Welcome to the Urban Food Forest

This is a safe space where I talk about my ongoing journey into building a food forest in small garden. I also delve into other food forest adjacent categories, like plant breeding, plant domestication, plant history and stories.

How small?

I’m talking about areas like ten by ten metres, or less.

Food forest?

When people ask me what a food forest is, I usually give a semi-accurate explanation: imagine a forest, but where most things are edible - the canopy, the shrubs and the plants growing down near the ground. Keeping a food forest, or agroforestry, is by no means a new idea, but rather an ancient practice (think Amazonians from prehistory and others) in a modern disguise. My inspirations include Martin Crawford over at Agroforestry Research Trust, Keith St. Jean over at Canadian Permaculture Legacy, Ken Fern and co at Plants For a Future charity, the late Gordon Hillman and many others. I will create a dedicated post with more resources at a later date.

Why are you doing this?

I decided to start this newsletter because I found a dearth of resources in this area. When people talk about food forests, they generally have at least an appreciable fraction of an acre (about four thousand square metres) to play with. If they do mention small food forests, it is usually in passing - maybe a smattering of plants and small tree suggestions - I thought I could do better.

But why are you really doing this?

I guess my deeper motivation is to connect with an audience who either is already on my side, or I can persuade towards this different way of gardening.

I find agroforestry very therapeutic. There is a great sense of achievement in replicating a small patch of forest in your back garden, and then wandering into it alone (or with guests). Guests inevitably point at a plant and ask, “can you eat that” and I love to reply “yes, here’s how”. Food forests, I believe, are very sustainable with relatively low inputs compared to conventional forms. If they’re designed well, then you have beautiful feedback loops - the decaying leaf litter from a Nitrogen fixing tree being dragged into the soil by earthworms to nourish a neighbouring fruit tree, the wide leaves of a mineral accumulating plant being placed around another to both feed it in decay and smother the growth of unwanted weeds. Food forests are full of this kind of synergistic beauty, and I love to talk about it.

What content will you post?

There will be a mixture of longer prose pieces that describe the why of my journey into agroforestry (like how I got to where I am so far), and shorter pieces that focus on smaller areas (like a specific plant or a specific challenge).

Can I subscribe?

Certainly. Please subscribe, that way the emails make it straight to your inbox.

How do I get in touch?

You can reply to posts on this newsletter, or reach out to me on various social media sites: https://linktr.ee/foodforestadventurer

Looking forward to hear from you!