As we get ready to start our email series on forest gardening basics in mid-February, I wanted to serve up a few appetizers.

The Permaculture design process starts from patterns and moves to details, so to get familar with what food forests are about and more importantly, what they look and feel like, here are 3 really fantastic videos featuring cold-climate forest gardens. They’re each about 15 minutes long and well worth the time.

Martin Crawford’s Forest Garden

This video features one of the oldest temperate forest gardens in the world, possibly the oldest that was designed and created as a forest garden instead of being adapted later from a more conventional garden or orchard. Martin Crawford is the author of many fantastic books on forest gardening and the publisher of Agroforestry News.

 

Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute forest garden.

Another early example from a dryer climate than we have in the Great Lakes region.

 

The Avis’ zone 3 micro-food forest.

This video from Calgary Canada shows what’s possible on a VERY small urban r suburban yard. The first video features the forest garden, while the rest shows other design features from their very cold climate. Many of these features aren’t necessary in the Great Lakes region, but the forest garden’s a good example of how to make good use of small spaces.

 

If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to leave me a comment.