Forest Gardening Course
Since 2005 we have been developing a forest garden on our land in Northern Spain.
These photos are from a course on Forest Gardening with Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust that took place in Dartington, Devon, England on 8-9 September, 2007. The photos show Martin's 2-acre (0.8 hectare) forest garden, which has been in existence since 1993 and contains some 500 species of edible or otherwise useful plants, is highly productive yet requires very little maintenance.
Click to see full-size versions.
Demonstration of resin tapping from a Monterey pine, Pinus radiata.
Autumn olive, Eleagnus umbellata : edible fruit-bearing, nitrogen fixing, windbreak shrub
Showing stacking of tree layers: native hazel growing under a nitrogen-fixing Italian alder, Alnus cordata.
The pond
Chinese plum yew, Cephalotaxus harringtonii : a shrub that bears fruit even in heavy shade.
American elder, Sambucus canadiensis : aromatic flowers.
Martin demonstrates how to split and eat (raw) a bamboo shoot.
Grafted edible chestnut, Castanea sativa.
Even the foundation from an old building can be colonised by correctly chosen plants, whether grown in containers or creeping over the concrete.
A self-seeding member of the onion/leek/garlic family, Allium sp.
The False strawberry, Duchesnea indica - looks just like a strawberry (aside from the flowers) but it's (bleugh) tasteless. One plant that's not getting anywhere near my forest garden.
The design exercise: Group 1's plan
Group 2's plan
Group 3's plan
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