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Converting a Perennial Garden Into a Food Forest

Food Forest

I had learned from sages that to evolve, to be a person that progresses is a worthwhile journey to be on. Even if not progressing in a straight, linear line, even if through loops and slides, just being a seeker, a striver and sometimes a struggler is exactly what will bring us the best results.

As in life, so it is in the garden. I tried many ways and styles of gardening and I have evolved over the years as a gardener. What I love most about gardening is that It can change so much from year to year.

In previous posts I explained how my journey led me to permaculture and how I enjoyed transforming my space into a food forest garden. I had planted and tended a beautiful perennial garden, with lots of condition challenges but still with many successes. When I decided to turn this garden into a 7 layered food forest with a heavy and diverse production of food, I thought I was sacrificing the beauty of the perennial garden in all its blooms, textures and structure. I intended to get rid of most perennials and shrubs and I gradually did. Would I need to compromise blooms? How about beauty? Are blooms even needed in a food forest?

Blooms, of course do provide services to food production: they draw pollinators, emit scent, draw beneficial insects, and repel harmful ones. Plants that bloom increase photosynthesis which sends sugars as root exudates into the soil and promotes soil biology. They increase root mass, keep soil from eroding and increase water infiltration in the soil. Some of the flowers are even edible!

Blooms that give service are blooms that delight! Blooms that are simply for beauty can co exist with the food forest design as well. They are important, in my opinion simply to keep us, the centre element of the design, happy and balanced. While so, we might find these flowers to be indicators for the right time to do a garden task, such as the famous and helpful adage that says “when forsythia is in bloom it is time to prune the roses”. Or you can use showy flowers for cutting and making bouquets. As long as we make the most use of our gardens, I think we are on the right track!

My goal is to have blooms from as early as possible in spring to as late as possibly. I will be winter-sowing many flowering plants this coming January (two months from now). I am into planting indigenous perennials so most of them are native wildflowers. In this post I will show you the blooms we had so far in the food forest, month by month. A few are remnants from the perennial garden. I have hundreds of pictures. I will choose two or three pictures from each month and hope that this blog will allow me to upload them. Expect updates for sure 🙂

I want to encourage you to try new things, think of new exciting ways to enjoy your garden and enrich your life.

See you in the garden!

Sharona

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Urban Food Forest

We hope you intend on having a garden that you long to lay your eyes on, receive its energy when you walk through it and sense its vigor. A garden that looks interesting as it changes throughout the seasons and offers new combinations and beauty. These are all goals that should guide a garden design. But, can there be any more treasures hidden in a garden? 

What about if year after year you can walk through its paths and forage perennial fruits that no longer require any inputs except for occasional pruning perhaps. All you really need is a bowl in hand or some freezer bags to keep your harvest, which is a nutritional bonus for your health and taste buds, it supplies you with vitamins, minerals and plenty antioxidants and gives you opportunity to supplement your food. 

You can wake up in the morning, stretch and head out to forage your breakfast, snacks and even dinner: Asparagus, strawberries, French Sorrel and chives through the month of June, various raspberries, juicy sweet gooseberries, currants, cherries, blueberries and abundance of tasty serviceberries in July. Elderberries, plums, apricots and peaches in august. Seaberries, apples and pears in September. Persimmons and pawpaws in October. Garlic chives, tarragon, Thyme and oregano cover the ground in abundance and rhubarb reliably provides fresh red stalks for your springtime pies. 

Companion plants work hard in various ways to feed the soil for your food producing plants and deter insects away from them. Some, by their flowers, draw pollinators to pollinate the forest garden and transform flowers into fruit. 

Planting beds for annual crops thrive among the trees and shrubs and grow every goodness your heart desires. 

In the evening, shortly before the sun goes down, as hot summer days have cooled, you head out into your forest garden one more time for some forest immersion. You see how moist and lush it is after a storm and you admire your trees growth. One more taste of berries or a bowl for an after-supper snack, some herbal leaves for tea and you bid your forest farewell for the night. 

You have space for a garden? Why not plant a garden that you can eat? Is growing a climbing perennial on a pergola or an arbour in your plan? Why not plant a fruiting vine such as grapes or hardy kiwi? There are hardy kiwi vines of great ornamental value as well. Why not incorporate a serviceberry shrub into your foundation planting, which gives a beautiful display of flowers in spring, abundance of red to deep purple berries in summer and brilliant orange and red foliage in the fall? 

We have accumulated experience with growing an urban back yard forest garden in the Niagara Region and will be happy to draw from our experience with food crops and landscape design to create for you a food forest garden that is beautiful, resilient, and full of abundance and will change the way you experience nature at home and nourish your family. 

Resilience, plant health, human health and environmental health are all highlighted in this type of garden. If this speaks to you, contact us and we can discuss different ways to get this garden going. 

Interested customers can tour our own food forest to get ideas and perspective.