A food forest is a way of growing food and other plants for human and animal use.
Food forests, a type of permaculture food system, can be incorporated into any sized garden and once established can be incredibly productive.
Shannon Wright from Backyard Jem has teamed up with Marea Verry from the Weston A. Price Foundation Hamilton Chapter, to transform the Verry's backyard into Verrywell Garden, which aims to be a model for sustainable gardening in an urban environment, with 60 square metres of permaculture garden and a mini food forest.
At Verrywell Gardens the Food Forest is designed to provide food for the humans, the chickens and the bees. It is efficiently designed to mimic what happens in the natural world.
A typical food forest has layers of root crops, herbs, shrubs, plants, bushes, trees and climbing vines. Each layer has a different purpose. Nitrogen fixers, like tree lucerne and mineral accumulators like comfrey, support fruit trees which are heavy feeders.
