Turning Your Backyard Into a Food Forest
Last Updated: Mar 29, 2025Recently, more attention in the news has highlighted the need to plant trees to help address climate change. Simultaneously, we are learning that we need to change the way we eat and grow our food. What if there were a way for the homeowner to help with both? There is, and a food forest could be precisely what your backyard needs.
Table of Contents
- What is a Forest?
- What is a Food Forest?
- Where Do I Begin?
What is a Forest?
A forest comprises various plants and animals, adapted to particular niches, living in a symbiotic, sustainable community. Our planet has spent 460 million years evolving to maintain a perfect balance of plants and 370 million years on trees. These magnificent forests once covered the majority of the planet but now only comprise just 30 percent. They developed without manufactured pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, or human-managed monocultures. Their secret? Diversity.
What is a Food Forest?
Food forests have been used for millennia in tropical regions on grounds as small as 0.25 acres. The Agroforestry Research Trust refers to forest gardens as "a designed agronomic system based on trees, shrubs and perennial plants. These are mixed in such a way as to mimic the structure of a natural forest—the most stable and sustainable type of ecosystem in this climate." A food forest mimics the polyculture design of typical forests, but with more attention paid to the fruit and vegetable-bearing plants. The design aims to produce various fruits, nuts, berries, and herbs, with minimal maintenance.
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Tanner Sagouspe
Tanner Sagouspe has a Masters in Environmental Management and is a Permaculture Designer who promotes tackling the climate crisis at home.