"Buxqi" > wrote in message ...
On Mar 9, 8:53 pm, "pearl" > wrote:
> "pearl" > wrote in ...
> Look up my post on "Forest Gardening".
It's an intruiging idea. Where can I buy the produce of
forest gardening? Could any of the products reasonably
become dietary staples like grain or beans?
----
Read this:
http://www.simondale.net/house/context.htm .
-----
> There are other,
> sustainable eco- and wildlife-friendly ways we can produce
> food for ourselves. It doesn't have to be this "us or them".
A given amount of land can produce a finite amount of food
and all animals, human and nonhuman need to eat.....
-----------------
'SEVEN STOREYS OF ABUNDANCE; A VISIT TO
ROBERT HART'S FOREST GARDEN
Following the Permaculture Design Course run by 'Naturewise'
in the Spring 1997, a group of graduates decided to visit what
has been described as possibly the only fully developed working
Permaculture site in the UK, Robert Hart's Forest Garden.
Situated at Wenlock Edge on the Welsh borders, Robert began
the project over thirty years ago with the intention of providing a
healthy and therapuetic environment for himself and his brother
Lacon, born with severe learning disabilities.
Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Robert soon
discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing
livestock and taking care of an orchard were tasks beyond their
strength. However, he also observed that a small bed of perennial
vegetables and herbs they had planted up was looking after itself
with little or no intervention. Furthermore, these plants provided
interesting and unusual additions to the diet, as well as seeming to
promote health and vigour in both body and mind.
Noting the maxim of Hippocrates to "make food your medicine
and medicine your food", Robert adopted a vegan, 90% raw food
diet. He also began to examine the interactions and relationships
that take place between plants in natural systems, particularly in
woodland, the climax eco-system of a cool temperate region such
as the British Isles. This led him to evolve the concept of the
'Forest Garden': Based on the observation that the natural forest
can be divided into distinct layers or 'storeys', he developed an
existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible landscape
consisting of seven dimensions;
I) A 'canopy' layer consisting of the original mature fruit trees.
2) A 'low-tree' layer of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing
root stocks.
3) A 'shrub layer' of fruit bushes such as currants and berries.
4) A 'herbaceous layer' of perennial vegetables and herbs.
5) A 'ground cover' layer of edible plants that spread horizontally.
6) A 'rhizosphere' or 'underground' dimension of plants grown
for their roots and tubers.
7) A vertical 'layer' of vines and climbers.
[illustration -
The Forest Garden: A Seven Level Beneficial Guild
1. Canopy (large fruit and nut trees)
2. Low tree layer (dwarf fruit trees)
3. Shrub layer (currants and berries)
4. Herbaceous (comfreys, beets, herbs)
5. Rhizosphere (root vegetables)
6. Soil surface (ground cover, eg. strawberry, etc)
7. Vertical layer (climbers, vines) ]
Stepping into the Forest Garden is like entering another world.
All around is lushness and abundance, a sharp contrast to the
dust bowl aridity of the surrounding prairie farmed fields and
farmlands. At first the sheer profusion of growth is bewildering,
like entering a wild wood. We're not used to productive
landscapes appearing so disorderly. But it doesn't take long for
the true harmony of nature's systems to reveal themselves, and
the realisation sinks in that in fact it is the Agribiz monocultures,
with their heavy machinery, genetic manipulation, erosion, high
water inputs, pesticides and fertilisers which are in a total state of
maintained chaos. Whereas hectares of land may produce bushel
after bushel of but one crop, genetically degraded and totally
vulnerable to ever more virulent strains of pest and disease without
the dubious protection of massive chemical inputs, just an eighth
of an acre of a garden such as Robert's can output a tremendous
variety of yields. Whilst too early in the year for the apples, plums
and pears beginning to swell in the trees, we were surrounded by
gluts of black, red and whitecurrants, gooseberries, raspberries
and loganberries; as well as a profusion of saladings such as
sorrel, lovage, tree-onions, wild garlic, borage, lemon balm and
many other herbs.
Foraging a meal for the nine of us was an extremely enjoyable
task, not like work at all. Robert, a gentle and erudite man, yet
possessed of a great clarity of purpose, joined us for our
campfire feast. As we sat and chatted into the evening he
explained his motivations and hopes for the future. Of his plans
to expand the original Forest Garden, and his dream of a network
of such gardens covering not only Britain but the world, bringing
an abundance of natural food, and healing to both peoplekind
and the planet. He spoke of his philosophical inspiration by
figures as diverse as John Seymour, Ghandi, Kropotkin and
Kagawa; of the antecedents of the Forest Garden such as the
'home gardens' of Kerala, where most of the land is covered
with productive trees; and later sang us songs that he used to
share with his late brother Lacon, including those of murdered
Chilean land and human rights campaigner Victor Jara.
This was a magical evening, an illustration that perhaps the
primary forces within the Forest Garden are of spirituality and
peace. Whilst being highly productive of nuts, fruits, fresh
perennial vegetables and medicinal herbs, the most important
yield of this place is the reminder that there is much more to
how we find sustenance as human beings than what we
consume, than looking at our sources of nourishment purely
in terms of net tonnes per hectare. The forest garden is an idea
whose time has come.
"Obviously, few of us are in a position to restore the forests..
But tens of millions of us have gardens, or access to open
spaces such as industrial wastelands, where trees can be planted.
and if full advantage can be taken of the potentialities that are
available even in heavily built up areas, new 'city forests' can
arise..." (Robert A.de J.Hart)
GRAHAM BURNETT
Taken from VOHAN News International, issue 2, available
from 'Anandavan
http://www.spiralseed.co.uk/forestgarden/page2.html