Last weekend I was lucky enough to visit the food forest in Kruishoutem (Belgium). It was such a blissful experience. The truth about nature can be so eye-opening.
But first and foremost: can you picture a food forest? I will first ask another question: what would happen if you didn’t do anything in your garden? You just look and wait. Well, eventually your garden will become forest. Nature wants to become forest. In my region, this is the most optimal ecosystem.
Imagine: an edible park, where you can relax, with or without a freshly picked berry or nut. This is a food forest: a garden or landscape set up as a natural ecosystem, but focused on the production of food and other products usable by humans. A well-functioning food forest can yield a substantial yield per hectare. And the best part is: without fossil fuels, artificial fertilizer, pesticides and intensive soil cultivation that characterizes the current food production.
But the food forest is more than an alternative form of agriculture. In its biological and spatial diversity it also enriches the monotonous green urban and suburban areas, which is increasingly becoming a monoculture due to budget cuts.
A food forest is made by man and for man. In the food forest, trees, shrubs and plants have been collected, chosen for their usefulness for the system and for humans. And especially because of their productivity. This sophisticated collection includes both natural and cultivated and both indigenous and alien species. Not everything is just put together, but there’s carefully looked into how the species fit into the food forest ecosystem. These species are often closely related to native species or grow in similar climate conditions, for example parts of North America, Korea, China and Japan.
A food forest is a collaboration between people and nature, based on a great knowledge of ecology and botany. It’s based on observation of the system as it grows and develops. It is also an inspiring model for how we can organize our society as a living system, in which parts work together and complement each other organically.
The food forest in Kruishoutem goes a bit further. In addition to a food forest, it is also an educational meeting place for permaculture in practice. Sharing this meeting place and inspiring others is their motivation. Not only are there open working days, you can also follow permaculture courses (PDC training), you can get advice and guidance in the design of a garden and there are practical training sessions for example around mud bricks, etc.
When I arrived, the round wooden garden gate immediately caught my attention. The moist forest land smelled like the forest games from my childhood. Carefully I pushed the garden gate open and it seemed as if I had arrived in another world. A world where it brims and buzzes with life. Thick bumblebees are flying towards you and blackbirds are whistling exuberant. Welcome to the garden of abundance.
Everywhere around you, you see tasty snacks. Unpackaged, unprecedented fresh and sublimely flavorful. You could pick kiwis, Asian pears, kakis, mulberries, figs and peaches. Everywhere the most delicious raspberries grow in all colors, and the garden is never empty.
Here you can harvest in any season. A herb layer with more than 600 kinds of edible plants, from pineberries (also known as ‘scarlets’) to Alexanders (according to legend, Alexander the Great would have eaten this vegetable a lot), could easily fill many plates every day. Oyster mushrooms and shiitakes grow in the shade of heart notes, Japanese onion trees and fragrant lilacs.
This edible jungle interweaves biodiversity and food production in a hopeful way.
From a chestnut wood bench I looked with wonder at the most beautiful butterflies that I hadn’t seen for years. Goats nibble at the advancing edge of the forest, bees pollinate almost every blossom and ducks control the snails.
This is an ecosystem at its best. Permaculture design in practice ...
note: unfortunately I did not bring my own camera that day. All photos (and much more) can also be found on their Facebook page. Here you can also find the link to their website.
I absolutely LOVE this! Such an inspiration. Thanks for sharing! :)
I love it! We just started a humungous food forest in my home town of Atlanta. I was recently in Colombia and got to experience a natural food forest. I could literally walk around and eat as many mangos and coconuts as I liked. Imagine a world filled with healthy food accessible to everyone. Where people would plant kale in spinach in front of there houses instead of grass. Where you could stop anywhere you like and have a fresh apple, pear or orange. That's the world I want to live in.
In fact, building such a world should not be that difficult. There are so many public parks where there should be an abundance of food. Once such a park is created, there is certainly not more work than is currently the case. Unfortunately, we are increasingly lacking in knowledge and bold ideas. We only eat the species that are easy to grow through industrial agriculture.
Wow this is amazing, seems that we in America forgot how to grow natural food for the most part. This garden looks heavenly thank you for sharing. I have to put this on my must see list!
Enchanting, personally, I wish in a moment of my life to be able to build something like this for my family, friends and my loved ones, a place where we can relax, eat fruits and work very calmly because this nature means peace to me.
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My personal experience with gardening makes me skeptical that it is possible to leave it and have it produce food, but the garden plots I have certainly are not healthy forests. Instead they are baren lands bearing, momentarily, some plant which is torn out at the end of the season. I need to visit one of these places to learn some of their permaculture secrets.
It's totally possible....if done with thought.
Wow. If there are enough food forest in the world, there would not be hunger problem.