Food Forest Story

By Emilyn Linden

I’ve been working through a lot of thoughts about the world and my place in it over the last couple of years. This has been happening since before Covid, but I had a lot more time to think, research and plan during Covid than I usually do. And while all of our experience of COVID was global as we took in the news and saw others keeping busy while isolating, it was also deeply local as the only safe place to be for quite awhile was in our own homes and outside in our yards and nearby parks. We then heard amazing stories during the initial lockdown of scientists being able to measure such things as birdsong in the absence of human noise and drastically decreased air pollution in major cities in just weeks.

During Covid my family didn’t experience any food insecurity, but it was definitely on my radar more than it normally is because of supply chain issues. I started doing some more serious reading and then some more serious gardening (like everyone and their mother that first summer of COVID) and I during the course of my reading over the first year of COVID I became more interested in permaculture since I kept encountering it in gardening books and in my reading about climate change. For those who are unfamiliar, permaculture is a design system, but the word is a mashup of the words permanent and culture or permanent and agriculture depending on who you ask. 

Anyway, I read a bunch of books, I watched a bunch of youtube videos and I started making lists and plans for how I wanted to grow more food and invite more wildlife into our space. Then I started mulching. I also roped my spouse and child into the mulching. And we’re still not done expanding the mulched areas. Although we do still have a VERY large pile of mulch sitting at the end of our driveway. 

It wasn’t until the second summer of COVID in July that I decided to go all in on transforming the majority of our land into a forest garden. The gardeners listening right now know that July’s not a great time to be establishing new plantings. And those who are familiar with permaculture know that you’re often encouraged to observe and spend time preparing to plant for up to a year before you actually do (again with the mulching). I then spent the fall and winter of 2021 planning and ordering for planting starting in spring of 2022. I did the same thing this past winter since we started out with about ½ an acre of lawn. We still have a ways to go. But that just means I get to buy more plants.

Permaculture food forests and gardens focus on whole-systems thinking. When a person designs a permaculture system, there are twelve guiding principles, from produce no waste (by valuing and using the resources you have) to design from patterns to details (by observing patterns you see around you and using those broad patterns in your design and then going back and adding in the details) to an emphasis on slow small solutions (since they’re usually easier to construct and maintain and often are more sustainable). These principles are meant to help people identify and incorporate the details as well as the big picture in their design.  

Confession time: I am not the best gardener. Some years I get peppers, some years I don’t. This is the first year I’ve actually gotten a harvest of peas after trying them for the last 3 or 4 years. Don’t get me wrong. I see this as my gardening practice. And like any good practice, I do it because I enjoy it and I’m always learning something new. Years like this year are discouraging, though, and according to climate scientists dry summers and wet winters are likely our norm going forward so I’m always looking for ways to increase the resilience of my garden. Permaculture plays a huge role there since it places such an emphasis on observation and working with what you have, with a particular emphasis on nutrient and water inputs, to put in place those slow, small solutions. Like mulch.

Most permaculturists put a much greater focus on gardening with perennials than many food gardeners which definitely appeals to me. Many of my favorite plants are perennials and I find that as long as I can keep a perennial alive for a few months, it will keep itself alive after that. This is especially true of our native perennials as long as I choose the right spot for them initially. From purple coneflowers to gooseberries to rhubarb, perennials are some pretty amazing and resilient plants. And people in the know about climate change are also advocating for more of an emphasis on perennial food crops. 

Perennials have much deeper root systems than annuals since they store all their resources and energy in their roots over the winter and then grow back up from their roots in the spring (at least in the case of tender perennials a la rhubarb). As weather patterns and rainfall become less predictable, having more perennial crops will become increasingly important since they’re more drought tolerant. 

Not only will we need to grow more perennial crops, we’ll also need to diversify the foods we eat since more and more often some crops will fail every year. Food forests are specifically designed with diversity in mind. Sections of a permaculture garden are usually designed around something called a guild. The plants in a guild are selected to support each other, mimicking the types of companions we would see in nature. So you might plant a fruit tree, say a plum, with plants under it to attract pollinators, like bee balm, to be cut down to create mulch, like rhubarb, to stop grass from encroaching, this could be an onion since they have bulbs, and finally a trap crop to attract insects that would attack the fruit tree, like radishes. Plantings are generally placed close together to reduce water loss and like my example, include plants of varying heights and root systems. This is only my second year of establishing our food forest (remember, I’m practicing and I really got started on this during COVID), so right now I have lots of mulch piles with little plants dotted in that should grow up to fill the space (similar to what we have out front in the GBAUUF food forest).

There are different emphases people place on what they’re trying to accomplish in their permaculture spaces, as with all gardens. Some people are trying to grow the most food they can in the space they have, some put an emphasis on the beauty of their gardens, and some, like me, are trying to create a welcoming space for local wildlife as well as food for their family.

In addition to my permaculture reading over the last few years, I read Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy. Tallamy is a professor, ecologist, and science communicator who evangelizes about the importance of planting plants native to an area in order to support local ecosystems. His work has had a big influence on the plants I’m including (or not including) in my food forest.

I don’t think it will come as a surprise to most of you, but we’re currently losing species at a terrifying rate. There are 30% fewer birds now than there were in the 1970s and habitat destruction…continues. There’s not a lot I can do about those facts in my day to day life, but what I can do is steward my ½ acre to be a welcoming oasis for my local native fauna. Living right now can be discouraging, but I find joy, peace, comfort, and hope in making my land welcoming to our native wildlife.

Tallamy’s research focuses on keystone species and how the native plants and animals of an area have co-evolved to support each other in their life cycles. I know I learned about a lot of these concepts when talking about plants and animals in far away places like the rainforest and savannah in school, but either we didn’t talk about it as much or, very likely, it didn’t stick that those same relationships exist in every place I’ve ever lived. And the forests of Wisconsin and the plains of Iowa support SO MUCH life it’s simply amazing. The monoculture crops and grazing land of Wisconsin and Iowa, not so much, though, at least how agriculture has been practiced since the introduction of synthetic fertilizers and the heavy use of pesticides.  

I know you’ve all learned about the relationship between milkweed and monarch caterpillars due to the extensive work done by monarch enthusiasts. Milkweed and monarchs are FAR from the only species that have that sort of special relationship, though. Plants in the Quercus genus (the oaks) have over 400 caterpillar species that use them as a host plant. Prunus like the American plum and chokecherry have nearly 350 species that use them as hosts. For the goldenrods, it’s 104 and for the asters, it’s 100.

If you want hummingbird clearwing, also known as hummingbird moth, in your yard, you need viburnum.  If you want spicebush swallowtail butterfly, you need a spicebush, for a zebra swallowtail, it’s pawpaw. But this is also where planting a food forest can come in! There are a couple of different native viburnum species, like highbush cranberry and nannyberry that have berries that are edible for us (and for the birds). The tender young branches of spicebush in spring can be stewed to make a delicious tea and the fall berries can be dried and ground and used in place of allspice. And pawpaw is our largest native fruit! I still haven’t been able to try one since they’re not shelf stable once picked, but I’ll let you know in 3 to 5 years whether they’re worth the wait.

Making sure you’re planting a diversity of native plants means you get a diversity of native insects! And then you get a diversity of birds ready to come feast on your insects! But you also have to make sure you expect and acknowledge that you’re not just stewarding your land for you. When you’re inviting caterpillars into your garden, then you’ll see the signs of those caterpillars. They’ll munch on your leaves and leave behind frass. But if you want butterflies, you have to have caterpillars first. I’ve started to think of it as, if I’m the only one planting a particular food for wildlife in my area, then I should expect the wildlife to eat my plants, although I still cage plants to keep the rabbits away or lots of plants would never have the opportunity to get established at all. They go after the asters like nobody’s business.

Not only are moths and butterflies specialists, roughly a third of bees are, too! They have formed special relationships with a plant or a group of similar plants, so if we want our native bees to survive, we have to provide the flowers they need, too.

Now Tallamy has big ambitions for homeowners and businesses in the United States. We’ve destroyed A LOT of habitat for buildings and roads and farming, but we’ve also destroyed a lot of it for LAWNS. By Tallamy (and his grad student’s) calculations, we will be able to create 20 million acres of native plantings if half of privately-owned lawns are converted into native plant habitat (and we all embrace the outside looking wilder). This means eradicating invasives from our private land (including Kentucky bluegrass, which is not from Kentucky).

And I haven’t even gotten into some of the best parts of the changes I’ve been talking about today. Not only will you be watering your garden less when you plant native perennials or a perennial food forest, not only will you see more butterflies and birds visiting your garden when you plant native, you’ll also be helping with groundwater infiltration and carbon sequestration! Areas that are planted with native plants (and mulched) have much greater groundwater infiltration and water holding capacity. One saying you hear a lot in permaculture is “slow it, spread it, sink it” referring to the goal with water. We’re all going to have to get better at this with drier summers. And as for carbon sequestration, plants put a lot of carbon into the ground building out their root systems. We can also create soil with all our mulching, and soil is a GREAT holder of carbon. You also won’t need to mow if you don’t have a lawn which means you won’t be using gas in your mower. Win win!

While I don’t think we’re going to see the types of drastic improvements in our environment that we saw under lockdown happen overnight, slow, small solutions like putting in a native garden bed and reducing your lawn footprint, taking out an invasive barberry and putting in a couple fruit bushes or trees for yourself and for the birds can make a significant difference to you and to the wildlife who live near you. 

I still definitely have a lot of climate anxiety. It’s pretty much impossible not to these days. But what I and my family are doing in our garden is part of what helps me feel like I’m being the best ancestor I can be. It’s helped me slow down and notice the insects living on my land and the birds who drop by to use our bird baths. It’s enriched my life in ways I didn’t think it was going to and made my garden a place where I want to spend time in a way I just didn’t when all we had was lawn. I know I annoy some of my neighbors, but hopefully they get over it.