This amazing piece of land has provided us with medicinal herbs, fruits, and all sorts of edible plants. Most of them have been planted a long time ago by the previous owner; Teresa Fiorenza, a gentle old lady that probably has lived through hard times during and after World War II. Thank you for that, Teresa!

We are blessed with a variety of perennial plants and trees such as loquat, artichokes, mulberries, dates, peaches, plums, apricots, almonds, figs, pears, apples, kakhi, jujube, pomegranates, walnuts, hazelnuts, lemons, oranges, mandarins, cedro and bergamot. What a treat to eat fresh produce directly from a tree or pick from the land…!

But it doesn’t stop there.

Continuing Teresa’s legacy and following our own path towards being self-sufficient, we started planting a selection of new trees around the house (such as the sub-tropical Moringa Oleifera and Ceratonia siliqua / Carob, some fig and oak).

In the previous orchard, we added two varieties of apricot, two varieties of apple, quince, flat peach (Prunus platycarpa), regular peach, mulberry and plum.

Alongside a cliff in a more shaded spot, we have planted white/red/black currant, red gooseberry, blueberry and raspberry.

In the flatter part of our future food forest, we utilize swales, a landform in the shape of a trench and berm running along contour (points of the same altitude) to catch as much rainwater for the trees and plants as possible. In our case we probably should call them semi-swales, as they’re interrupted and not perfectly along the contour line.

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We dug holes in the “hill” side of the swale, about 40-50cm deep / wide. A large enough hole for the roots to grow bigger before they’ll eventually hit native soil (which is usually more compacted). Each tree will receive more rainwater, as the ditch of the swale will help infiltrate all the surface water into the root zone.

To help these young trees, we added several layers of seasoned compost in between the native soil. The goal with adding our own compost is to inoculate native soils with a most diverse microbiology (beneficial microorganisms and beneficial fungi).

This is the main reason why we have established our Soil Lab. With the help of a microscope we’re able to assess the quality of our own compost and soils, mostly to identify all beneficial or non-beneficial microorganisms that are part of the Soil Food Web.

This way, we’ll simply make better decisions. In the case of planting trees we have utilized a seasoned compost with more fungi than bacteria biomass because trees are lifeforms of a later stage in evolutionary succession. Therefore, trees need nitrogen in the form of ammonium NH4. Fungi are responsible for converting nitrogen into ammonium – that’s why trees prefer fungi dominated soils over bacteria dominated soils.

Before setting the saplings into their holes, we carefully decompacted the root balls once they were out of their pots to prevent girdling.

What is “girdling”:

When plants grow in nursery containers, their roots hit the wall and begin to grow in a circle. By loosening the root ball and therefore breaking the circling pattern of the roots, the plant will most likely not keep growing circular. We also dug square holes in the hopes that some roots will eventually hit a „corner“ to easier break the threshold between hole and native soil.

Finally, we’ve hammered three fence posts into the ground around each sapling, (making sure not to sever the root ball). Once the summer drought hits this land and the drip irrigation system is on, wild pigs will smell the water immediately (as there is not much water around in summer). They’ll confuse any wet swale for a conveniently prepared pig bath tub and by happily rolling themselves around in it, they might eventually damage or even uproot small trees. Let’s hope this safety measure will protect the saplings from any boar activity!

Creating a “food forest“
or “edible landscape“

What is a food forest?

A food forest, also called a forest garden, is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions – up, down, and out. A food forest does not have to be re-planted year after year. Once it is established, it is generally very resilient.

Generally, we recognize seven layers of a forest garden – the overstory (canopy layer), the understory (smaller trees), the shrub layer (bushes), the herbaceous layer (grasses, medicinal plants, etc.), the ground cover layer (perennials like clover, etc.), the root layer (root vegetables) and the vine layer (climbers). Some people also like to recognize an eighth layer, the mycelial layer (mushrooms). Using these layers, we can fit more plants in an area without causing failure due to competition.

A food forest must be organic. Forest gardens depend heavily on a healthy ecosystem and cannot be sprayed with herbicides or pesticides or have non-organic fertilizers applied. A healthy ecosystem will take several years to establish itself, especially in a city or open farm area. We have to be patient and let nature take care of itself (while providing the necessary food, water, and habitat for all the components of the ecosystem, otherwise they won’t come).

Food forests are a new farming concept in our area, but they have been used for thousands of years in other parts of the world.

A well-designed forest garden has many benefits:

• Planting densely and using ground covers to shade soil and suppress weeds is returning more yield on a given surface area.
• Utilizing nitrogen-fixing (i.e. leguminosae, etc.) and nutrient-accumulating plants (i.e. comfrey, etc.), “chop-and-drop” techniques, and returning wastes to the land will create healthy soils instead of having to buy and add commercial fertilizers.
• Planting a diverse array of plants will attract beneficial insects to pollinate the fruit crops and keep pest populations from exploding and causing damage.
• By utilizing several ground-shaping techniques we are able to keep rain water on the site.
• Depending on the topography, designing for specific placement of plants helps create windbreaks and micro-climates.
• Placing emphasis on trees, shrubs, perennials, and self-seeding annuals, the overall amount of work is greatly reduced.

In his book “Gaia’s Garden”, Toby Hemenway recommends some of the following soil-building plants for orchards/food forests: