Food forests

Food forests are all the rage, and they have many homeowners digging up their lawns to plant micro-farms in the back yard. But, what is a food forest, and how do you start one? A

Diagram I originally made for the Oikos print catalog, but which Ken wasn't interested in including, showing the main layers of a multidimensional forest garden ecosystem.

A food forest is a low-maintenance, sustainable system that mimics a natural forest ecosystem, with layers of plants that work together.

group plants together for specific reasons, encourage them to spread into permanent, self-managing landscapes

Get ready to create your own seven-layer forest garden! Food forests are life-filled places that provide habitat for wildlife and food for humans.

In a forest, the plants collaborate. They take turns blooming, share space, distribute different nutrients and succeed each other over generations.

Permaculture, regenerative agriculture, forest gardening, sustainable home restoration, community organizing, edible landscaping: Pathways to plenty.

How we started building our cold climate food forest

This backyard food forest hosts a diverse planting of fruit trees and berries, with a mixed-species meadow understory to support pollinators and repair soil. Here's what we did.

So you want to design and plant a food forest. But which type of food forest is right for you? Click and find out which type is right for you.