Food/Cooking, Gardening, Home And Garden, Thrifty

Food Forest Gardening

March 26, 2020 bubblebathselfempowerment

As I’ve been transitioning into the stay-home order here in Washington state, I’ve been doing all the normal things I’d do on my days off from work, but I’ve also been watching a ton of Youtube. Everything I watch on Youtube is something I want to learn – either some new skill or things about my personal life that I want to improve. I also watch news clips of what’s going on with Covid19.

In previous posts I’ve mentioned that I’m growing a vegetable garden this year. I had already planned on this before Covid19, but with all this uncertainty and the world changing I feel it’s a priority. So I’ve been watching gardening on Youtube for inspiration.

Side note: Back when I was married and raising my family, a long time ago, I had what I would describe as a cottage garden. The entire postage stamp yard was planted with flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruit, and I loved it. For a while I even collected seeds from many of the plants and sold them online. I dried herbs for teas and arrangements. I dried flowers for arrangements. I studied herbs and their health properties and treated my and my family’s minor ailments with herbs. I grew asparagus, artichokes and rhubarb which I loved because they came back every year. I grew as many annual vegetables as possible. Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and there was a cherry tree. I froze excess, rather than canned because I felt it more safe. Gardening and my family were the center of my life and it was the most rewarding time of my life.

Anyway, back to Youtube. I came across what was called a food forest and it spiked my interest. It appears that you grow things in the style of a forest, focusing on the soil health before you plant. There’s different height layers (trees, shrubs, herbaceous, ground cover and roots). Planting this way helps the plants grow well naturally as they do in a forest. Apparently, they grow healthier, attract beneficial insects and less maintenance. This is what I am doing!! Especially after seeing the results. I went through a few food forest tours on Youtube and was amazed. A small backyard lawn was turned into pathways and a walk on them shows all the edible plants, everywhere – one area there was a pear tree, blueberry shrub, tomatoes, basil and marigolds – and the entire yard was planted like this with different plants. Dappled sun everywhere. Beautiful, just like you’re walking through a forest, but there’s edibles everywhere!! I’m so excited about this! *Note – if I have described any of the food forest wrong, please pardon me as I have only learned about this last night.

To think of doing my entire yard like this in this season, sounds a little impossible, especially when I have to go back to work. So I’ve decided to do a little at a time and see where that gets me – who knows, maybe the entire yard will be done in this season. Once I get started gardening, I know there’s no stopping me, and this is very exciting to me.

If you’re interested in learning about this, just search for Food Forest on Youtube, or even google it. On Youtube however, you’ll see the results on video which is really inspiring.

Do you know anything about this way of gardening? Any comments, tips or ideas you have on food forests, gardening or anything else you thought of while reading this, please share! I love to hear from you!

~ Monica

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Published by bubblebathselfempowerment

The pandemic brought a lot of awareness to me about climate change, food shortages, how quickly our hospitals could colapse and more. This has sent me on a mission of becoming self-sustainable, empowered and working to help heal the earth. That is what the focus of this blog has become. The main way I'm working at this is through building a food forest and documenting as much as possible in hopes to inspire others. The more of us that do this, the more it will help heal the earth. When we buy produce from the grocery store, it was grown through monoculture, and that leads to use of chemicals that goes onto our food and into our planet, destroying soil. If we grow our own through permaculture (a food forest), we give the soil health. We also give ourselves health by growing organic foods and herbs that contribute to our health. There's a lot more to this, but this touches the surface. I'm only one year into this but my food forest is growing. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. View all posts by bubblebathselfempowerment