Focus on... Forest gardening

Want harmonious harvests from sustainable plots? Lucy explains how to create crops that grow really well together a united front of fascinating low-maintenance

- Lucy Chamberlain

FRUIT and vegetable gardens don’t need to consist of regimental rows of crops with bare earth in between. Imagine walking through a small woodland glade plucking nuts, berries and herbs – that’s the essence of forest gardening and it sounds pretty heavenly to me.

Forest gardening is a low maintenance, plant-based agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables.

The concept of this growing method evolved in millennia past alongside the ecosystem, but the idea of using it as a way to cultivate crops was pioneered by Robert Hart in the 1970s, and Martin Crawford since the 1990s. It’s a low -impact, organic method that looks towards the dynamics of a forest to utilise numerous growing ‘zones’. These zones include tall upper tree canopies, understorey groundcover and a collection of areas in between (see my checklist on page 20). Once established, the effort to maintain a forest garden is minimal – very little irrigation, fertilisers or human intervention is needed. And no, you don’t need much space for a forest garden, either.

learning about layers

Plants are carefully selected to coexist in harmony. Nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs (alder and elaeagnus), plus deep-rooted crops, such as comfrey and horseradish, help to draw nutrients into the leaf litter layer – these are then slowly broken down and utilised by conventional crops such as currants, raspberries and blackberries.