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RE: Forest Garden Before and After
It was YOU and this post that I was pondering yesterday about food forests! Sweet.
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What were you pondering? :)
Did you know the Amazon rainforest was managed intensively by natives who cultivated it to be their sustenance? It's a food forest.
The old forests in the east US were also tended and planted by native people as a perennial food system.
Food forests aren't new, they're the future! The world's forests didn't just support people. People supported them! And manipulated the natural way of things to be more hospitable. We're made to be part of this world. We're not alien.
I think the Hmong people are close to your part of the world, right? They're an ancient horticultural society that did the same thing. Yeah, all these people had small grain crops, usually corn or another larger grain, but their primary food was from the forest, either from the plants they supported or from the other animals that enjoyed their systems. They're part of the ecosystem, not separate beings.
People are taught that we're a cancer or a virus on the earth, and it's allowing us to accept that and continue our path of destruction. "That's just our nature," they say. NO! It's not our nature. We're part of this earth, and we've strayed from our nature. But nature is forgiving, and gives us plenty of ways to recover.
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Yes, the Hmong are just "up the road" so to speak, more along Thailand's northern borders than the west, and much of that forest is being slashed for dreaded chinese corn.
I was pondering the planting of annual things vs perennial, and had your "food forest" in my thoughts, having just curated your post earlier. I asked our Karen host about why he had not planted more vegetables, per say, under the trees, and he had a very fixed idea that they are "hard, regular, daily work" vs the things he has chosen & planted which need next to no care, ever. It was really a pondering about how the planting is informed by our ideas of "work" and the local cuisine... you may recall my monitor lizard post and the fact that the Karen eat almost no veggies since they have been habituated out of it by the impermanence of civil war.
T'was a complex ponder. :)
Very complex, as holistic systems are. That's why there's no short comments when talking about permaculture 🤣
I wouldn't say my garden requires daily care. I'm incredibly laid back, letting things go where they want and do what they want, provided they give me food lol Things can be done to minimize the work of gardening. Working on contour and mulching heavily can help minimize the need for watering. Thoughtful application of chickens, quail, or other easily managed birds can decrease pest and weed pressure. Pigs can be used to till and prep the next season's beds, while making bacon and saving you the work of tilling and digging. It's all about using your system to support itself.
It could be more intensive, sure. But I'm not an intensive person. I work hard enough at my regular job to know I don't want to work hard in the garden. Of course, my cultural perspective is going to vary vastly from the Karen. I'm not ravaged and displaced by civil war, I have a store nearby where I can buy most of my food. I don't have a real and pressing need to plant food for my survival.
You're making me wonder if Geoff Lawton has done any work in Asia like you are. This is exactly the kind of project he likes to do on a large cultural scale.
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