Greetings friends and permaculture enthusiasts -

I am writing to invite your participation in a nation-wide campaign called Food Forests Across America! - initiated by Erik Ohlsen. (See his article posted on Permaculture Research Institute's site. http://permaculture.org.au/2009/01/26/food-forests-across-america.

Join the campaign for local food security and learn how you can help to transform gardens, lawns, parks, and empty spaces into thriving edible landscapes that are beautiful, regenerative, and produce an abundance of delicious, locally grown food!  We can create intentional systems that provide for our needs and the needs of the earth by mirroring natural ecologies in our designs.  

What is a Food Forest Garden?

A Food Forest describes an intentionally cultivated forest that mimics the native ecosystem.  In designing a food forest, we observe the community of plants in the forest.  The home Food Forest reflects these observations by applying plants that function similar to the native plants but have a higher yield, are more palatable, or useful in some way to the designer.  Food Forests can offer an incredible abundance while stewarding the landscape in a good way. 

Imagine a forest where every single tree is dripping with fresh fruits and ripening nuts. Every shrub is packed with delicious berries, and every other plant is a medicinal herb, culinary spice, or beautiful edible flower. Tubers and root crops are abundant underfoot, gourmet mushroom logs sprout in the shade, and hardy kiwi vines climb back up through the layers of this multi-functional forest of food. 

Food forests are diverse gardens modeled after natural ecosystems designed to mimic the way a forest thrives and regenerates. A forest continuously nourishing all elements in the system and produce a vast diversity of outputs, but requires little or no inputs to sustain itself. By recognizing the self-supporting, mutually beneficial relationships of the elements in a forest - from tall trees, smaller trees, shrubs, herbs, ground covers, vines, nitrogen fixers, insectaries, fungi, animals, and more, the food forest garden designs a similar system but replaces the components that are in a common forest with species that are preferred edibles and more useful for humans. The forest then becomes a Garden of Eden, in which edible or useful plants are found from head to toe, where something in season is always ready to eat, and the system requires little or no maintenance to sustain and regenerate. As a food forest mimics the ecology found in native forests, they are fantastic examples of good soil and land stewardship.

Food Forests Across America!\

on Visionary Culture Radio!

Monday April 6th, 8:00 pm PST

Call In :: 646-649-1957

Or Log In or Listen :: www.visionarycultureradio.com

Tune into Visionary Culture Radio with Laura Fox on Monday for a show on Food Forests Across America with special guest permaculture teachers from the east to west coasts of the U.S.

Special Guests Include:

Erik Ohlsen - Founder & Director - Permaculture Earth Artisans

Ethan Roland - Founder & Director - AppleSeed Permaculture

Marisha Auerbach - Founder & Director - Herb 'n Wisdom

Max Meyers - Director - Mendocino Ecological Learning Center

Jay Ma - Co-Founder, Director of Programs & Development - Living Mandala

John Valenzuela - Veteran Permaculture Designer, Educator & Consultant

Where Can I Learn About Forest Gardens?

We recommend the books-

Edible Forest Gardens, by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier, http://www.edibleforestgardens.com

Forest Gardening by Robert Hart

How to Make a Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield

Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally by Robert Kourik

Roots Demystified by Robert Kourik

- Food Forests Across America posted at the Permaculture Research Institute: .http://permaculture.org.au/2009/01/26/food-forests-across-america

- Forest Gardening Blog - started by Ethan Roland:  http://forestgardenimmersion.blogspot.com/

- Garden of Eden: Permaculture Revolution published in Greenlifestyles by Jay Ma

- 300 year Old Food Forest in Vietnam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ZgzwoQ-ao

as well as Permaculture resources, practices, and philosophies.

The best way is to learn how to design and install a Food Forest Garden is by taking a hands-on course.

To learn more about such offerings, check out www.livingmandala.com

or catalyse a Food Forest workshop in your own bioregion!

In the local Olympia area, Terra Commons has many opportunities to learn about and work in forest gardens, check out: http://www.oly-wa.us/Terra/

All are invite to join in the Food Forest at the Wild Thyme Farm. Please contact Marisha Auerbach to schedule: queenbee@herbnwisdom.com or (360) 273-7117