(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "The Home-Scale Forest Garden" is brought to you by Brookfield Renewable.

A provider of renewable power supports public television, reminding the public to make safety a priority.

Know the risks, use caution in and around water.

Information available at safewaters.com.

- [Representative] Since 1979, Adirondack Fragrance has offered artisan-made, place-based fragrance products made from our region's unique botanicals, providing aromas inspired by the mountains, forests and fields.

adirondackfragrance.com.

- [Announcer] And by Richard and Deborah Macsherry, the Northern New York Community Foundation, and by these additional sponsors.

- [Announcer] Closed captioning sponsored by Reed's Incorporated.

- Welcome to "The Home-Scale Forest Garden."

I'm Loraine O'Donnell, with Dani Baker, creator of "The Enchanted Edible Forest Garden," and author of the book, "The Home-Scale Forest Garden," on which this series is based.

In these eight episodes, we're visiting Dani's Garden in Northern New York at different times of the year.

We're also taking a peak at a subtropical garden in Florida.

We wanna start right off by saying a forest garden is not a traditional vegetable garden.

Dani, what is a forest garden?

- Well, first of all, you're planting all perennial plants, all-food producing perennials, and you're using all the vertical layers.

So you have tall trees, short trees, berry bushes, ground cover, and you invite nature to take care of a lot of the functions that humans would normally take care of in a vegetable garden.

- I love that, so nature is basically your assistant gardener.

- You got it.

(Loraine laughing) Our special correspondent, Yatile Patterson, had an opportunity to visit Dani and learn some of the principles of this special kind of garden.

(bright music) - To begin, we came over here to this pretty small area to talk about some of the principles involved in creating this kind of garden.

- And what would be one of the first principles in creating this garden?

- Good question.

Well, a very important and really the first principle is to integrate a lot of diversity.

In nature, most natural landscapes are full of different kinds of plants.

I mean, there's an occasional monoculture, but mostly there's a lot of different plants all mixed up together.

So that's what we're doing here, even in this very small space.

We have a tall tree, we have a fruit tree, we have berry bushes, that's a currant, that's a red currant, this is a black currant.

We have herbaceous plants.

That's one.

This is a daylily.

We have some herbs, and then we have ground cover.

In nature, the ground is covered with something, something either growing or some organic matter, naturally, all the time, unless there's some kind of disturbance.

So in a garden like this, you wanna make sure your ground is covered with something organic, and you don't wanna disturb the ground anymore than necessary once the planting is completed.

- And so why does height matter in a garden like this?

- Well, that's a good question too.

You wanna maximize, this is another principle, thank you.

(both laughing) You wanna maximize the amount of solar radiation that you actually access in a garden.

So if you only have grass, you only have one low layer, and that's all the sun that can be absorbed.

But if you use all your vertical space as we're doing here, you're absorbing a lot more solar radiation with the tall trees, the shorter trees, and then everything else that's here.

The reason maximizing your use of the solar radiation is important is because that's the thing that fuels photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is the process that plants go through to create growth and to make fruit and to ripen their fruit.

So that's another reason you need a lot of sun, because fruit ripens best when there's a lot of sun hitting it, and certainly in fruit trees.

So maximizing how much solar radiation you can absorb is important.

And another concept involved here is, when you create a garden like this, it's called a forest garden, but it's not really a dense woods, where there's so much shade down below that very few things can grow.

When you create a garden like this, you wanna create a lot of edge so that sunlight can come in from all sides.

- That sunlight is really coming in today.

(both laughing) - Yes, it's making me squint.

Another important concept is building in nutrients.

So a garden like this, you wanna minimize human labor and you wanna minimize inputs.

You don't wanna be fertilizing and, you know, adding things like that on a regular basis.

So you build in plants that are gonna do that job for you.

So for example, the tallest tree here is a nitrogen-fixing tree.

Now, after water, nitrogen is the nutrient that plants need in the largest quantity.

So I've integrated a number of nitrogen-fixing plants in this garden.

And what those plants do, they have nodules on their roots, that house bacteria that take the nitrogen in the air, which plants can't use directly, and converts it to chemical forms that plants can use.

So having lots of nitrogen-fixing plants scattered about, many of which produce food as well, helps, you know, provide that nutrient for the other food-producing plants.

Another kind of plant that you need to provide nutrients is something called a nutrient accumulator.

So this is an example, this is Russian comfrey.

It has a very, very deep tap root, and it pulls up six different nutrients from the subsoil.

Now, a lot of fruit plants don't have roots deep enough to reach those nutrients.

So this pulls it up.

And then as it decays, you can see it's already decaying, and as the soil life takes up that decayed matter, it makes it available to the fruit trees, like this apricot, that have more shallow roots.

Nutrient accumulators, very important to integrate.

And then integrating a lot of herbs is also important.

- So these plants are basically working as a team for survival pretty much.

- Yep, they work as a team, they support each other, and they provide what each one needs.

And I'm getting to that with all the flowering plants.

So you can see we have, ooh, there's a bee.

(laughing) You see the bee?

There are flowering plants still, you wanna include flowering plants in your garden from as early in the season to as late in the season so your pollinators have something to eat through the entire season.

So when your fruit trees are blooming or your berry bushes are blooming, they're around to pollinate.

If bushes and trees need to be pollinated, most of them need pollen to be taken from one plant to the next in order for them to form fruit.

So if you have lots of flowering plants throughout the entire season, you attract the pollinators and they're here to do their work.

Not only that, but the flowering plants also attract beneficial insects, which will kill your pest insects.

So you wanna attract lots of those as well.

And flowering plants, they have to have, insects need to eat something, and they often eat the pollen and the nectar from various flowering plants.

(bright music) - Water features also attract beneficial insects.

Dani, what else could a water feature bring to a forest garden?

- Well, it can create microclimates.

Water absorbs a lot of heat in the summer when the sun is hot, and then it radiates it out later in the season and warms the land around it.

So that creates a warmer area.

Second of all, you can stock a water feature with fish or crustaceans, something that you wanna eat.

And finally, any water in a garden creates a wonderful ambience.

(bright music) - I see a pond.

Why is it here and why is it important for the garden?

- Okay, so this is a dug pond.

You don't need a big area of water like this, you can just have a bird bath.

A pond like this though, when it rains, it collects the water.

Conserving water is a really important principle in a garden like this, 'cause you don't wanna have to water, you want the garden to have all the water it needs.

So if you dig a pond in an area where water naturally collects.

Like when I dug this pond, I studied my land for a while before I created the garden, and I noticed there was standing water here almost all year round.

So I thought, "The water table's really high, I might as well just dig a pond 'cause I probably won't be able to grow anything."

So I dug a pond, so when it rains, the water flows into this pond.

And in the spring, when I need to water a newly planted tree, I just dip a bucket in the pond and go water it.

The other thing that any water source does, and you can have just a little bird bath that you bury at the surface of the ground, it attracts all kinds of beneficial creatures.

- I see a couple of frogs, I see some tadpoles.

Why are they important to the pond and what are some other beneficial creatures it may attract?

- Good question.

Frogs breed in my pond, they eat bugs, they eat slugs, they eat mosquitoes, and other creatures come and drink.

So the birds, you wanna invite all kinds of beneficial creatures into a garden like this.

And they need a source of water.

So birds come and drink, butterflies come and drink.

Dragon flies will come and fly around and eat mosquitoes for you.

We have turtles, we have snakes.

It's just all kinds of life is attracted by water.

- And how do these animals benefit the plants?

- Well, the birds, for example, good question, the birds, not only do they eat bugs, but they fertilize.

So (laughing) when they poop, that's very nutritious fertilizer for all the other plants.

The snakes sometimes eat rodents, which is beneficial 'cause rodents can eat the bark of plants.

Turtles eat all kinds of bugs as well.

So all of these creatures are benefiting the plants.

- But also I see a lot of taller trees in the area too, which seems similar to the vertical conversation we had before.

So is that also important in a space like this?

- Yeah, it's important for water conservation actually.

I'm glad you asked that.

The more foliage you have in the vertical space, the more dew that's collected on cool nights, and that dew is absorbed by the leaves directly.

But also if it's heavy enough, it falls to the ground, gets absorbed by the ground, and provides water to everything else (laughing) that's growing.

Also, the trees, if there's a heavy rainfall, the trees kind of modulate the pressure of that rain.

So it comes down much more softly and is able to be absorbed.

The ground cover also helps that.

Instead of bare ground, which might be washed away, the ground cover makes the rain soak in much better.

The other thing that happens when you have a lot of vertical foliages in the fall, when the leaves fall, they provide natural mulch that keeps the ground moist and cool in the summer, and also keeps it warmer in the winter.

Not only that, (laughing) a long-winded answer to your question, but the amount of foliage you have also provides shade, and the shade keeps the ground cool and moist in the heat of the day.

(bright music) - We've talked about capturing and conserving water in a northern climate, however, not everyone lives in four-season locations.

How does water conservation differ in a more tropical climate?

- In a tropical climate, sometimes you have a rainy season when there's tons of rain coming down, and then you have a dry season, almost like a desert.

So that's a different kind of challenge than we have up north.

- We had an opportunity to visit Pike Food Forest in Jupiter, Florida, where we spoke with Amanda Pike about the water challenges she faces.

Let's take a look.

(bright music) - I'm here in Jupiter, Florida, with Amanda Pike, who has this amazing subtropical edible forest.

And we're gonna start by talking about, how do you manage water here?

- Sure, so in Florida, we have two distinct seasons, the wet season and the dry season.

We don't have any irrigation, so we need to keep the water on site during the wet season so that it lasts through the dry season.

One strategy is the permeable driveway.

We have 18 inches of rock substrate, which means the water can trickle down, and then stay without being stagnant, without attracting mosquitoes for example.

But another strategy is just what we plant where.

So this is our wettest side, and we plant a lot of the thirsty plants.

You can see the broad-leafed bananas, the katuk, tropical almond.

The way that we mow or don't mow, walk or don't walk, also helps us manage water.

So we have swales here we run the mower through, which compresses the soil and allows the water to float out as needed.

But we try not to ever step in our islands.

And so our plants that we're harvesting frequently we put on the edges, so that we don't compress that soil.

We want it to be very spongy and high in organic matter.

So we allow leaf litter and other things to build up.

We're constantly chop and dropping, and making sure it's absorbable.

(bright music) - Amanda mentioned matching plants to habitat to help manage water.

Dani, what are some of the things you consider when deciding where to place certain plants?

- How much water they need is a big consideration.

So if they don't need a lot, put 'em up on a south-facing slope where it's high and dry, they need a lot, put it down low, where there's a high water table.

Also, how much light do they need?

Do they need full sun?

Can they take some shade?

And what's surrounding them?

How will they get along with the surrounding plants?

- We want happy plants.

- That's right.

(Loraine laughing) (bright music) It's really important to study your land so you understand the different habitats so you can match your plants to their ideal locations.

So we're standing on a south-facing slope.

This gets full sun almost all day long, and since it's a slope, it drains.

So the soil on this slope is gonna get quite dry.

So you wanna figure out, you wanna know what the plants need and match your plants that like it high and dry, with good drainage, with this kind of habitat.

On the other hand, right over there is a north-facing slope that's quite shaded and moist.

So there are other plants, like the rhubarb there, that really appreciates the moisture, and it gets enough sun to thrive.

But if it had full sun, if the rhubarb was here, it would be a goner.

So that's why it's important.

- How does one go about studying their land?

- Good question.

So it's important to look at your land in all seasons 'cause you wanna understand, you know, how the sun moves around.

And even if you're thinking of doing a foundation planting, you know, just planting edibles along one side of your house, you need to understand how much sun it gets, how hot it gets, how dry the soil gets, where water collects, where the wind comes from, the prevailing wind, and how strong is it?

You wanna understand if there's frost pockets.

So you have to kind of study it late in the season and early, where does the ground freeze first?

Where does the snow last when it melts everywhere else?

Those places are gonna be difficult for some plants that need a really warm environment.

But if a plant likes a really cool environment, that might be perfect, especially if you're down south.

- So not only is it important for you to understand your land and to accurately map out the land that you're gonna use for your garden, it's also important to know what plants to place in different parts of the land.

- Good point.

I didn't know much about this when I started, so I just studied books and catalogs.

Often nurseries catalogs have a lot of information about the different plants and the habitats they like.

Also the size of the mature canopies, because you wanna make sure your plants have plenty of room to grow.

So a little twig that might be an apple tree that starts out just as one stem is gonna be 35 feet wide when it's mature, let's say.

And so you wanna space them accurately on your plan so that they have room to grow.

Yeah.

- Nice.

This sounds very informative, especially for those who are just getting started with their forest garden, but also it gives a perspective for those who may not have a forest garden as big as yours.

- Right, you can do this at any scale.

Like the first place we looked at, we were maybe 25, 30 square feet, we had all the layers and quite a bit of diversity.

- I love it.

We've gone over so much, we've seen so much in this garden.

It seems like it takes a lot to maintain.

- Well, to be honest, it takes a lot to establish, because when you plant a new plant, you need to take care of it.

You can't let all kinds of weeds grow around it and compete with it trying to establish its roots.

So you need to plant it, you need to mulch it, and then you need to make sure it has enough water and it's protected from competition until it gets established.

But once it gets established, the labor is vastly reduced.

Except for harvesting, that becomes, the garden gets more abundant year after year, 'cause the trees get bigger, the bushes get bigger, they produce more fruit, and there's more harvest time involved.

- So how would you differentiate the labor of a perennial garden versus one that is a little more traditional?

- That's a great question.

I have done annual vegetables.

And a garden of this size with annual vegetables is dawn-to-dusk manual labor, from the beginning of the season right through to the end.

This garden, what I'm doing now is like maybe an hour a day of harvesting.

I do mow two or three times a year to keep the pads open so people can wander around without having to walk through heavy turf.

And I still do some mulching if I see bare ground.

I'm planning now for next year, I'm sheet mulching an area so I can plant some more stuff where I have sod now, 'cause I discovered a while ago that the more beds you have, the less mowing you have to do.

(laughing) So I'm creating another large bed where I used to mow, so I'll just have plants.

But it's really the amount of labor goes down, while the abundance just increases, continues to increase.

- So it seems like when building a perennial garden, not only are you getting those edible herbs and those fruits and those vegetables, those plants, but you're also building something that has longevity?

- Yes, absolutely.

Yep, so it does have to be managed though.

You can't ignore it, because then things you might not want take over.

You have to pay attention and walk through it on a regular basis.

And if you see a tree growing that you didn't plant and you don't want, you know, trim it out, just so you have what you want.

- What are some of the biggest difference you've noticed from the starting of your garden up until this point?

- That's a good question too.

Well, around the third year, a garden like this starts to pop.

It just starts to assume a life of its own.

And now that the plants are established, you can kind of let nature move in.

So in my garden now, this is the 12th year, I have a lot of plants that I didn't plant.

Nature decided to bring them in.

And when I see a plant that's new that I didn't intend, I say to myself, "Is this beneficial or not?"

If I like it, I leave it.

If I don't like it, I weed it.

Recently, most of the plants that move in I've been liking and I've just been leaving.

- I like that what you said, "If I like it, I leave it.

If I don't like it, I weed it."

- Weed it.

- That sounds like great advice to anyone who is kind of getting started on their own forest garden.

What would you say is the best advice that you would give to someone who hasn't gotten started yet?

- I'd say start small, decide on a small area.

Study it, map it, plan it, plant it.

And then once that gets established, I think you'll be encouraged to do more, because the success that you're having will motivate you.

Now, I want you to understand though that not everything's gonna live, and that's not your fault.

(laughing) It's all an experiment.

You're not accustomed to growing these kinds of things.

Everybody's plot of land is different.

So just trial and error, that's how I established this garden, trial and error.

I have a stack of labels of plants this big of things that died on me.

So, yep, so, you know, just try to figure out why.

If it's the plant isn't suited to your habitat, you know, was there something about the nursery, the stock, that wasn't viable?

Try to figure out why it happened, and then either try again or try something else.

- [Yatile] Now, this is a project you took on after retiring.

For those who are actively working and, you know, may not have the time that you have to take on this initiative, how do they make time for a garden like this?

- Again, start small, okay?

If you have a very small plot where you plant like two or three berry bushes and a fruit tree, I think you can manage that.

You know, mulch it well, check on it every so often, make sure it has enough water, you know, I think you can manage that.

And then maybe the next year, you can do another small plot like that.

- We've learned a lot today, do you have any parting thoughts for the viewers?

- I do.

Just do it.

If you have any interest in this kind of gardening after what you've heard today, just do it.

Don't obsess over it.

Just make a plan, plant, and then enjoy watching your plants flourish.

- And remember, if you like it, keep it.

If you don't like it, weed it.

(laughing) - Weed it.

(bright music) To sum it all up, Home-scale forest gardens mimic a natural woodland by planting edible perennial plants, like trees, shrubs and herbs, to create a self-sustaining, low-maintenance food system.

It's not your typical vegetable garden where you'd plant seeds in rows and spend your spring and summertime watering and weeding.

- (laughing) That's right.

Home-scale forest gardens create resilient landscapes, turning a small or large yard into a productive ecosystem that feeds you year round.

- On our next episode, we'll take a look at what goes into preparing the garden for the coming season.

- In late winter, we start doing seasonal chores, like pruning and planting seeds for the coming year.

- I'm Loraine O'Donnell, with Dani Baker.

Join us next time on "The Home-Scale Forest Garden."

Thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] "The Home-Scale Forest Garden" is brought to you by Brookfield Renewable.

A provider of renewable power supports public television, reminding the public to make safety a priority.

Know the risks, use caution in and around water.

Information available at safewaters.com.

- [Representative] Since 1979, Adirondack Fragrance has offered artisan-made, place-based fragrance products made from our region's unique botanicals, providing aromas inspired by the mountains, forests and fields.

adirondackfragrance.com.

- [Announcer] And by Richard and Deborah Macsherry, the Northern New York Community Foundation, and by these additional sponsors.

- [Announcer] Closed captioning sponsored by Reed's Incorporated.

- [Loraine] Dani Baker's award-winning book, "The Home-Scale Forest Garden: How to Plan, Plant, and Tend a Resilient, Edible Landscape," is available from Chelsea Green publishing at chelseagreen.com, and wherever books are sold.

(light music) (bright music) (upbeat music)