[Ccpg] Food Forest Across America

[Marisha Auerbach]

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<http://www.permacultureartisans.com/>

Ethan Roland - *Founder & Director* - AppleSeed
Permaculture<http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/>

Marisha Auerbach - *Founder & Directo*r - Herb 'n
Wisdom<http://www.herbnwisdom.com/>

Max Meyers - *Director* - Mendocino Ecological Learning
Center<http://www.melc.us/>

Jay Ma - *Co-Founder, Director of Programs & Development* - Living
Mandala<http://www.livingmandala.com/>

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/>
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 at herbnwisdom.com or (360)
273-7117


-- 
Herb'n Wisdom
Queen Bee Flower Essences
www.herbnwisdom.com
www.wildthymefarm.com

"...the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to
production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of
us do this, there is enough for everyone.

Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on
the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food
and shelter." - Bill Mollison
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