The logical conclusion of all the principles covered in Gaia's Garden (Gaia’s Garden) is the expression of a food forest. As we learned early on in the book, the natural state of the planet is to become forest (Let nature guide your garden success) - given enough water and sunlight, of course.

So it makes sense that the natural state of a garden designed to imitate and piggy-back on the forces of nature (align with nature for thriving gardens) would also be a forest.

A simple way to think of how to design a food forest is to think of it as macro level guilds - each area of the food forest is a guild (Mimicking forests with permaculture guilds) surrounding a tree. In fact, you can think of a food forest as a series of guilds that are propped up by a backbone of trees.

By first creating a skeleton of trees to frame what the food forest will become, you not only create guidance of what to plant where (mimicking communities), but you also increase the vertical space of your garden. The seven layers of a forest (Seven Layers Make a Forest Garden Thrive) is only possible if you have trees tall enough to create a canopy layer in the first place.

Citations

• Mimicking forests with permaculture guilds

#permaculture #toolong