Homestead Plantings & 
Food Forests

Mature fruit and nut trees form an open canopy, with various fruits hanging from branches including pears, apples, persimmons, pecans, and chestnuts. Shrubs fill in the canopy bearing raspberries, blueberries, flowers, and nuts at different times of the year. A number of native wildflowers, herbs, and perennial vegetables thickly cover the ground. A landscape that attracts beneficial insects, birds, and butterflies is desirable.  It is also an environment where the plantings act as soil builders and help to keep the weeds down.  Desirable flowering and fruiting vines like concord grapes climb on trees or arbors.  This is a garden where plants support one another as they store energy in their roots for later harvest and winter storage. If designed with care, and with a heightened understanding of ecosystems, you can also design a garden that is largely self-maintaining.

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Typically comprised of seven layers.  The canopy contains tall mature trees, typically large fruit and nut trees. Between the canopy trees, there is a layer of low growing, fruit trees. Situated in between all of the small trees are shrubs, such as currants and berries.  The vertical spaces are filled with climbers and vines, which are trained up trellises, arbors, fences, trees.  This category includes concord grapes, climbing beans, and almost any species of berry.  Filling in the remaining space is the herbaceous layer.  These are edible and medicinal herbs, companion plants, and clusters of pollinating flowers for bee habitat.  Any remaining space is occupied by ground covering plants. These ground cover plants form a living mulch that protects the soil, reduces water loss to evaporation, and prevents weeds from overtaking the native species. The deepest and last layer is the root zone, the underground level which is occupied by all the root crops and fungi.