Let’s say you’ve designed your fruit tree guilds, and now it’s time to plant them on the site.
The question is: how should you go about it?
In the ideal world, you’d plant your entire food forest in one go – trees, shrubs, ground covers, the whole things. But let’s be real. Between the cost of plants, the time needed to prepare everything, and the sheer physical work involved, that’s rarely possible.
Here’s the good news though: I’ve developed a method that’s both practical and effective. It breaks down the overwhelming task of establishing a food forest into manageable chunks, working with your limitations rather than berating you for not overcoming them.
Here’s how I do it:
- I first plant trees, which are the framework of the food forest. Trees have to go into the ground ASAP, like yesterday.
- Once the trees are in the ground, I have room to breathe and organize. Then, I focus on adding stuff in between the trees by planting N-fix trees/shrubs for quick biomass production and boosting fertility.
- Finally, I just keep adding herbaceous perennials as I see fit and get material and time for it.
Let’s talk about planting trees.
STEP 1. Plant trees
This is the most important step because once the trees are in the ground, they determine where everything else goes, so you want to think through what layout to plant them in.
There are several key planting patterns you could do this. On my land, I’ve planted my trees on approximate contours in a permaculture orchard pattern with evenly spaced rows. I like having everything neatly organized so it’s easier to manage with my tractor while still being as diverse as possible. You might choose some other pattern that’s more appropriate for your land and what you want to do.
All right, so once I knew where the trees were going, I planted the individual trees row by row, leaving enough space between them so that I could fit other layers (N-fixers, herbaceous perennials, etc.) later.
Based on the type of fruit trees I planted—apple, pear, quince, and cherry—I left around 5m of space between them. But of course, each tree has different spacing requirements (what’s good for one tree will kill another) so you’ll have to adapt the spacing to what you’re planting.
Although planting might seem straightforward, there are nuances you need to be aware of to ensure survival and growth.
My soil was too poor to begin with, so I had to do some cover cropping before planting and adding amendments to ensure it could support the trees. Your situation might be different, but these early decisions can, in the long term, mean the difference between life and death. I know this because I’ve lost some 4-year-old trees for not prepping the soil as I should’ve.
All I can say is it hurts to lose time this way.
Ok, so with trees in the ground, the framework is established, and you can take a deep breath. You now have time to add other stuff to this foundational layer.
Here’s how these trees look in one part of my food forest:
Let’s now add the next layer to the guild mix, shall we?
STEP 2. Plant nitrogen fixing trees/shrubs
I’m a big fan of supporting the main fruit/nut tree with a quick-growing nitrogen-fixing tree/shrub..
As the name suggests, nitrogen-fixing plants add nitrogen to the soil via roots, leaves, and cut biomass (a great way to produce woody mulch on-site). They also grow fast, providing much-needed shade for trees and shrubs in the early stages of growth that need protection from the scorching summer sun.
N-fixers are the key supportive species that help kick things off and ensure your food tree grows steadily, so they need to be planted as soon as trees are in the ground.
I find them so useful that I continue to add them to my food forest, although I have already ‘matched’ each of the fruit trees with an N-fixer plant.
Last year, I learned that some agroforestry companies plant two N-fixers essentially in the same hole where they are planting a chestnut tree, so I was like, “I need to up my N-fixers game!”
That’s why I have 50+ bare-root Black Locust trees ready to be planted, but I’m forced to wait as there is still too much snow on the ground. I’ll keep you updated on this.
Once you plant your nitrogen-fixing plants in your guilds, you’ll boost food forest fertility, improve soil, create a more favorable microclimate, get mulch for your trees, and increase overall biodiversity. They do so much!
I’ve planted mine between each fruit tree within a row, and they’ve already added a ton of biomass and fertility to my poor soil. To get these benefits, simply prune them once a year using loppers or garden shears. It’s so easy that even a child can do it; here’s my son Dorian pruning it.
And everything you cut can go as mulch around the tree—free “woodchips”, anyone?
As you can read, I highly suggest adding N-fixer plants to your guilds. Now, where exactly to place them and which ones to choose, again, depends on the type of trees you planted and your site conditions. I used Black Locust but there are many other options.
Ok, let’s talk about the final step in my workflow: planting the herbaceous perennial layer.
STEP 3. Plant herbaceous perennials
This is a layer where you could keep adding plants almost forever – the limit is only your imagination and the decreasing space available as you keep adding stuff.
You can plant many different types of plants here—flowers, bulbs, vegetables, herbs, fruits, groundcovers—to fulfill whatever functions you need, whether yield (food or medicine), weed control, attracting beneficial insects, repelling/confusing pests, or building fertility…
Here, I want to focus on one specific function – building fertility – and a type of plant that you’ll most certainly want to have in your guild as soon as possible.
Here’s the rundown.
In these early stages of your guild-build, with main fruit/nut trees in the ground and n-fixers nearby supporting them, the space below the main productive tree is free for grabs and usually ‘colonized’ by native vegetation (e.g. weeds) that are “stealing” nutrients and water from your productive plants.
The easiest way to combat these is to plant something that doesn’t care about the weeds, can outcompete them, and produce a lot of biomass that can be used as mulch. If, in the process, it can boost fertility by the mere fact that it’s growing there, then that’s the star plant we want to add to the guild yesterday.
This is why the first thing I add/plant to my guild in this layer is → comfrey. It’s an incredibly useful plant that is easy to acquire/plant.
If you followed my newsletter closely, you know I have a system that helps me produce new comfrey cuttings every year for planting into my food forest. Similarly to the n-fixers mentioned above, I just keep adding comfrey plants to my food forest – in between the trees, around them, in a swale, on a swale, on the edge of a swale, you get the idea…
In my most recent iteration of the planting, I’ve added comfrey on a swale edge so I can mow and use it as mulch for the whole row.
Once in the guild, it will smother the weeds, mine the minerals from the deeper parts of the soil with its roots, accumulate them in its huge leaves, and then, as you cut it for mulch, release them into the soil, building the fertility and soil organic matter. It’s a win all around, given how little maintenance it needs and how much value it provides to your guild system.
But of course, comfrey is just one plant to add to your guild, fulfilling a particular function. You can add so much to this layer; I just scratched the surface with this.
You can add, for example, strawberries as a groundcover and delicious fruit, mint to confuse pests and for your healing tea, lupin to attract beneficial insects and n-fixation, and so on. In this layer, the world is your oyster!
All right, I hope you found this practical guide useful and are now inspired to get that shovel and start planting.
One more thing before you go: if you’d like to receive more practical tips like this, I suggest you subscribe to my newsletter; the form is linked below!
I see you on the other side.
-William
