In 2008 after reading Dave Jackes’ books on creating forest gardens we became inspired to the same on Vajra Farm. When our property was purchased by its previous owner it was comprised of about 50% field and woodland in mid-phase succession toward a forested landscape. The old fields were being invaded by shrubs, cedars and small trees. After we built our home and moved onto the land in 2000 we began to intervene in the process by restoring prairie where cropland existed 25 years before.

By 2008 we had established vegetable gardens, herb gardens, vineyards and a healing garden. It was time to start thinking about a greater diversity of crops and greater food production. The idea of a polyculture forest garden system that once planted and established would support itself with little intervention from me the farmer and produce an abundance of fruit, nuts and forage sounded fantastic. But could it be done? In my way of thinking, life is a process of becoming, an opportunity for creating something unique.

In the summer of 2008 I started making maps and diagrams for a vision of a series of forest gardens. To the north of our new home was about 1 acre of a 5 acre area that was neglected in my early years on the farm. It was wild, full of young trees, shrubs, thorny vines and cedars. This was to be my place of experimentation. I reckoned that I could clear out the brush and vines where one might plant some pecan, large nut oaks, hickories and chestnut trees. So that year I planted a few chestnuts and shellbark hickories on the margin of the cedar and dogwood thicket and a strip of prairie. These trees survived the winter to leaf out in the spring.

Encouraged, I planned to get more organized and aggressive with a plan to create a food forest. In the fall of 2009 I applied for a USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) farmer/rancher grant to help fund the creation of forest gardens as training sites. To my surprise we were awarded the grant, and I immediately began planning two garden projects. On Vajra Farm I called for a community crop mob. This is a concept where members of the community participate in a rotating farm help program, much like the Amish tradition. In June 2010 about six folks came out to the farm to cut the brush with shears and hand saws, using the chop and drop method. In this way most of the vegetative debris was left in place to decompose into soil. That summer I continued cutting brush, and with help of a couple of our farm apprentices, stacked branches and small trees that we cut into a series of woody berms to impede the flow of surface water across the forest floor. We then began planting sapling chestnut, pecan, chinquapin oak and pawpaw trees. We ringed the trees with poultry wire and mulched them with wood chips. Following tree planting we began planting nitrogen fixing species, including a ground cover of red clover and plantings of Russian pea shrub, wild senna, autumn olive, and chuckling vetch. All the planted species were watered weekly or as needed into the fall and mulched in preparation for winter.

In the spring with some of the funds from the SARE grant, we plan to plant more fruit trees, including Asian pear, disease tolerant apples, cherries, plums, apricots and peaches. This project will be on-going in the years to come with planting of more nitrogen fixing species and the cultivation of tree guilds of supporting perennial fruiting shrubs and herb. Our horizon forest garden layout is shown in figure 3. Representing over 25 edible species so far.

Want to learn more about Permaculture Design?  Take the 2011 Spring Permaculture Design Certification Course