We have finally planted the majority of the foundation trees and shrubs in our forest garden. These trees and shrubs make up the “bones” of our forest garden/food forest. Most were planted in the Fall of last year, and the rest were planted late Winter/early Spring (within the last month or so). We have planted about 70 trees and over 50 shrubs so far. We are combining the concepts of a traditional orchard and a Permaculture food forest… we call it a “mixed species orchard” to those who are not with familiar with Permaculture, and we call it a “food forest with a formal design” to those who are familiar with Permaculture. As we get into Spring, I will add more photos with explanations of how and why we developed this design.

• The blue lines are where the trees and shrubs are planted. Each line is on contour (meaning it is perfectly level). The hill slopes down in a south-south-east direction.
• The orange line is where we planted a row of Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) that runs parallel to the small, country road we live on.
• The two purple squares on the top left are two 40-square-foot garden plots. The dark purple one has half of the raised beds we have installed. The light purple square doesn’t have any of the raised beds yet.
• The sun rises where the yellow dot is in the sky (pretty original, I know). And the dotted line is the general path it takes across the sky.