What’s better than hanging out in a forest garden??
Introducing others to the joy and abundance of forest gardening!

I had an absolute blast running the Forest Garden Intro Day in collaboration with Shift Bristol last weekend – showing a wonderful group of budding forest gardeners round the food forest at Grow Wilder, and chatting through the principles, benefits and practicalities of forest gardening. With a few tasty forest garden treats thrown in!

We also delved into permaculture design and got everyone to start brainstorming their own forest garden design! It was really inspiring to see all the beaming faces and fizzing brains.

And the main take-home messages?

🏡 You can have a forest garden in any space, even a small front or back garden. Just choose smaller trees, espalier them, or lose the tree layer altogether!

🐞 Diversify or die! Diversity is what makes your system resilient. Growing a variety of plants and providing a range of habitats will help create a healthy and productive ecosystem.

🤓 You are already a designer! Despite all the fancy terminology, none of this is rocket science. Forest gardening describes a centuries-old practice of cultivating and looking after diverse ecosystems so that they can feed us, and Permaculture was practiced by communities around the world before we even came up with a name for the concept!

So, go forth and forest garden!

And if you’re in Bristol, why not come along to my next workshop early next year. Watch this space…