A Year in the Life of our Urban Forest Garden

At the beginning of this year we had a fairly boring, small urban garden. Most of it was lawn, edged with some shrubs and a few fruit bushes. We decided that as our boys are now teenagers and no longer wanted a play area, it was time to attempt some productive food growing. I had started to learn a little about permaculture through my involvement with the Transition Town network which led me to the research on forest gardens by the inspirational Robert Hart. He suggested that not only is a forest garden very productive, requiring minimal labour and providing the best foods for building positive health, but also that by creating one, however small, you could help to restore the earth's forest cover. This sounded an ideal vision to aim for!

A forest garden is made up of several layers to form a miniature reproduction of a natural woodland. In its simplest form there is a top layer of fruit and nut trees, a middle layer of shrubs and bushes and a ground layer of herbs, vegetables and flowers. Each plant is chosen to perform particular roles, for example food, wildlife habitat or soil building, and plants are placed in careful complementary relationships. A big attraction for me is that it creates an ecological garden which nurtures beneficial insects, birds and animals. This increases biodiversity but also makes the garden more balanced, disease-free and productive. Once established it should require much less maintenance than a conventional garden because you are allowing nature to do most of the work.

We had already made a small start by creating a herb spiral and experimenting with some sheet mulching, but were now ready to take the plunge and say goodbye to the whole lawn. We started by relocating the path, curving it through the centre of the garden with a yin/yang curve to divide it into equal parts. We took care to only turn over a very thin top layer of turf so as not to disturb the soil microbes which live in the top 5cm. We then covered over with a thick layer of manure and a top layer of compost and sowed a mixture of different summer cover crops (rye grass, red clover, crimson clover and alfalfa), partly to see which thrive and also because each attracts a different community of soil organisms to it.

We made our own walls for the raised beds by hammering in lengths of hazel rod and then weaving willow in between. There was so much willow and hazel left that we had to think of some useful things to do with it so ending up making a couple of twigwams for runner beans and climbers, a willow arbour and a willow hedge (so we can cut lengths for repairs etc.).

It was then time to get the tree layer in place. Even though the garden is quite small we really wanted to include a nut tree and chose a Broadview Walnut as it is compact, very hardy, late into leaf (so rarely damaged by frost) and can start cropping as early as its third year. Mulberry trees are said to be good companions for both walnut and apple trees so we planted a Black Mulberry and half-standard Sunset and Cybelle dessert apples and a Bramley cooking apple. To take full advantage of our fences we planted fan-trained Golden Glow Apricot, Morello sour cherry and Stella sweet cherry trees and a dwarf Garnet Peach and Ruby Nectarine. We also added a Gingko biloba 'horizontalis', one of the oldest types of tree on the planet. As well as being beautiful to look at, its dried leaves contain unique substances which improve circulation to the brain and are believed to improve concentration, short-term memory and reaction time. It's a dwarf variety so should only grow to about 2m high.

For the shrub layer, we planted two Elaeagnus (ebbingei and maculata) close to the Walnut as they act as both nitrogen fixers and juglone buffers. They should also produce edible fruit and seeds for us and the birds. We also planted two Berberis (Barberry) plants which produce mildly acidic juicy fruit in mid-summer, and a Buddleia davidii (Butterfly bush) which attracts bees and butterflies and from which dyes can be obtained from the flowers, leaves and stems. We planted redcurrant, blackcurrant, whitecurrant, jostaberry and mountain cranberry bushes around the cherry and apple trees. We also planted an Arbutus unedo (Strawberry tree) which produces edible fruit in late autumn with a subtle sweet taste and texture of a tropical fruit.

For the herb layer we initially planted some chives, fennel and lemon balm around the trees to attract beneficial insects. Over time we added asparagus, wild rocket, french sorrel, lovage, welsh onions, cardoon, Good King Henry, echinacea, comfrey, alpine strawberries, angelica, borage, sweet violets and pink bergamot, heartsease and purple and white ajuga - all of which have edible and medicinal uses or are attractive to bees and butterflies. When we watched the 'Establishing a Food Forest' DVD by the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, we were very inspired by their kitchen garden which had a riot of different colours and scents to confuse the pests and decided to introduce a greater range of colourful and scented flowers and herbs. These include Lithospermum Heavenly Blue, Penstemon pinifolius in yellow and red, Fuschia Electra Red, Dactylorhiza fuschii, Campanulla pulla, Dianthus Cheddar Pink, Mimulus maschatus, Scutellaria indica, Lemon thyme and Apple and Grapefruit Mint. We created a tiny meadow space by sowing some wild flower seeds; these grew prolifically and throughout the summer it was humming with bees.

We decided to add a tiny wildlife pond. As space was so tight, we went for a pre-formed pond and surrounded it with rocks on one side to prevent hedgehogs inadvertently walking into it and an incline of pebbles on the other so they can reach the water safely and amphibians can get in and out easily. We're hoping it will eventually attract some friendly frogs to help us with slug control! We're using a solar powered pond pump and fountain which has worked well so far and kept the water clear. It has been a wonderful addition as the birds love to come and bathe in it and it has also attracted some dragonflies and a huge variety of insects.

A forest garden is designed around perennial planting but we wanted to grow some annual vegetables too so we created a separate raised bed for that. We planted courgettes, aubergines, butternut squash, sweetcorn, leeks, broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts, and some tomatoes, peppers and chillies in planters, with marigolds and nasturtiums for companion planting. We have had mixed success - due to our inexperience we planted everything too close together and the courgettes grew so prolifically that the lower-growing plants were put in the shade. The butterflies made a feast of the cabbage, broccoli and sprout leaves; we'll have to do a much better job of protecting them another year. However, for our first year of productive growing we were absolutely delighted with our abundant courgette harvest and the sweetcorn and leeks tasted so much better freshly picked.

Looking back over the year, we are amazed at how quickly it has all become established - there has been such riotous abundant growth in such a short space of time. The magical aspect has been watching the wildlife give their seal of approval and take up residence. We have a cheeky gang of blue tits who love playing chase through the trees, we've spotted at least four different types of bees, the pond is teeming with life and there are usually butterflies fluttering all round the garden. Whatever mistakes we might have made we're encouraged that Nature feels we're on the right track!

The interest and enthusiasm we've had from visitors has also been really rewarding. We try to encourage people who are worried about the work involved to start small, perhaps with just a container with a mixture of vegetables and companion flowers, and move on from that when they feel ready. Ecological designers advise ‘growing by chunking', starting with a small area, building up the soil, finding out what works well and then repeating the pattern, with appropriate variations, until it all links up into a healthy whole. You certainly don't have to begin by digging up your whole lawn!

The biggest change is that I now feel like I'm in a reciprocal relationship with my garden - I'm doing my best to take care of it but it's taking care of me in return with food, medicinal herbs, relaxation and healing through colour and scent. At the start of the year, I felt overwhelmed by the implications of climate change and peak oil but watching the garden flourish has really helped me to stay grounded and absorbed in doing what I can and to feel optimistic that if enough other people do the same it could make all the difference. To quote the Global Ideas Bank, ‘if ten trees were planted in a hundred thousand gardens, that would amount to a million trees. Quite a forest!'

For anyone interested in following the progress, I'm keeping a detailed blog page on my website, and you can also view an ongoing slide-show.

Clare Ewins

photos (c) Clare Ewins 2009

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