F OREST G ARDENING F OREST G ARDENING Rediscovering Nature & Community in a Post-Industrial Age R H OBERT A de J ART Revised & updated edition Thisrevisededition firstpublishedin1996by GreenEarthBooks, animprintofGreenBooks, Foxhole,Dartington Totnes,Devon,TQ96EB Reprinted2001witharevisedForeword Reprinted2009(withoutcolourplates) Firstpublishedinebookformats2010 ©1991-2010theestateofRobertA.deJ.Hart Allrightsreserved BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData availableonrequest PrintformatISBN9781900322027 PDFformatISBN9781907448362 ePubformatISBN9781907448379 C ONTENTS Foreword by Herbert Girardet ix Prologue: The Mini-forest 1 1 Towards a Forest Economy 5 2 Unity and Diversity 11 3 Health & Wholeness 19 4 Personal Pilgrimage 31 5 The Wenlock Edge Project 45 6 Plant Life: Its Infinite Potentialities 61 7 Design & Maintenance 71 8 Water and No Water 81 9 Stored up Sunshine: Energy Yesterday and Tomorrow 91 10 The Thinking Hand:Skills of the Craftsman 101 11 Agroforestry Against World Want 115 12 Green is Real 131 13 Where Do We Go From Here? 143 Epilogue: A New Twist in the Evolutionary Spiral 155 Appendix 1 Recommended Species: Temperate 159 Appendix 2 Recommended Species: Tropical and Sub-tropical 182 References 200 Suggested further reading 200 Recommended suppliers in the UK 202 Membership organisations 203 Index 205 A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author and publishers would like to thank Amy Elvey and Susan Trill for their line drawings that appear throughout the book; the International Institute for Environment & Development for their kind permission to use three illustrations of forest gardens in Africa (from Paul Harrison’s The Greening of Africa).And finally, special thanks are due to Frans Wesselman for his generosity in donating the striking cover picture. L I IST OF LLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1 Japanese bridge leading to alder carr 32 Fig. 2 Swallowtail butterfly 33 Fig. 3 The mattock, an ancient multi-purpose tool 37 Fig. 4 Plan of the author’s garden 44 Fig. 5 Fan-trained plum tree with blackcurrant bush 47 Fig. 6 Circle-dancing round the oak tree 50 Fig. 7 Cross-section of temperate forest garden, showing seven ‘storeys’ 51 Fig. 8 An artist’s impression of the forest garden 52 Fig. 9 Rose-mound showing construction layers 53 Fig. 10 Bouché-Thomas hedge 54 Fig. 11 The Packhorse Trail 55 Fig. 12 Arch of Gaia 56 Fig. 13 ‘Family’ apple tree 65 Fig. 14 George Cave apple tree with scaffolding to support branches borne down by abundant crop 67 Fig. 15 Oyster mushroom on logs 68 Fig. 16 Hedgehog as seen in sanctuary 72 Fig. 17 Treehouse 75 Fig. 18 Early Celtic Christian settlement 81 Fig. 19 Water-wheel for irrigating bog-garden 85 Fig. 20 Rutland Windcharger 97 Fig. 21 Basket-making 103 Fig. 22 Chagga forest garden 119 Fig. 23 Profile of tropical rainforest showing storeys 121 Fig. 24 Mangrove tree 122 Fig. 25 Alley-cropping 123 vii To ELENA who loves the Forest Garden F OREWORD Ten years ago the first edition of Forest Gardeningcame out, and it has attracted a large readership. That is because it is a book of hope; but even more than that, it is a book of practical instructions for a sustainable future of our own making. Sadly Robert Hart died in 2000, and can no longer enrich our lives with new inspiration. Forest Gardening remains perhaps his greatest and most enduring legacy and I am delighted that Green Books is continuing to keep the book in print. Robert wanted one thing more than anything else: he wanted us to grow forests – food forests. We can plant them all around us – in our commu- nities, on urban wasteland and in our own backyards. By showing us how, he has touched a deep need in many of us, in an age in which the only cer- tainty is change, and thus insecurity. Trees don’t race down motorways: they stand still. They are always there in the same place, and the only changes they undergo are those of the seasons, steadily, year after year. Robert Hart was a rare person. A man utterly convinced of a cause, an imaginative experimenter eloquent in expressing his message and with a stamina second to none. For decades he waged a lonely battle for life, patiently writing books and articles and quietly planting trees on his small farm in Shropshire. Robert created a forest garden which had a profound influence on the way we cultivate our patches of land. It was a garden dedicated to human needs for fruit, nuts, vegetables and plant medicines. But it was at the same time a celebration of the myriad interactions of life; for it was based on profound observations, both intuitive and scientific, of how different life forms interact in order to stimulate and support one another. His forest garden was, at the same time, a revolutionary new creation and a rediscovery of ancient plant knowledge. ix