number of lists, and plant descriptions of over 450 trees, shrubs, perennials, groundcovers, root crops, climbers, and annuals, almost all edible and a (high-quality) enrichment of the menu with numerous unknown flavors.

ISBN 978 90 77463 35 2
Hardcover full colour bound edition, index.
384 pages