How to Start a Food Forest for Beginners

Isn’t every forest a food forest because it can contain food? The term is not as simple as that, but you can start one for yourself. They could help heal your local environment while teaching you so much about food systems in a rural or urban area. Learn what it is, how to start a food forest, and how maintaining one could help reduce your carbon footprint.

What Is a Food Forest?

A food forest is a comprehensive, 3D planting solution. The system strives to replicate natural ecosystems in any natural space by placing edible plants in specific ways. A food forest is also sometimes called a forest garden.

Food forests are constructed in seven layers, each with its specific purpose. The forest should be expansive like conventional ones, with plants extending high into the air, across the land, and into the Earth. Here is what they are and examples of what edible plants you might find there:

• Overstory Tree Layer: The topmost layer of trees that need the most sunlight, which could include nuts and fruit.
• Understory Tree Layer: The section of the tree underneath the overstory, containing smaller nuts and fruits needing only partial sun.
• Shrub Layer: The plants spreading across the ground but remain taller than other smaller plants, which could include berry bushes that are shade-tolerant.
• Herbaceous Layer: The layer with small herbs and perennials, such as mint or asparagus. 
• Root Layer: Also called the rhizosphere, this includes annual plants and root vegetables, like carrots or potatoes. 
• Ground Cover Layer: This is also called the soil layer because it focuses on horizontally growing crops like sorrel.
• Vine Layer: This is the trellis-like layer, which includes many vertically wrapping plants like grapes.

Many food forests incorporate an eighth layer of mushrooms, sometimes called the mycelial layer. Mushrooms provide diverse nutrients and communication systems with food forests, so some deem them indispensable.

Food forests operate most efficiently with this model, but not every iteration includes all layers. So long as the forest contains plants people can eat, and every species supports one another, then the forest is complete enough.

How to Start a Food Forest, a Step-by-Step Tutorial

Do you want to get started on your own food forest project? Here is how to start a food forest.

Step 1: Choose the Species

Research your area to see what plants grow best in your hardiness zone. Ideally, the species should be companion plants, which means they grow best when planted near other companion plants. Also consider the season and your accessibility to certain resources, such as tools and water. Do you have everything you need to support your chosen foods? Then, you can move on to the next step.

Step 2: Choose the Location

You’ll want a nice balance of sunlight, soil, and water for your food forest. Your forest garden doesn’t have to be the size of a national park, but be sure there is enough space for the plants to grow to their fullest potential. 

Scope around the area for quite awhile and observe how much sun exposure it gets and what kind of bugs linger in the area. You may also want to consider getting a soil test and adjusting conditions as necessary.

Step 3: Plan the Layout and Plant

Do you have an idea of what will grow in each layer? Prepare the land. This usually involves a process called sheet mulching, which takes untreated cardboard and putting it on top of mowed grass. This brown waste material will work with the weeds and plants underneath to prepare the soil. 

Layer compost on top of the cardboard until it is half an inch thick. Then, add another layer of organic matter, like grass clippings or dried leaves. Give the area a good watering before adding a final layer of mulch, about two inches thick. The layers are important in delivering the right mixture of nitrogen to what you’ll plant. 

Then, plant them according to your layout. Review measurements as needed, and for ease of access, incorporate pathways.

This seems like a lot of work, so many wonder how long it takes to grow a food forest. It depends on the species, but it could take up to four years for everything to be a decent size and flowering or fruiting.

What Are a Food Forest’s Benefits During Climate Change?

Food scarcity impacts around 2.4 billion people on the planet, where people report moderate to severe insecurity. Food forests are naturally resilient options, even during climate change’s volatility. People need models like food forests to create reliable food sources, even when nature wants to destroy them with floods or high winds. 

When supportive species are near each other, they are more likely to grow strong and resilient against weather stressors. Roots extend further, leaves are better reinforced, and nutrients are in higher concentrations. The soil is better protected, letting restorative microbes flourish and help plants through their growth cycle. This makes for an ideal growing environment when the climate is intensely unpredictable. 

The way food forests mimic natural habitats is visible in how much less labor it requires. The system will need some oversight, but it mostly supports itself. Forests thrive without human intervention because natural processes have formed over countless years to ensure their survival. Self-sufficiency is the name of the game here, with higher yields to show for it. 

Food forests also use fewer natural resources because of this. You shouldn’t need pesticides if native species naturally repel species that harm them and attract pollinators that keep them alive. You’ll have to keep eyes peeled for invasive species and illness, but external help shouldn’t be as necessary as other monoculture corporate farms. They even need less watering because the soil is so strong that it should hold the right amount of moisture for the types of plants that are there.

If you build a food forest, you are building an ecosystem that urbanization and deforestation have tried to eliminate from your community.

How to Start a Food Forest, No Matter Your Skill Level

Forests are not exclusive to remote stretches of land. You can start a food forest in some capacity in numerous places. So long as you have the drive to care for its balance and nutrition, then you could provide something extremely valuable to you and your community.