Learn how to create an edible forest garden—perfect for gardeners and growers at any scale!Includes
over 100 cold-hardy berry bushes, fruit and nut trees, perennial
vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, mushrooms, and more.
When
market gardener Dani Baker attended a permaculture workshop at her
local Cooperative Extension office in upstate New York, she was inspired
by its message of working with nature to create a thriving edible
garden ecosystem. She immediately launched a new experiment she dubbed
the “Enchanted Edible Forest.” In The Home-Scale Forest Garden,
Baker shares what she learned as she became a forest gardener,
providing a practical, in-depth guide to creating a beautiful, bountiful
edible landscape at any scale—from a few dozen square feet to an acre
or more.
Baker provides information on planning, planting, and maintaining a resilient forest garden ecosystem, including:
- Using permaculture principles
- Observing and mapping your space
- Building planting beds, including hügelkultur mounds
- Coping with saturated soil
- Matching perennial edible plants to the right growing conditions
- Grouping plants in diverse layers that attract and shelter beneficial insects and birds
- Creating microclimates to increase the range of plants you can grow
- Pruning, propagating, managing pests, and more
- Expending less energy for greater reward
The Home-Scale Forest Garden
is complete with descriptions of over 100 food-bearing and
multifunctional plants for every layer of a forest garden: overstory and
understory trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, groundcovers, vines, and
mushrooms, too.
The book includes over 200 photographs
taken over 10 years of forest development, along with illustrations of a
garden layout and special plant groupings for a range of conditions,
including hot, dry sites and shady, moist sites.
Throughout,
Baker candidly shares both her mistakes and her successes to help
readers better understand the dynamics of a forest garden as it grows
and changes over time. From her Asian Pear Adventure and Tamarack
Travesty to her discoveries of unique ways to rescue and transplant tree
seedlings, readers will appreciate the practical advice as she recounts
lessons learned from her grand edible gardening experiment.
This
is the perfect guide for gardeners of all experience levels who want to
work with nature’s model and expand the range of food crops they grow
as they embark on their own forest garden adventure.
"Experienced gardeners with a serious interest in sustainability would do well to check this out."—Publishers Weekly
“Dani Baker enriches cold-climate forest gardening with candid details
of successes and (importantly) failures in her decade-old forest
garden. The Home-Scale Forest Garden serves as a guide to
anyone who wishes to plant one, and includes valuable experience with
challenges including some very wet soils. Featuring over 200 beautiful
color photographs from the garden.”—Eric Toensmeier, author of Perennial Vegetables and co-author of Edible Forest Gardens