A forest garden combines the benefits of forest and permaculture. It provides food and shelter for all living things on your land, including you and your family. It creates high biodiversity on your property and provides you with food that carries the soul and information of naturally grown organic food. Spending time in a forest garden reconnects you with the energy of the land and the earth.
One of the most important things is to get known to your land.Or if you don´t have a land right now, than the question will be how should it look like to give you good preconditions to set up the forest garden you dream of.
What kind of soil do you have? How much does it rain during summer and how is the rainfall distributed? Do you have to expect times with heavy rain, little rain or no rain at all? How cold will it be during the winter? Which direction is the wind blowing from? How much sunshine do you have? Is your land flat or steep? Which kind of plants do you have already on your land? Can you integrate them into your plan of setting up a forest? How was the land utilized before? Where can you get water from? What kind of plants do you like. What requirements do these plants have? Do they fit in your vegetation zone?
These are some oft the questions you should be able to answer. In our days public services provide us on their internet plattforms wih a lot of information about the soil, ground water, historical utilisation. It´s good to gather this informations and be aware of them, but most of all start with sitting on your land, watch, feel, smell. Let all the impressions sink in. Sit at different times of the day and of the year and sit at different places. Only in this way will you get a feel for your garden and be able to integrate all its features.
Here we share with you our knowledge of how to plan a forest garden and bring it to life.
You can create a forest garden on an open space that was previously a field or meadow or not in use, or you can integrate a forest garden into an existing forest. Always be sure to promote biodiversity and choose a wise approach that takes into account existing plant and animal communities. Alchemilla mollis (Jättedaggkåpa), for example, is a common plant in the north, used for herbal teas and treatments. It grows often wild and if you remove it you later might have to buy it for 60-70 SEK per plant. Therefore, you should consider how to integrate it into your forest garden. If you have areas rich in herbaceous plants that you want to use for harvesting and attracting bees and thus promoting biodiversity, you can plant your trees and shrubs right there and integrate them with a sense of the need for light and water. In other places there may be a lot of grass and it will be difficult to plant trees, shrubs and edible plants there. In these places it may be useful to cover them for 1-2 years to remove the grass layer. Covering with cardboard boxes or a weed cloth is a good option that saves you a lot of work. And you still have the option of planting your trees and shrubs from the first year on, on the covered areas. Depending on the type of soil you have, it may be necessary to improve the soil fertility. You can be creative and use anything from cow and horse manure to leaves and woodchips that is available on your site.
We welcome groups as well as single persons. Please get in contact with us.