Growing a Food Forest – Trees, Shrubs, & Perennials That’ll Feed Ya!: The Hungry Garden, #5

By Rosefiend Cordell

Unlock the Secrets of a Bountiful Food Forest!

Are you ready to embark on an extraordinary journey into the world of sustainable, self-sufficient gardening? Look no further than "Growing a Food Forest: Trees, Shrubs, and Perennials That'll Feed Ya!" This groundbreaking book is your ticket to designing a lush food paradise that will provide fresh, healthy nourishment for years to come.

Embrace the Organic Gardening Renaissance: Transport yourself back to the golden age of the 1960s and 1970s organic gardening movement. With a relaxed approach to permaculture and gardening ethics, this book rejuvenates the spirit of natural systems and guides you towards creating your very own food forest sanctuary.

Nurturing Nature's Bounty: From soil preparation and improvement to selecting the perfect edible native plants for your region, you'll gain the knowledge and confidence to design and cultivate a thriving food forest. Explore the secrets of building and maintaining soil health using perennial wonders, propagate plants, and seamlessly integrate annual crops into your system.

A Cornucopia of Perennial Delights: Delve into detailed profiles of an abundance of perennial crops, including apples, stone fruits, pawpaws, shrubs, and brambles. Uncover the ideal varieties for your food forest, with insights into cultural requirements, common pests and diseases, and expert tips on proper plant care to ensure a harvest of abundance.

Cultivate with Confidence: Whether you're an experienced gardener or just beginning your green-thumb journey, "Growing a Food Forest" is your ultimate companion. This comprehensive resource equips you with the knowledge and techniques to create a sustainable, low-maintenance food source. Embrace gardening made easier and more productive than ever before, and savor the fruits of your labor for years to come.

Plant the Seeds of Change Today: Don't wait another moment to transform your gardening dreams into a reality. Order your copy of "Growing a Food Forest" and embark on a remarkable journey towards self-sufficiency. Discover the joy of cultivating your own nourishing paradise and feast on the abundance of your very own food forest! 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosefiend Publishing
• Release date: Jul 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781953196637

Rosefiend Cordell

This is the gardening pen name for Melinda R. Cordell. Former city horticulturist, rose garden potentate, greenhouse manager, perennials factotum, landscape designer, and small-time naturalist. I've been working in horticulture in one way or another since 1989. These days I write gardening books because my body makes cartoon noises when I move, and I really like air-conditioning. Good times!

Book preview

GROWING A FOOD FOREST

GROWING A FOOD FOREST

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Trees, Shrubs, & Perennials That’ll Feed Ya!

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The Hungry Garden series #5

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Rosefiend Cordell

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Rosefiend Publishing.

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GROWING A FOOD FOREST: TREES, SHRUBS, & PERENNIALS THAT’LL FEED YA!

Copyright © July 2023 by Rosefiend Cordell, aka Melinda R. Cordell

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Rosefiend Publishing. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, alien transfer, ESP, or other – without written permission from the publisher. And we already know about your attempts at ESP, so watch it.

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge at proof time. Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in the book was correct at press time, the author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any part for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from sheer cussedness, the Name Game, getting orientated at work, genealogical overload, the raccoon mafia, redneck mayhem, eating an apple and getting a little apple bit between your teeth and then not having dental floss handy so you’re picking at it for the rest of the day but you can’t get it, baby chick overload, chilblains, a pop-up Monster Truck Derby!!!!, ennui, Sartre, postmodernists, modern post-postmodernists, antidisestablishmentarianism, when you’re workin’ the night shift and you forgot the Mountain Dew, random penguins, or any other cause.

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Ordering information: For details, contact the publisher at [e-mail]

Cover design by Melinda R. Cordell

Evil Empire ISBN:

D2D ISBN: 9781953196637

First Edition: July 2023

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For more information (and books!), visit my website at https://melindacordell.com/

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The Hungry Garden Series

Big Yields, Little Pots – Container Gardening for the Creative Gardener

Book 1

Edible Landscaping – Foodscaping and Permaculture for Urban Gardeners

Book 2

Beneficial and Pest Insects – The Good, the Bad, and the Hungry

Book 3

Indoor Gardening – Growing Herbs, Greens, & Vegetables Under Lights

Book 4

Growing a Food Forest – Trees, Shrubs, & Perennials That’ll Feed Ya!

Book 5

FORTHCOMING BOOKS!

Survival Rations! – Foraging for Greens, Mushrooms, Berries, & Nuts

Book 6

Wildscaping – Using Native Food Plants to Create an Ecologically-Friendly Garden

Book 7

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

UNDERSTANDING AGROFORESTRY

Forest Gardening History (Kind Of)

GETTING STARTED

Why Do You Want a Food Forest?

Avoid Analysis Paralysis

Site Selection and Assessment

General Considerations

Special Considerations for Arid Areas

City Codes, Neighbors, & HOAs

CREATING A LOW-MAINTENANCE FOOD FOREST

No-Till Gardening

Strategic Total Utter Neglect

LEARNIN’ ABOUT FORESTS!

The Layers of the Forest

Guilds: Building Diversity in Your Forest

Ephemerals

The Importance of Diversity to a Thriving Ecosystem

MICROFORESTS

What is a Miyawaki Forest?

Orchard Growers Love This One Simple Trick!

Applying Miyawaki’s Ideas to Your Food Forest

Enhancing an Already-Existing Forest

Assessing What Your Forest Has to Offer

The Forest’s Edge: Where Sun & Shadow Meet

Heavy Shade

Windbreaks

Creating Sun Traps in Your Food Forest

DESIGNING YOUR FOOD FOREST

CREATING THE LANDSCAPE PLANS

Wild vs. Manicured: Discovering Your Style

Designing for Water, Landscape, and Access

Use Weeds to Understand Your Terrain

Harnessing the Power of Swales

PLANNING YOUR FOOD FOREST: THE PLANTS

Choosing the Best Edible Plants for Your Region

Native Plants vs. Non-Native Plants

Sharing the Space with Wildlife

PLANTING AND ESTABLISHING YOUR FOOD FOREST

The Logistics of Landscape Installation

Preparing the Garden for Planting

Planting Techniques for

Taproots and Lateral Roots

The Importance of Digging a Good Hole

MAINTENANCE FOR A THRIVING FOOD FOREST

Essential Watering Strategies

Maintaining Soil Health and Fertility

Pruning and Thinning Techniques

Pest and Disease Management

Succession Plantings for Continuous Harvests

Pollination

PLANT PROFILES FOR YOUR FOOD FOREST

Fruit Trees

Apples

Mulberries

Pawpaws

Nut Trees

Chinquapins and Chestnuts

Shrubs

Brambles

Roses

Perennials

Perennial Roots and Tubers

Annuals

Integration of Annual Crops

Carrots

Radishes

Herbs and Medicinal Plants

Wild Greens

Mushrooms

FREEZING AND DRYING

BOOK 6 OF THE HUNGRY GARDEN SERIES

OTHER BOOKS IN THE HUNGRY GARDEN SERIES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

When I was a kid, I spent so much time in the forests around Nodaway, Missouri, where I grew up. I liked all wild spaces – I still do – and would spend many hours exploring the hills and floodplain. When I was older I would walk out to the Missouri River and watch it roll by. Sometimes the Missouri River would come to us, which is a whole ‘nother story.

But the forests around my tiny town were my favorite places to explore. I loved looking for wildflowers. I could always find Dutchman’s breeches growing alongside trout lilies. Mayapples and pawpaw trees also were congenial companions. I’ve never managed to find a ripe mayapple fruit – the animals always beat me to them – but I could find ripe pawpaws in late fall, after the frost. I tried making pawpaw bread one time, using a recipe I found in the Missouri Conservationist magazine, but I didn’t cook it long enough, so it was soggy in the middle.

There always seemed to be something to snack on, out in the woods. Mulberry trees dropped tons of purple fruits in June, or whitish-purple fruits if you found a white mulberry tree. Raspberries would show up in early July, much to my everlasting delight. Blackberries came later, but I avoided these because these brambles would lunge at your with knives. But in August, I could find dewberries growing along the ground – a nice, docile bramble with tasty berries, and I always wanted to find more.

Early in spring fern fronds would pop up with morel mushrooms – half the people in Missouri make a mad dash for the forests during morel season – then oyster mushrooms and other varieties. Wild strawberries spread everywhere, along with wild grapes in fall. Jerusalem artichokes – a type of sunflower with edible tubers – grew in the old cemetery at the top of the hill. Hickory and walnut trees grew up everywhere. Occasionally I’d find a persimmon tree, but I never could pick a properly ripe persimmon. They were always astringent and turned my mouth inside-out.

I thought that the Native Americans who used to live here had a pretty good deal, with all this food growing in the forest. I imagined that they had grown food in the forest at one time, using what was already available. They’d cut back the plants that were surrounding the food plants, and they could propagate and grow more food and medicinal plants to support the people who lived there or were moving through.

Now, years later, I realize that these crops had been planted, encouraged, and raised by the Native people who lived on this land for millennia,