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An edible paradise where you can harvest all year round.
A food forest is a human-designed ecosystem inspired by an ordinary forest (edge) or savannah system. We use larger planting distances between trees so that enough sunlight can enter.
The food forest is composed of several layers and consists mainly of a polyculture (different species mixed together).
The main proportion of plants consists of perennials and woody plants, so you have as little maintenance as possible and as much production as possible.
Food production plays a very important role and, of course, the aim is also to strengthen biodiversity.
A top-food forest consists of thirteen layers:
1. standard trees
2. semi standard
3. large shrubs
4. dwarf trees
5. small berry bushes
6. perennials
7. annuals
8. ground cover plants
9. tuberous and bulbous plants
10. mushrooms
11. vines
12. animals
13. aquatic flora and fauna
Many people say this is only after seven years. That’s when you don’t have a good design 🙂 A well-designed food forest allows you to harvest from year one.
Over the years, you will have different plants that will bear fruit each time. In the first years, these are mainly annuals, shrubs and dward trees. After a while, semi-standard and standard trees.
We start the season with delicious honeyberries, cherries raspberries, cherries, plums.
Then we have tayberries, currants, apricots, nectarines, black currants, figs, blueberries and apples. You usually have the jostaberry, blackberry, pear and mulberry around mid-July.
Mid-summer, in August you have the kiwi berry, buckthorn, Japanese wine berry, loganberry and the pawpaw or prairie banana. Towards the end of summer, you have the grape and goji.
As autumn approaches, we get to have hazelnuts, walnuts, chestnuts almonds and quinces.
We finish the season with medlars, persimmons and kiwis. We get through the winter thanks to storage apples, storage pears and processed products.
This is just the list of fruits. There are also mushrooms, annuals, tuberous and bulbous plants, possibly animal products and many edible leaves.
Most of the food we eat comes from annual production. This means that every year a seed has to be sown, the soil is disturbed and the plant dies.
Food forests turn the actual way of food production upside down. You plant a food tree or shrub just once and you can harvest it for several decades. The soil does not need to be disturbed, so soil life can go on its course without disturbance.
Food forests can be implemented in a very wide range of environments. A food forest (edge) can be created in a garden, there are also therapeutic food forests. They are very popular in company gardens and in playgrounds.
Food forests can also play an important role in agriculture. It is challenging but possible to develop a thriving agricultural business with food forest production at its core.
Food forest Bed&Breakfast
Food forests are the holy trinity: agriculture, nature and experience come together. It is the melting pot of these different elements that makes this type of agriculture so valuable.
Our desire to help the world is very much in our genes, so we are looking for a sustainable way to continue to do so. People, planet, profit can be applied to food forests. The permaculture ethics state this as: people care, earth care and fair share.
Developing a sustainable business model to create, maintain and run a successful food forest is perfectly possible. The game is about finding the right balance between the capacities of the team, assessment of the target audience, efficiency and ecology.
“A food forest is probably the ultimate form of farming”
Fruit, nuts, vegetables that can be transformed, eaten and sold.
There is nothing like walking together hand in hand through an edible paradise.
Your hands will connect you with nature, making you feel relaxed and calm.
A lot of people are looking for a way to both help the world and make a living out of it.
Long tables with tasty and local food among the trees. A venue to celebrate important events
People are attracted to a place like this, where like-minded people come together to connect and have fun.
We organise a workshop to analyse the strengths and opportunities of the project, then we create a master plan.
If needed, we can help to define branding and marketing, and also with developing a business plan if needed.
