Starting a new food forest (UK)

Hi Hazel,

Lovely to have you here at Permies, and I'd love to read your book. I'm in the UK and have around 3.5 acres of mainly old pasture, totally overgrown, and as well as being bordered by trees there is also about 1/2 acre of woodland which included old oaks and alder and younger birch, beech, hazel, willow and elder. I'd love to get into charcoal making, as well as creating a food forest around what's here. Do you have any tips you can suggest for someone starting out please?

Rachael Cart wrote:Hi Hazel,

Lovely to have you here at Permies, and I'd love to read your book. I'm in the UK and have around 3.5 acres of mainly old pasture, totally overgrown, and as well as being bordered by trees there is also about 1/2 acre of woodland which included old oaks and alder and younger birch, beech, hazel, willow and elder. I'd love to get into charcoal making, as well as creating a food forest around what's here. Do you have any tips you can suggest for someone starting out please?

Greetings Rachael! That half acre sounds like it is on its way to being an alphabet grove. See The Gaelic Tree Alphabet” pages 418 -421 in the book. The old Oaks are probably from a previous management regime and the younger cohort is forest re-succesion. There are many stories the land can tell you. Back to the past (Sara Maitland’s From the Forest), back to grazing or backward/forward to woodlot management? I would think that a food forest can be small and very near the dwelling. See my previous post on Food Forests. How much labor do you have? The book tours a few scenarios for finding cultural pathways to tending. See especially Chapter 12: Cultures in Transition. Our Bibliography has many authors who are from the UK. I like Alexander Langlands’ book Craeft for example. Perhaps you could establish a seasonal work camp for semi-itinerant bodgers and charcoaliers to set up systems for tending? I advise starting small and seeing the results before investing in some grand plan. I would hope you can find lots of good advice there where you live. As I quote Naess “Pay attention but don’t buy it!”, meaning that the land ultimately teaches us and the Human advice we get is tentative. Got that?

Into the woods! hazel.

Hi Rachael
You might find Alan Carter’s book, ‘A Food Forest in your Garden’ a useful resource as well. Alan’s food forest is in Scotland and he has loads of great tips on forest structure in a cooler climate, how the different layers work here. It’s very good.
Marcus