Manual for Creating a Community Food Forest on Public Land
Community Projects, Food Forests — by Andy Cambeis January 23, 2013
Community — Food Forest — Public Land — Cluster model , by Andy Cambeis and Alexa Forbes
Creating a Food Forest on public land in New Zealand (or probably anywhere) is quite possible and I have documented my experiences of creating a food forest at Hawea Flat in Otago to help anyone else who’d like to give it a go. The manual is now freely available and I hope people will add to it and build on the information that’s there so that we can see soon food forests on public land throughout New Zealand. The manual shows how to go about getting permission to use public land, figuring out funding and charitable models, communicating with the local community as well as the ‘gardening’ side of working out what to plant and how to overcome site issues.
Eaglemont Project Matures (Australia)
Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Trees, Urban Projects — by Dan Palmer
During the Christmas break VEG’s Dan & family paid a social call to customers-become-friends Julian & Linda in Eaglemont, Victoria, Australia. We documented the large-scale design and implementation project we completed for Julian & Linda last year (see the design and during photos here and some shots of where it was all at about 10 months ago here).
The place is maturing beautifully and we took a few happy snaps of the back and front yards.
The topshelf VEG bed with flowers and grapes growing up over
the trellised pergola is looking particularly lovely
Food from Perennial(ising) Plants in Temperate Climate Australia, for November 2012
Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Trees — by Susan Kwong January 19, 2013
This is the third monthly post for the research project about perennial plants and perennialising annual plants providing food in temperate climate Australia — we have now completed the posts for Spring 2012. The original article introducing this project, stating its aims, and providing participant instructions, can be found here. Growers are sending me information on a month-by-month basis, then this information is collated and published the following month. The first monthly posts can be found by clicking on my author name (Susan Kwong), just under the post title above.
Comments (9)Fernglade Farm – Mid Summer (January) 2013 Update
Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Irrigation, Regional Water Cycle, Trees — by Chris McLeod January 15, 2013
What a difference six weeks has made to the food forest here! The change in climate between cool and wet to hot and dry happened in less than a week during early October and since that time there has been no significant rainfall. The rain probably won’t fall here now until about April based on past experience and records.
The abrupt change surprised me and I took a while to come to accept that the climate had altered here that quickly, but after this realisation I undertook to heavily mulch all 300+ fruit trees. The purpose of this is to keep the plants’ root systems cool and reduce the evaporation of ground water. The mulch does have the adverse effect of scavenging nitrogen from the top soil which causes further stress to the fruit trees, but this is only temporary and the impact is much less than the stress caused by the loss of ground water due to evaporation.
Comments (13)Food Forests, Part 7: Watering and Soil Food
Conservation, Food Forests, Irrigation, Plant Systems, Trees — by Chris McLeod January 14, 2013
Someone remarked to me yesterday that the fruit trees in the food forests here at the farm must require an extensive irrigation system. But, in fact, the fruit trees in the food forest here have to survive on rainwater alone, as I only have enough water for the vegetables and herbs.
Comments (4)A Permaculture Food Forest in Belgium (video)
Demonstration Sites, Food Forests — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 8, 2013
Video is in French. Click the ‘CC’ icon at bottom of player
to turn on English or Spanish subtitles
I think temperate-climate permaculturists could learn a lot from this couple in Belgium. The video above reports that on only 1800 square metres of land they host “more than 2000 fruit trees and 5000 kinds of vegetables” (sounds impossible, but that’s what they report — although perhaps just a bad translation….) Whatever the number, there is obviously a great deal of diversity on the site, creating a wonderfully rich soil, and a tremendous treasure trove of seeds. What a wonderful example of permaculture!
Comments (9)The Gift of the Maya
Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees — by Albert Bates December 21, 2012
As we approach the winter solstice and the end of one long count and the beginning of another, our understanding of the Mayan world is rapidly being transformed by new knowledge.
The traditional Mayan narrative in western literature is perhaps best exemplified by the writings of Jared Diamond and Joseph Tainter, who ascribe the collapse of the Classic Period to an over-exploitation of resources, and in particular, a deforestation of the lowlands that exacerbated climate swings, leading to extreme drought, fire and famine. Some now-familiar scenes in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto were of lime-quarry workers, dusted head-to-toe in white powder, slaking lime to make renders for buildings and pyramids. These images resonate with our stereotypes of tone-deaf ruling classes directing their work-slaves to perform catastrophically civilization-destructive activity.
There is another story of Mesoamerica that is emerging through the work of biologists, botanists, and ethno-agronomists exploring and attempting to replicate the ancient systems that produced traditional foods. One example now familiar to permaculturists can be seen the chinampas of Xochlimilco, near modern-day Mexico City, which combined urban waste-disposal, canal dredging, and plant and animal production from both aquatic and terrestrial horticultural complexes. The Aztec’s elegantly interconnected system, which was not confined to just that society or to the tropics, produces more food per hectare than any system discovered before or since, and it does it by cooperating with nature.
Comments (2)Practical Plants Database
Animal Forage, Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor December 19, 2012
Fresh onto the interweb is a project that I had on my own things-to-do list for some time now, but this new site may well have saved me the pain. It’s a great new plant database, with over 7400 plant profiles and the very cool ability to drill-down to suitable plants by ticking off what you’re looking for based on the micro-situation of the spot you want to plant in (sun tolerance, water requirements, pH, soil type, etc.).
Being a wiki site, it’s open for everyone to help improve. And, unlike similar databases I’ve seen, this one is permaculture-oriented. As the name suggests, it is profiling ‘practical plants’ — i.e. plants with a use — as opposed to just edible plants.
Take a look around, and let me know your thoughts via comments below. My first impressions are that it’s an excellent start towards creating an extremely valuable resource.
Comments (18)Fernglade Farm – Early Summer (November) 2012 Update (Australia)
Commercial Farm Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Trees — by Chris McLeod December 6, 2012
Writing the article series about Food Forests has made me aware of how much interest there is in them and how they can vary from region to region, but it also highlighted to me just how difficult it may be for people to actually visit a food forest.
However, thanks to the wonders of the internet and YouTube, people have the opportunity to take a virtual tour of a food forest and see how it progresses over time without leaving their chair!
Comments (3)Food from Perennial(ising) Plants in Temperate Climate Australia, for October 2012
Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants — by Susan Kwong November 21, 2012
This is the second monthly post for the research project about perennial plants, and perennialising annual plants, which provide food in temperate climate parts of Australia. The original article introducing this project, stating its aims, and providing participant instructions, can be found here. Growers are sending me information on a month-by-month basis, then this information is collated and published the following month. The first monthly post can be found here.
Grower #2
| Grower # | 2 |
| Latitude | 38.15°S |
| Broad climate information | Mediterranean buffered by maritime influences. No frosts. |
| Brief description of garden/farm | Courtyard, raised beds, mostly shaded in winter, as well as some planters that get winter sun. |
| Botanical name | Lactuca sativa |
| Common name(s) | Sword Leaf lettuce, Pointed Leaf Lettuce, Taiwan Sword Leaf, Orient Sword Leaf, Yu Mai Tsai |
| Parts used for food | Leaves |
| How used | Raw, cooked |
| Notes | |
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How To Survive the Coming Crises (free Geoff Lawton video)
DVDs/Books, Dams, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Swales, Trees, Water Harvesting, peak oil — by Geoff Lawton November 12, 2012
At time of writing, our Zaytuna Farm Video Tour video has had almost 11,000 views, after only six months. A lot of people expressed their appreciation for this video, with some describing it as a "free DVD". Where we can, we want to provide more inspirational/instructional material for free, and today I’m writing to let you know about our latest effort towards fulfilling this goal.
Click here to go to an introductory video titled ‘How to Survive the Coming Crises‘. This is a FREE 34-minute video that looks at:
Comments (5)Planting Days Are Here! (Al Baydha, Saudi Arabia)
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Swales, Trees, Water Harvesting — by Neal Spackman November 9, 2012
This week the project started planting the swales with 1000 very hardy desert trees. The team is working in shifts of laying drip line, digging holes, manuring and mulching swales, putting in compost, planting, mulching again, and then adjusting the drip emitter.
Comments (7)Food Forests, Part 6: Diversity, or Picking a Garden Salad
Biodiversity, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems — by Chris McLeod November 6, 2012
One benefit of a single crop farm is that it isn’t hard to remember what it is that you are growing! Most of that single crop is sown at one point in time, grows at about the same rate and is then harvested at about the same time. 100% too easy, well apart from all of the very real problems created when growing a mono-culture….
Permaculturalists, on the other hand tend to grow poly-cultures which is simply growing a large number and variety of plants at the same time and location.
Poly-cultures in agriculture have a number of benefits including:
Comments (7)Permagardens In Practice: Resilience in Action (Uganda, Africa)
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Conservation, Food Forests, Food Shortages, Irrigation, Land, Rehabilitation, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Swales, Village Development, Water Harvesting — by Stephanie Blennerhassett October 31, 2012
PDCs are tricky. For two weeks we tumble into this community of unfamiliarly familiar, curious strangers. The constant whirlwind of habits, obligations, and distractions that composes our lives momentarily dissipates and we are thrust into this world where our main responsibility is to be open-minded, observe, think, learn, and connect. Yet, at the end of the day, we are singular beings and we all have our lives that we will return to. As PDC participants, we are exposed to this new paradigm together, share bemusement at fractal patterns and individual inspirations, and then suddenly depart the entropy we fell into and hopefully go off with the intent to use permaculture as a framework for making society and the environment more resilient.
However, after I was formally introduced to permaculture, as a nomadic recent college graduate, I was not sure how permaculture could be a tangible part of my life. The fulfillment from a sense of belonging and purpose I experienced during the PDC instilled within me a restless need to contribute to a project and/or community. So, I found myself asking, “Now what?”.
Comments (4)Plant Profile: Passionfruit (Passiflora edulis)
Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial — by Penny Kothe October 24, 2012
This passionfruit was growing in a family vegetable garden setting in Coonamble (western NSW, Australia), in a hot and dry climate with low rainfall, but the garden beds were irrigated by creek water. The vine is growing over a farm fence which has three horizontal wires. Surrounding the vine in the understorey is sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) which has provided a good green mulch and soil cultivator for the surrounding area. The images are taken at the end of Autumn and the crop looks to be coming along nicely.
Plant family: Passifloraceae
Genus: Passiflora
Species: edulis
Common name: Passion Fruit, Passionfruit, Purple Granadilla.
