The 7 Layers of a Forest Garden (and Kid-Conversations with the Soul-layer)
When I was a kid sitting in the forest with my fingers digging in the dirt or touching the layers of grasses and flowers, feeling the bark on the different trees and sensing the way the water smelled different in a stagnant pond than in a flowing creek - I was in conversation with the layers of the forest and learning more than I could ever have learned reading books.
What is a food forest?
A food forest is a deliberately designed, high-yielding, perennial plant system developed by human beings for their sustenance. We begin by observing and understanding the local ecosystem in which we are living. We utilize these ecosystem processes as our infrastructure and plug high-yielding food, medicinal, and utility plants into this framework, write the authors of Integrated Forest Gardening (Wayne Weiseman, Daniel Halsey, and Bryce Ruddock).
Above is a clear definition and there are many places to find definitions - but I feel like the soul of forest gardening is missing in this definition. Personally, I feel a togetherness and partnership with nature and I’d like to include that in my expansion of this definition.
I grew up on a river and spent most of my time outside exploring the nearby forests and our backyard which was wild for most of my younger years. I had been talking with the plants, trees, birds and flowers already for years at this point.
Not a lot has changed…the location yes, time has passed yes, but the conversations with the trees and plants are the same.
My childhood experience of forest gardening
I was a kid - I didn’t have any of the language I have now, but I will share what I experienced looking back.
I used to walk through the forest which was just down the road from my house and explore and find beautiful plants, vines, baby trees, and flowers and spent a lot of time chatting with them for hours and hours. We also had a wild backyard on a river where I spent more of my time. I knew these spaces like I knew my own home. I knew the pathways, I knew the deer trails and I knew where the ground was wet and where it was dry. I knew where the patches of raspberries were and on and on.
I remember asking if I could move the plants and trees from the nearby forest to my house and sometimes the answer was no - but there were times when the answer was yes - and so it began…
I would take one plant from the roots and carry it home and plant it beside my house to see what would happen (looking back I can tell you it was baby spruce trees, poplars, maples, birch, and asters of all kinds). I would notice the soil from where I picked them and do my best to match it at home…it was science, really.
Some of those trees made it and stood tall by the time we sold our house 14 years later! Some of those flowers were invasive forget me nots which spread all over (oops).
WINTER in the young food forest year three. We are working with what’s here already and planting to fill in all the cleared spaces. In 5 years this will look completely different with so many fruit trees and perennial food sources.
How long have food forests existed?
I don’t know the final answer to that because I haven’t read everything - however, I don’t believe we need to SEE the research or READ the papers to consider that they’ve been around for as long as humans have existed. In the Amazon, there is evidence of forest spaces where trees seem deliberately planted and where the soil is richer than anywhere else from management such as intentional burning and diverse plantings.
To stay in Canada for a moment - read this Study reporting on Historical Indigenous Land-Use in the Pacific Northwest. One element of food forests that is discussed in that article is the resilience and extra-diversity that exist because of the human impact of intentionally working with the forest ecosystem - and yes, this was going on LONG before settlers arrived. Food Forests are not a new thing. A quick search on Google will reveal many more studies if that is something you enjoy!
Food forests are not new and humans have always been part of them.
Quebec Zone 4: Notice the natural layers of the forest here. Black Cherry and White Pines, next the Pagoda Dogwood and Red Elderberry - this is a beautiful demonstration of how the forest sets itself up for resilience. Vines such as wild grape and clematis. Below are raspberries, ferns, grasses, native flowers like foam flowers, and trout lily - then mushrooms. This is the forest on the outside of the land we live on.
A food forest emulates a natural forest ecosystem - we work with it - because we are it.
Youth Challenge International - human-influenced food forests are the norm where we were. I was so intrigued!
It’s a multi-layered system of fruit trees, overstory trees, berries, mushrooms, roots, vines, birds, insects, animals, wind, precipitation, etc. Some of these things we can alter and lots we can’t…but what if the impact that we as humans have is one that celebrates and honours our interconnectedness with all? Can our impact be regenerative? Why yes, I believe it can.
At 24 years old, I had the opportunity to see long-standing old Food Forests everywhere in Guyana and it only deepened my appreciation of what is possible when we honour our interconnectedness of all and our interdependence. (and the Tarantula layer…haha)
A quick Google Search will show you the “7 (or 9) layers of the forest”: The Canopy Layer, The Sub-Canopy Layer, The Shrub Layer, The Herbaceous Layer, Ground Cover Layer, Underground Layer, Vertical / Climber Layer. Here’s a post that gets right to the point.
The Soul Layer - where we’re all connected
4-5 years old - I was in full-conversations back then with the forest.
The part of the conversation I’d like to add is the SOUL OF THE FOREST, the soul of the plants, the essence of all of it, the oneness of all of it, and how when we sit in those layers - we realize we are part of it too.
I hope as we reconnect with this truth, making choices in our gardens that reflect our role as participants vs: “managers”, “controllers” or “deciders” will mean our impact can be regenerative and restorative.
So when we came to this land, I arrived humbly, ready to listen, smell, sense, and learn like I did as a kid. The damage to this land (which has not been part of these posts yet) due to choices like a past human pouring diesel to burn down those pesky trees came to me within days of being here, was later confirmed by neighbors. I felt an urgency to “fix” but I also knew that the land was already doing it - so I asked, how could I participate?
Even writing this “out loud” to possibly be read by people I don’t know leaves me a little wobbly but I also know these are not unique experiences - many humans have conversations with the plants - I think we all do - we’ve just been taught to separate vs connect.
Engaging with All Layers of a Forest
Amazon Rain Forest in Guyana - It was a dream come true and I spent a lot of time just sitting there.
As we participate and interact with the layers of this forest here and add herbs, fruit trees, perennial food sources, native plants, and soon ducks to this dance, I hope we are doing so in a way that is supportive of the whole system. As we add these food sources, the soil is improving, the plants are returning, the native trees are coming back to the cleared spaces and I hope in time we will look back and see that what we’ve done is good for all.
I hope that as we engage with all layers including the spirit, soul, and essence of it all, we are part of the expansion, restoration and healing. I humbly sit here aware that I don’t “know” anything for sure.
As I watch the spring sunshine melting the snow into pools and puddles and hear the jays cawing, the crows crowing and the breeze moving through the white pines as they drop their winter coat - I DO FEEL that this forest is beautiful and some good things are happening here.
My daughter harvesting beans from the forest garden which we hope are helping create a healthy soil layer as this forest develops.
So, with that…imagine how our relationships can shift as we re-engage with the soul of the forest and therefore ourselves more wholly again.