The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

A food forest is a productive landscape developed around a mix of trees and perennials. Rooted in permaculture principles, this integrated approach to gardening incorporates a variety of plants such as fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial herbs and vegetables. Food forests can help increase biodiversity, protect valuable habitat for beneficial insects, and promote food security and resilience, all while providing an abundant harvest.

The Food Forest Handbook is a practical manual for the design and management of a home-scale perennial polyculture garden. Simple, straightforward instructions guide the reader through:

Getting started - site assessment and planning Tending the forest garden – maintaining soil health, succession planning, , mulching, pruning and more The fruits of your labor – crop profiles, harvest, storage, nutrition and recipes.

This timely book makes the concept of food forests accessible to everyone. Focusing on the potential of perennial polyculture to enhance local food systems, The Food Forest Handbook shows the reader how to mix and match plants in unique combinations to establish bountiful landscapes and create genuine self-reliance in years to come.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a five-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He has been permaculture teacher for thirty years, and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm.

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture.

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The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

A food forest is a productive landscape developed around a mix of trees and perennials. Rooted in permaculture principles, this integrated approach to gardening incorporates a variety of plants such as fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial herbs and vegetables. Food forests can help increase biodiversity, protect valuable habitat for beneficial insects, and promote food security and resilience, all while providing an abundant harvest.

The Food Forest Handbook is a practical manual for the design and management of a home-scale perennial polyculture garden. Simple, straightforward instructions guide the reader through:

Getting started - site assessment and planning Tending the forest garden – maintaining soil health, succession planning, , mulching, pruning and more The fruits of your labor – crop profiles, harvest, storage, nutrition and recipes.

This timely book makes the concept of food forests accessible to everyone. Focusing on the potential of perennial polyculture to enhance local food systems, The Food Forest Handbook shows the reader how to mix and match plants in unique combinations to establish bountiful landscapes and create genuine self-reliance in years to come.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a five-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He has been permaculture teacher for thirty years, and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm.

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture.

34.99 In Stock
The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

by Michelle Czolba, Darrell Frey
The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

by Michelle Czolba, Darrell Frey

eBook

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Overview

A food forest is a productive landscape developed around a mix of trees and perennials. Rooted in permaculture principles, this integrated approach to gardening incorporates a variety of plants such as fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial herbs and vegetables. Food forests can help increase biodiversity, protect valuable habitat for beneficial insects, and promote food security and resilience, all while providing an abundant harvest.

The Food Forest Handbook is a practical manual for the design and management of a home-scale perennial polyculture garden. Simple, straightforward instructions guide the reader through:

Getting started - site assessment and planning Tending the forest garden – maintaining soil health, succession planning, , mulching, pruning and more The fruits of your labor – crop profiles, harvest, storage, nutrition and recipes.

This timely book makes the concept of food forests accessible to everyone. Focusing on the potential of perennial polyculture to enhance local food systems, The Food Forest Handbook shows the reader how to mix and match plants in unique combinations to establish bountiful landscapes and create genuine self-reliance in years to come.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a five-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He has been permaculture teacher for thirty years, and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm.

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781771422116
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Publication date: 05/01/2017
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 20 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture. Her formal training includes biology, chemistry, and herbalism, and she has earned a B.Sc. in Environmental Science and a M.Sc. in Sustainable Systems. After obtaining her Herbal Certification Michelle founded Wildly Natural Skin Care, and developed her own full line of handmade, wildcrafted and organic skin care products.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a 5-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He facilitates workshops and delivers keynote presentations on permaculture design, perennial polyculture management and ecological land use planning, and has been a sustainable community development consultant and permaculture teacher for 30 years. Darrell writes extensively about the principles involved in regenerative, organic agriculture and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm.

Table of Contents


Chapter one
Perennial Polycultures: Past Present and Future

This chapter will introduce the concept of the food forest garden and perennial polycultures, beginning with a profile of “Hazelwood Food Forest”. We will also place food forests in historical context, from hunter gatherer societies and tree crops in pre-industrial revolution societies to present day permaculture concepts. We will review natural polycultures and ecological communities we seek to mimic.

The heart of the book will be chapter two, Getting Started on Your Food Forest Garden, Design and Planning, and chapter three : Tending and Growing a Forest Garden

Chapter Two takes the reader through a check list of goals, a process of site assessment and step by step design process to plan a productive, beautiful and manageable landscape. This includes considerations of appropriate scale, place of food forests in the homestead landscape, pros and cons of food forests.

Chapter Three looks at ongoing care of the food forest as it develops. Topics addressed include building and maintaining soil health with perennials, succession plantings, developing biodiversity, pollination, pest control, pruning. Source of mulches, choice of ground covers and water needs are also discussed .

Chapter 4 Fruits of Our Labor: This Chapter profiles a range of perennial crops suited to food forest production, including fruits, berries, herbs, medicinal plants, flowers, mushrooms, perennial roots and tubers, and the integration of annual crops in the system. Role of crops in diet and nutrition. Harvest and storage discussed. Recipes and recommendation for how to use unusual crops are included

Chapter 5 Propagating Your Food Forest Garden: This chapter provides guidance for propagation of plants from seeds, cuttings, grafting and division to aid the reader in creating the food forest from local resources. Also discussed are consideration in obtaining and purchasing plants. Advice for would be nursery enterprises is given.

Chapter 6 Final Thoughts: This Chapter provides words of advice for gardeners and landowners. Clear planning, with a reasonable amount of experimentation will contribute to the ongoing development of a healthy and sustainable world. The benefits of trees and perennials to the local and global environment are explained. The potential of food forests to promote food security and the role of perennial crops in a local food system is explained. Finally the personal rewards of creating your own food forest garden are discussed.

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