To achieve a low maintenance abundance of fruit, nuts, berries and herbs we’ll want to create a forest-like system where fertility comes from various sources, where you’re greatly aided by fungi, where wildlife is your primary pest control, where soil holds water like a sponge, and where you have a high diversity of plants.

We will carefully design and maintain ecosystem of useful plants and emulate conditions found in the forest.

However, the problem is often that we’ll find our self starting out with a bare field, a blank canvas and the overall plan can feel a little overwhelming.

While creating our own food forest, we broke down the plan into smaller, manageable steps. We want to make as few mistakes as possible and to be honest, We don’t have time to make them. 

We always have to ask ourselves if we are doing this because : 1. Being more self-reliant, 2. Making an income, 3. Producing healthy food 4. Educating others 5. Having a fun project for all the families living on the community.

On the other hand, if we just want to be more self-reliant, we’ll want to think about how to create a diverse food forest with as many fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs as possible to fulfill our needs and stop being dependent on the grocery store.

We’ll want to look around and identify the perennial plants, observe how they grow in relation to one another, and take a note of the species. Water planning comes first, as water is the number one priority for any permaculture system. The water systems that we develop in this stage will become permanent land features that other infrastructure components will follow.