How to Design, Plant, Maintain, and Feast from your Food Forest

How to Design, Plant, Maintain, and Feast from your Food Forest

When you visit the Ranch you will not find rows of squash, tomatoes and carrots as you might associate with a temperate climate organic farm. You won't find deep layers of topsoil. You won't find tractors and their associated implements. What you will find is an agriculture that blends pleasantly into the forest. To the untrained eye it may even be challenging to tell where the forest begins and the farm ends. This is because our agriculture is based on the ecology of the place we live. And we live in a tropical monsoon forest. Our agricultural practices, often cited as agroforestry or food forests in the permaculture jargon, mimic the forest around us. 

Mimicking this complex ecology and all the associated relationships occurring in this hyper-diverse place is novel, exciting, and challenging work for us new-generation farmers. In order to help others on this same path we are documenting our work more and more. As part of this effort, I recently published a series of in-depth articles on tropical orchard establishment practices and concepts for the Permaculture Research Institute.

For anyone wanting to learn more about how we manage our 15 acres of food forests please explore the following links.

Part 1: Discover our site goals, layout patterns and approach toward water.

Part 2: Explore our soil management strategy.

Part 3: Learn why and how we make certain species selections.

We hope you enjoy these and now have a clearer picture of the agricultural landscape we are creating.

Scott

NEWS AND NOTES

We have a number of life changing workshops coming up.

Please share around if you know anyone who is ready for a trip to beautiful Costa Rica, a swim in the waterfalls, nourished with homemade meals, and challenged with an intensive educational experience.

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew