Category Archives: Food Forest

Of Claimers and Disclaimers and Wild Plants

Posted on August 24, 2011 by

I’m reading Samuel Thayer’s excellent guide to edible wild plants, Nature’s Garden.  Not only is it a lovely book, full of wonderful photos and informative text, but the very first pages, consisting of a Warning followed by a Claimer (as … Continue reading →

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Citizens of the Food Forest

Posted on July 19, 2011 by

I’ve been working on selecting plants to fill out the various levels in the food forest.  I’m basing my selections on the following criteria: Prior history of local success.  That is, do the plants succeed in the garden proper, or … Continue reading →

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Maybe This Year, a Pomegranate

Posted on July 19, 2011 by

Two flowers so far this year, and perhaps one will grow up to become an actual fruit?  The plant has been in the ground for three or four years, and it sort of fruited last year, producing a few flowers … Continue reading →

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Harvest – Blueberries, Garlic and Eggplant

Posted on July 16, 2011 by

Back in the garden after a week in Glacier National Park in Montana.  Lots of interesting plants in Montana, including bear grass, lanceleaf stonecrop, a native succulent, and Rosa woodsii, a wild rose similar to the California wild roses that … Continue reading →

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Ridiculous Abundance

Posted on June 21, 2011 by

Gardening is about cycles and rhythms.  Last year, the blueberries took the year off, producing basically half of what they do in a good year.  This year, on the other hand, the bushes are outdoing themselves.  Ridiculous abundance.  These will … Continue reading →

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Sweet and Sour

Posted on June 12, 2011 by

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) is incredibly, almost unbelievably sweet.  One little nibble and all you taste is sweet for a long time.  It grows quite well in my garden, dying back all the way to the ground in the winter and … Continue reading →

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Just Look at this Tiny Rose!

Posted on June 4, 2011 by

As previously mentioned, there are lots of these little native California wild roses around the place, and they produce wonderful little flowers.  This particular one grows in the vaccinium patch in pretty heavy shade, and during the summer (which hasn’t … Continue reading →

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Planting Non-native

Posted on May 28, 2011 by

Walking the property this evening, looking at the forest and planning in my head, I noticed a few new instances of Cutleaf blackberry (Rubus laciniatus), which is non-native, bears delicious fruit, and doesn’t bother me all that much (though I’m … Continue reading →

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Food Forest Cloning

Posted on May 26, 2011 by

Michael Pollan, in the documentary film The Botany of Desire (perhaps also in the book?), calls cannabis growers “the best gardeners of my generation.”  Indeed, when I set out to research building a DIY cloning system to populate my food … Continue reading →

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The Food Forest Concept

Posted on May 25, 2011 by

I’m in the early stages of a long-term food forest garden project on my property, starting with a wooded area adjacent to the garden proper.  Forest gardening is a system that involves planting communities of food plants to exploit various … Continue reading →

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