I am starting to make lists for thing to add to my food forest this year, I am looking for idea’s in regards to root crops, small cover crops upwards of the small bush’s and extra climbing vines to add to the trees..
So lay it on me folks.. this is the perfect time to get someone else to try growing that whatcha call it and report back on how it did..
I am very open to medical plants, as well as food of course, as well as anything that will encourage the bee’s or pollinators..
A few things I know that I am going to be adding in.. Ground cherries, sunflowers, more gooseberry bushes and at least one more mulberry, peach and crabapple tree’s..
Just another Day on the Farm 
Have you grown buckwheat? Great cover crop, the young leaves are edible, and the grain is fantastic. The only think I don’t like about buckwheat is the flowers – they smell like vomit to me!
My newest plant that I’m trying to get more people to grow is okra. It’s a fantastic vegetable, easy to grow, and I don’t think people know we can grow it in Canada.
Oh, and cutting or leaf celery. Since I use celery mainly in cooking, I don’t need the “real” celery (still growing it this year though!), and leaf celery is much easier to grow.
New for me this year: nasturtiums, to try as a caper substitute! And cumin. And sesame. And, if it ever gets here, black cumin, as a black pepper substitute.
BTW, I still have to mail out samples of the dry beans I grew last year. If you (or any of your readers) want some, send me your address to myoldnewhouse at gmail dot com
I have grown buckwheat, its a good cover crop.
Okra, I have never grown it or eaten it to be honest, its one of those I have read about and just never done anything with it.. which if you think about it is odd, I mean I have tried so many things in my nose to tail cooking, maybe I need to stretch out and try some new plant things as well.. What is the way you like to eat it, or use it?
I use the spruce tips as caper subsitute but that’s interesting, I do have cutting celery, love it but had not thought to move some over to the food forest, had in the main garden but that’s a awesome idea.
O, keep us posted on the black cumin, that sounds so interesting..
Sent you my info for the beans!
I generally use okra in my vegetable soups, or with stewed tomatoes as a side dish. Of course, if I could, I’d eat all of it breaded and deep fried, but even I can’t justify that! I’ll send you some seeds if you want to try it! It does need sun though – if you can grow tomatoes and sweet peppers, it needs similar conditions (it’s in the mallow family though, not the nightshade).
Sure, I’m game, I grow tons of tomato’s and peppers, so I will treat it the same in where to plant it and go from there, I will do a little research on what spacing it needs for dryland planting and what it perfers in terms of soil, is it a heavy feeder or no?
Mallow family, that helps.. sound interesting..
I didn’t fertilize it at all last year. I didn’t get a great crop, but I also didn’t water the garden as much as I should have with the drought we had! Mallows are an interesting family, and okra has the most beautiful flowers, like Rose of Sharon shrubs – it wouldn’t be out of place in a flower garden, and is easily the prettiest plant in my vegetable garden. I planted them about 16″ apart last year (3 plants per 4′ row), and found that was too far apart. I’m planning on trying 8″ or 12″ this year – and of course, we’ll get great growing conditions and I’ll end up with an okra jungle 😀 But it’s easier to thin the extras than to go back in time and plant more!
Everything I’m growing will be new to me! 🙂 Have you tried hops? I’ll try okra if K.B. sends me a few seeds. 🙂
Honestly, I’d love to see a full-out list of what you grow, and where it grows. I’m still trying to understand the concept of a food forest.
Oh, hey, I have a question for you that might make a good post – what would you do for growing food if most of your land was actually forest?
I have grown hops in the past and I am happy that I have a lead on getting some roots for this spring and will be adding them, thanks Grandma’s blog on that one, she was so kind to offer me some!
As for the food forest, what part of it does not make sense to you??
This is a very good book on it.. not a cheap book even on kindle, but I really like it..
He has a whole series on u-tube, that I think would really help you see what a food forest is..
Ok I had to laugh and groan, I am trying to put together a list of what is all in my food forest and I am just blown away by the amount of plants in there and I know that I need to do walk about’s over the summer, because I have done alot of wild seeding, and seed bombs and there is alot of wild plantings by wind and birds, I figure I have put in at least 60 things over the years at a min and I figure there has to be easily at least a hundred things n there to record..
Why am I doing this project, I don’t know, its not even on my lists for the year..ehhh.. but I can’t figure out whqt is lacking if I don’t know what I point in fact have, I am a bad one for just going and pickig, example, I don’t think I have milkweed down in the lists yet but I pcik it and use it every year, and there are alot more examples then that..
I am not ready, or do I really have room for, a food forest, but my planting is definitely getting less regimented and there are some areas that might lend themselves to a more permanent planting. No suggetions for you I’m afraid. As our new things this year, we are trying lentils and magenta spreen (tree spinach) . I am looking forward to 8ft spinach plants :-D. I’d love to grow more flavourings. Lovage was one of the best last year, with it’s strong and earthy celery flavour. Cumin would be fun, we use that in everything!
I’m fond of anise hyssop http://www.manitoba.ca/agriculture/crops/medicinal/bkq00s02.html but be warned it’s in the mint family and can be pretty invasive. Of course that could be a good thing for the area you want to fill in!
Does it taste like anise”? cuz I don’t like that flavour much, but will do some research and see if i can figure what else it can be used for, I want to add in more plants that can be used for coloring or dying for both wool, cloth and soaps..
It is a bit liquorice, which I like but it also smells lovely and has fantastic flowers that bees adore. Not sure about using it for dye.
soapwort, bayberry, liquorice, burdock
sorry that is all I can come up with at the moment
I do have burdock, love the stuff, and it does grow in there but getting more in, is not a bad idea at all, I had soapwort on my list, I have a small amount growing in the herbal area but would really like to expand it outwards to growing more of it.. No bayberry or liquorice.. I will put them on the list to research and figure out where they would do well.. Thanks for the impute
Columbine – it’s a beautiful flowering bush that the hummingbirds love, and yarrow, which is medicinal, and also (in my opinion) quite pretty. We have (very old) honeysuckles that don’t have edible berries, though there is an edible variety (blue honeysuckle or haskap) – the bees and hummingbirds absolutely love them, too. In the bush/tree category, do you have apricots or hazelnuts?