Growing a food forest is one of the best things you can do to take control of your future and be sure that you have an abundant supply of food for your family.
It can also be a sanctuary that you can go to relax and unwind from the stresses of modern life.
But getting started can be daunting.
So I'll break it down into simple steps and give you examples of what others have done, so you can see what's possible.
Set Your Goals
The first step in any project is to visualize what you want the end product to look like.
If you don't have a vision for your food forest, then you'll waste your time building a project that doesn't meet your needs.
…and time is the only thing that you cannot get back.
So start with the end in mind.
Here are the most common reasons to start a food forest.
- Supplement part of your diet with clean food
- Replace most of your food needs
- Generate an income
- Create a community project to feed many people
- Build a resource to educate yourself and future generations
Reflect on what's most important to you.
Each goal has a different set of considerations, so it's vital that you define what you want early on in the process.
If it's important for you to grow a lot of food for your family or your community, then you'll look for plants that produce a lot of food and are foods that you actually want to eat.
Starting a business requires that you grow food that will sell well and has a reasonable profit margin. You might want to focus more on herbs than on fruits and vegetables. Selling decorative plants like flowers might also be something to consider.
Now if you just want to build an educational project, then you might focus more on growing a wider variety of plants. Some of those plants may not be food producing. Maybe you care more about plants that look good, or are easy for kids to maintain.
Everyone will have a slightly different mix of goals for their food forest.
Write down what's important to you and that will make the rest of your decisions much easier.
Understand Your Geography
Starting a food forest is much easier when you understand which plants will grow well in your area.
Just because you want to eat watermelons, does not mean that they will actually grow.
Although you may eventually be able to get more exotic plants to grow, you'll first need to establish your food forest. The plants that grow the fastest will be best suited to your geography.
There are 2 ways to find out which plants will grow well in your area:
- Do online research
- Walk your local area
Do Online Research
The best place to start with your plant selection is to find out what types of plants will grow in your area.
If you live in the US, take a look at the plant hardiness map. When you know your zone, you can look on the back of seed packets to find out if the plant is likely to grow in your area.
There might be similar maps for other parts of the world.
Even if you don't have this type of information available, you can simply start by learning about what grows in your area.
Do an online search for…
“[your location] food plants”
Then expand your search to include other related ideas.
When researching these plants, be sure to look at several pictures of each plant.
Learn how to positively identify them and find out if there are any lookalike plants that might be poisonous.
But don't stop with what grows in your area.
Also look for plants that grow in other geographic areas that have a similar climate.
Make a list of what you want in your food forest.
Doing your research online first will give you a great background for the next step.
Once you find a few plants that you want to grow, it's time to see what's actually growing.
Take a Walk in Nature
Now that you know a little about the plants that can grow in your area, it's time to get out of the house and make some real world observations.
There are some things about plants that are really hard to learn online.
For example, are there any plants that grow well together?
A common combination that gardeners use is squash, corn and beans. Each plant helps the others grow, and in turn, they all grow faster than they would alone.
Also look at the characteristics of the land where the healthiest plants are growing.
What kind of soil are these plants growing in?
How much water do these plants get?
Is there a particular type of landscape that these plants do well in?
What else do you notice?
Take your phone with you and take some pictures. Also keep a notebook handy and take extensive notes.
You might discover new plants to identify and symbiotic relationships that nobody has shared online.
Then talk to local farmers and visit nurseries to see what others are growing. You'll learn a ton by talking to people who have been growing for a long time.
Once you have some academic and practical knowledge of the plants that grow in your area, it's time to start designing.
Design Your Food Forest
Now it's time for the fun part.
You're going to create the blueprint for your food forest.
Luckily, there are many tools out there that can help you with your design.
They have the added benefit of being able to create your design to scale, so you'll know exactly how the components of your food forest will fit together.
Here are a few great tools to start with.
Get to Work
Alright, now that you have a great plan, it's time to get to work.
It can be tempting to try and set everything up before you start planting, but it's usually best to build incrementally.
Do the minimum amount of work you need to do to get a section of your food forest up and running, with room to expand into the full vision for your property.
Once you get one part running, it's easier to get the next part working.
Otherwise, it can be easy to get stuck in the building phase forever and not have anything to show for it.
When a small part of your food forest is producing food, it will also inspire you to keep going and expand your project.
Setup the Infrastructure
The first step is to setup your infrastructure.
This is the foundation on which everything is built, so it's important that you get the primary systems up and running before you get to the actual planting.
Here's a simple outline of what to focus on.
Start with your water structures.
Water is going to be the most important element in getting your plants to grow, so you need to be able to deliver water consistently before planting.
That means setting up your storage tanks or water storage ponds and watering system.
Also run irrigation pipes or tubes. Installation is much easier when there are no plants in the way.
Start Planting
After you've setup a minimum amount of infrastructure, it's finally time to start planting.
The plants you grow first will depend on where you live.
If you live in a hot, sunny climate, it's important to have shade trees to help protect other plants from getting too much sun.
In more temperate areas, what you plant first doesn't matter as much.
Start with what you're most excited about, and expand from there.
Examples of Food Forests
Learning the concepts is great, but it's inspiring to see what's possible. So here are a couple of examples to show you what others have done.
This couple created a thriving 2 acre food forest on land that nobody wanted.
Their food forest has been going for over 23 years and is truly amazing.
You might not believe that this next video was recorded in Arizona.
But it goes to show that if you do it right, you can grow a food forest almost anywhere.
This food forest only requires 1/3 of an acre.
What's Next?
Once you have your food forest up and running, it's all about maintenance, refinement and potential expansion.
You can do things like learn how to keep birds away from your fruit trees without harming them, or build more high-quality soil.
You might want to start raising worms to create your own fertilizer.
There are so many skills that you can learn.
Keep an eye out opportunties to learn useful skills that you consider fun.
How Much Land Do You Need for a Food Forest?
If you want to know how much land you need for a food forest, it's important to understand what's worked for others.
This family is able to feed 4 people on 1/10 of an acre of land (4,356 sq. ft.), on a typical suburban property near Los Angeles.
They produce about 6,000 pounds of food a year and are able to sell the excess for an extra $20,000 per year in income.
When you divide 4,356 square feet by 4 people, you get 1,089 square feet per person.
Based on this real world example, they need 1,089 square feet to grow enough food for 1 person, for a year.
This takes into account some excess in case some crops get wiped out or there is a low yield in a particular year.
So if you have more people to feed, you would simply multiply the number of people by 1,089 square feet to get the approximate size of property you would need for your food forest.
Can You Turn Your Back Yard Into a Food Forest?
Yes.
The amount of food that you can produce will obviously depend on how much room you have and how much sunlight your back yard gets.
If you don't have ideal conditions, consider setting up a greenhouse or using some artificial lights.
Having a food forest doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have a lot of large trees.
Your food forest could consist of smaller trees, shrubs or large plants.
Also consider turning your front yard into a food forest.
Having a beautifully manicured lawn looks great, but serves no practical purpose.
Why not use the same water and fertilizer that you use on the lawn to grow food?
In this example, they were able to produce so much food in their front yard that they could sell the extras.
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Food Forest?
There are a lot of variables that go into the cost of a food forest.
To make things easy, I'll show you the cost of a very basic food forest that anyone with a small plot of land could start.
The lowest cost food forest would assume that you already have a plot of land that you can use to get started. This could be your back yard, or a piece of land that you have access to.
Let's say that you have a single family home with a small back yard.
In the US, that would mean that your back yard is about 1,600 square feet (~150 square meters).
Furthermore, I'll assume that you get all your seeds from friends, or from fruits/vegetables that you buy at the farmers market.
You can also get basic materials like rocks, soil and scrap wood for building on Craigslist or Freecycle for free.
Tree disposal companies will usually give you wood chips for mulch.
So most of your basic materials can be free.
From there, you would potentially want to buy tools, equipment for watering and fertilizer.
You might also want to buy a few young trees so you don't have to start entirely from scratch.
Here are a few examples of current pricing for things that you might want to buy.
- Basic gardening tools, including a shovel, trowel, rake, hoe, hand rake and gloves: $110
- 100 feet of tubing for irrigation: $10
- Irrigation pump: $100
- Nectarine tree (2 years old): $50
- Worm castings for fertilizer (5 pound bag): $20
- Watering can: $20
Again, you might be able to get some of these things at thrift stores, garage sales or on Craigslist, for a lower price.
But if you want to save time, buying them brand new is the way to go.
In this scenario, expect to spend a minimum of $500 to $2,000 to start your first food forest.
Now if you want to go bigger, there's no limit to the amount of money you could spend.
But starting small will allow you to learn and make small mistakes.
Once you have confidence in your skills, you can start expanding.
Final Thoughts
Starting a food forest is a huge step towards becoming more self-reliant and reducing what you spend on food.
It can also be a great way to relax and spend more time with your family.
The best part is that you can start a food forest on any piece of land, for a relatively small amount of money.
When you have your own food forest, you'll know exactly where your food comes from and you'll have a say in how your food is grown.
So if you have some land available and you want to take more control of your future, a food forest is one of the most impactful projects you can start.
Don't worry if you've never done this before.
Learn from your mistakes and move forward.
…and above all else, have fun in the process!
