Margie writes:

“You always say that we can plant a food forest ‘anywhere’ but I still have trouble with almost any ‘food trees’ except for mulberries. I live in Tucson, AZ and the ‘soil’ on my property is mostly caliche which is another word for concrete. We have to use a pickax to dig holes for trees and even the “easiest to grow fruit trees” rarely make it here except those amazing mulberries. Would mulch over cardboard or just plain mulch (I have two huge piles of wood chips from a chip drop (mostly mesquite and palo verde chips) work by themselves or would cardboard make it better to help keep the weeds to a minimum? The pile of chips has grown some big fat grubs, which the roadrunners love. Would I also get worms?”

When I say you can plant a food forest “anywhere,” I don’t mean it quite universally. If you live on the Antarctic Ice Shelf, you’re probably out of luck. But Tucson? Sure, you can grow a food forest.

A clue to success is already in her email.

“…and even the “easiest to grow fruit trees” rarely make it here except those amazing mulberries.”

Ah-ha, there is a successful tree already there.

Though it’s not an easy climate due to the low rainfall (Tucson gets about 11″ of rain a year), it’s not impossible. Some trees grow there, which means the key is figuring out how to find the best for her land, and to improve the land so it can grow a wider variety.

In the first few years of my North Florida food forest, we struggled to keep our trees happy. After we got a thick layer of mulch down that started composting, and got more plants living in the soil, new trees and plants did better as soon as they were planted – much better than the first ones we put in. The soil was alive.

Plant lots of trees and see what lives, concentrating particularly on scrappy biomass producers and nitrogen-fixers to begin with. And that mulch is great, too. If you remove all the weeds first, you don’t need cardboard. But if you have tenacious weeds, I would put down cardboard first, then mulch over it.

As for desert food forests and biomass, Geoff Lawton shares some inspiration here:

I would also look around your area for other gardeners and connect with them. YouTubers, as well:

Here’s a Tucson gardener:

And another:

And here’s one in Glendale:

If you put down those wood chips, yes, you should get some worms of various types if they are anywhere near you. You could add them as well, via visiting a bait shop.

Good luck!

If you want to interact with other gardeners and see the new food forest course, come join our new Survival Gardener Community. There are multiple desert gardeners there already.