Forest Gardens: Creating a Sustainable
Cooper Point
* June 2007 *
Cooper Point Assn. Newsletter Article
by Michael Kelly, CPA Board Member
In the summer of 2006 a Seattle Post Intelligencer Opinion Editorial, by
Pat Rasmussen said “millions of acres of lodge pole pine have been pushed
over the mortality threshold by global warming. There is no longer suitable
habitat for the trees that have been growing there”.
When asked what we as humans can do about high carbon levels in the
atmosphere, Rasmussen said “Anything we can do to reduce our carbon
emissions…”. She went on to talk about driving less, eating local
un-packaged foods, and a few other easy and helpful tips.
Rasmussen also said that the most affective thing we can do is plant trees
in every space available.
We had a little patch of lawn in our back yard, which is now trees,
shrubs and groundcovers. While we were in the garden planting trees (mostly
edible fruit or nut trees), we also planted various shrubs – many shrubs
that grow locally have very tasty berries and/or nuts as well as many of the
perennial ground covers make excellent salad greens.
Once established, a forest garden is not tilled. By not tilling the
earth, the soils are able to hold carbon in them as the plants breathe
carbon dioxide in, and breathe out fresh clean air for us to breath. This
method of gardening is also known as ‘Permaculture’.
Once the garden starts to mature, the trees (apple, pear, kiwi, almond,
etc.) will pull up water and nutrients from the soil with their deep tap
roots in the hot summer as well as holding water in their canopies to act as
a ‘drip’ water system when it rains.
The ground covers (Good King Henry, parsley, asparagus, arugula, etc.)
will start to come up in the late winter and absorb what sun they need, and
they do fine with ‘dappled’ shade in the summer as the larger plants start
to grow leaves.
The shrubs (blueberry, red currents, green tea, raspberry, etc.) will
start to grow their leaves in the early spring so they get to suck up as
much sun a possible before the trees above it dapple them in shade.
Over all we will get less fruit from the trees, less berries from the
bushes, and fewer greens from the ground covers, however, we will get a
higher overall yield from a forest garden per acre, as compared to rows of
one species of plant, planted in a garden bed or orchard.
Our role in the forest garden is to give a bit of sweat equity to get it
started and about 4 hours a week to maintain it and share in the abundance
of food that is produced.
Once planted a forest garden is self fertilizing, self weeding, self
watering… self sustainable, like an old growth forest. This is not only a good option to cut down CO2 in the atmosphere, but it
will also provide fresh organic produce in our back (or front) yards.
If there are further questions on forest gardening or if you would like
help getting one started feel free to email me at flyfreeasabird@comcast.net
Useful Information About forest Gardening:
How To Make a Forest Garden, by Patrick Whitefield (book)
The Natural
Farmer: Spring 2002: Edible Forest Gardens - an Invitation to Adventure
The Power of
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