Many times you’ll see elaborate food forest designs that require lots of sketching and measuring and planning and then more planning, and then…
…well, you know, I ain’t got time for all that.
I saw this video last week and it reminded me how much I hate doing a bunch of intricate planning.
I did think it would be amusing to parody the style, though. Can you imagine shots of me wandering around, looking thoughtful, drinking tea, etc., as I dream of food forests? Maybe with mellow music, and a soft voiceover?
ULTRA Millenial style.
No, I won’t do it. And this isn’t my food forest creation method, either. We don’t do a lot of heavy planning.
My approach is to plant a ton of stuff all over, let it fight, feed the losers to the winners, and let it all grow together. Yeah, we pay some attention to spacing, and shade needs, etc., but it’s mostly just on-the-ground walking around and dropping pots and saying, “HOW ABOUT HERE?” and then planting things.
Otherwise, we’d get stuck in analysis paralysis. I just about got hives watching Goldifarms plan her system out. Actually, I only watched a little of the video before having to go out and eat a bucket of velvet beans to recover the testosterone it drained from my system.
It’s beautiful in the end, though – and so are our food forest systems. So long as we get food growing, we’re way ahead of the pack.
However you like to grow, grow.
9 comments
Her way looks like…work. I like to play.
I recently cleared the back of my lot. I have a lot of highbush blueberries which do not taste all that good. What ever pattern I have will be working around them as I graft better blueberries to the stumps. Considering making a maze just for amusement purposes.
I like that idea.
I like your style!
It’s mine too…. I get that paralysis thru analysis syndrome.
That’s too funny, that video popped up on my feed, I watched about 2 minutes of it and just closed it and muttered to myself “I can’t watch that, how about a DtG video?”
It’s common for us as well to get paralyzed by all the information out there, but I think that’s part of their plan.. I’m just going to clear our side yard this weekend, cover crop the heck out of it and by ready for some fall plantings and getting the grocery rows going.
I bought my first house in February, and since then I have planted 17 fruit trees, 2 pecans, and 4 blueberry bushes. I did put thought into which trees I bought to make sure they would grow and produce in my zone, but after that stuff got planted willy nilly. I just took the new trees and wandered around the yard picking spots and switching stuff until I thought it was relatively well balanced for tree height and spacing, then I dug holes and planted them. After the trees were in, I planted other stuff willy nilly around the trees. Sweet potatoes might go good here! Corn can fit there! Tomatoes and peppers over here, watermelons over there!
Half my boxes are not unpacked, but my yard is full of plants.
You are just like us. Get the plants going first!
My garden is broken into YouTube Videos… Lol
Ruth Stout Pit, Back to Eden Deep End (where the Doughboy Pool used to sit, the Grocery Row Cattle Panels (take a bow) with Skilcult groomed Stone and Pome Fruit with overhead grape vines to form dappled shade aka Mollison and Lawton permaculture levels, the Belly of the Bistro that has structure for a low rider Poly Tunnel (too much wind here) (3’H) that accepts Poly, Shade Cloth, and/or Insect Netting, Cravo (old Swing set with Scaffold to hold 90% Shade Cloth to winterize the Tropicals, a Vineyard hung from a Cable that travels all the way around the yard because 9 million grapevine videos, GreenGuy overhead Bramble, and Red Garden Container madness because I get big pots for nothing.
You guys saved my sanity while the world went nuts.
My entire yard is food.
I can’t thank you guys enough!!!
That is awesome – what great influences. And you’re welcome. It’s been a crazy ride, hasn’t it?