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Free 20 min online class Forest Garden Primer

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Timings

6-7pm

  • 05 min - Intro
  • 50 min - Talk
  • 10 min - Break

7-8pm

  • 05 min - Group instructions
  • 20 min - Breakout groups x4
  • 20 min - Report back (4 min per group)
  • 10 min - Summary/discussion

Find your land

Group exercise
  1. Each member of group thinks of suitable land
  2. Group chooses one they like the best
  3. Group formulates plan of action eg
    • What the land could be
    • Who to contact for the land
    • Who to invite on the group
    • How to find funding

Totemic flower

Individual exercise
  1. Pick a flower, any native flower (try Plant Atlas)
  2. Find it online
  3. Find it in real life
  4. Use PFAF to find its uses
  5. Grow it to know it

The Foraged Garden

Creating an edible forest garden ecosystem

White spray of Meadowsweet flowers coming into blossom

by Jake Rayson

natureworks.org.uk
natureworks.org.uk/talks/forage

Press P to see notes & credits
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Free 20 min online class Forest Garden Primer

Outline

  1. Agency
  2. Wildlife forest garden
  3. Foraging
  4. Edible crops
  5. Community
  6. Practical steps
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Timings

6-7pm

  • 05 min - Intro
  • 50 min - Talk
  • 10 min - Break

7-8pm

  • 05 min - Group instructions
  • 20 min - Breakout groups x4
  • 20 min - Report back (4 min per group)
  • 10 min - Summary/discussion

Find your land

Group exercise
  1. Each member of group thinks of suitable land
  2. Group chooses one they like the best
  3. Group formulates plan of action eg
    • What the land could be
    • Who to contact for the land
    • Who to invite on the group
    • How to find funding

Totemic flower

Individual exercise
  1. Pick a flower, any native flower (try Plant Atlas)
  2. Find it online
  3. Find it in real life
  4. Use PFAF to find its uses
  5. Grow it to know it

1. Agency

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Forest fire with flames in the sky and the trees all burning

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This is not actually the 2023 Canadian wildfires but a controlled fire in Alberta in 2009, to create a firebelt and increase diversity. But you get the idea. Photo by Cameron Strandberg on Wikimedia

“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world
  all at once, but of stretching out to mend the
  part of the world that is within our reach”

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés

You have agency

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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You are an agent of change

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Mend your part of the world

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Humans as a force for good

Screengrab of forest garden video

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Martin Crawford’s wonderful 2 acre forest garden down in Devon

2. Wildlife forest garden

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Forest garden definition

Bumblebee on pinkish flower of sedum (Hylotelephium spectabile)

“An edible ecosystem,
  growing perennial edible crops,
  self-sustaining in nutrients & pest control,
  in a woodland edge wildlife garden”

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Photo is a bumblebee on an edible Ice Plant sedum (Hylotelephium spectabile)

Characteristics

Illustration of climax vegetations & position of forest garden by wild wood

  1. Sustainable
  2. Productive
  3. Wildlife friendly
  4. Layers
  5. Perennial
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Keep it sustainable, don’t get burnt out.

  • Illustration of forest garden in “climax vegetation”
  • The further right you go, the more energy, less diversity, more fragility
  • Illustration from Martin Crawford’s book Creating a Forest Garden

Principles

Wild strawberry flowers

  1. Work with nature
  2. Vegan, organic, natural
  3. Native plants where possible
  4. People at heart 💚
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Photo of Wild Strawberry (Fragaria vesca)

Hand-made garden sign saying “If something is not eating your plants, then your garden is not part of the ecosystem”

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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3. Foraging

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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“Foraging is fundamentally
  a journey to freedom”

~ Robin Harford, Eatweeds

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Also, another lovely quote

“Observing nature closely can be a grand
  passion, but tasting moves that relationship
  beyond the platonic… Through the medium of
  wild plants, the minerals of the places I love
  have been knit into my bones.”

~ Margit Roos-Collins, The Flavors of Home

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps

Your landscape

Close-up nettle leaves

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Photo of Nettle (Urtica dioica) by Maksym Kozlenko on Wikimedia Commons

White spray of Meadowsweet flowers coming into blossom

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Photo of Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)

Soft unfurling Small Leaved Lime leaves

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Photo of Small Leaved Lime (Tilia cordata)

Yellow Primrose flowers

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Photo of Primrose (Primula vulgaris)

Small red Wild Strawberry and white flower, close-up

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Photo of Wild Strawberry (Fragria vesca) by Ivar Leidus on Wikimedia Commons

Unripe hazelnut on tree

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Photo of Hazel nut (Corylus avellana) by Gareth Halfacree on Wikimedia Commons

4. Edible crops

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Garden native edibles

Close-up of purple Wild Thyme flowers

  • Native plant nurseries
  • Grow them in your garden!
  • Forage in your garden
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Photo of Wild Thyme (Thymus drucei) by Jerzy Strzelecki on Wikimedia Commons.jpg)

Nurseries

Choose locally grown if you can, to support ecoregion genetic diversity & local economy.

Nativars

Close-up of ripening blackberries on a thornless bush

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Near-natives

Close-up long pale Sweet Chestnut flower

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Non-natives

Pale cream Autumn Olive flowers, filled with bees

  • Everything else!
  • Native where possible eg
    • Windbreaks
    • Ground cover
    • System plants
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Photo of Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)

Edible herbaceous perennials

Pea-like flower

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Photo of Hopniss (Apios americana) by Cephas on Wikimedia

5. Community

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world
  all at once, but of stretching out to mend the
  part of the world that is within our reach”

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Find your part of the world!

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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When I asked for help finding site for wildlife allotments, a local town councillor said “There is no land”. But we are surrounded by land!

Corner of churchyard by church

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Daisies on a grave

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Grass outside old people's home

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Patch of grass round the back of old people's home

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Community garden with raised beds

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Raised beds of community garden up close

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Tarmac and concrete pots of annual plants outside police station

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Lots of space down the slope from the dentist's carpark

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Find your people!

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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6. Practical steps

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Practical steps

Circle of people sat back on each others laps!

  1. Find your people
  2. Find your land
  3. Start small, keep going
  4. Gardening is for life
  5. Get help & funding
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Practical tips

Plan of tree diameters

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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Reference

Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
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The End

Elephant Garlic flower head

hello@natureworks.org.uk

natureworks.org.uk/newsletter

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Outline

  1. Agency
  2. Wildlife forest garden
  3. Foraging
  4. Edible crops
  5. Community
  6. Practical steps
Agency — Forest Garden — Foraging — Edible crops — Community — Practical steps
2 / 45

Timings

6-7pm

  • 05 min - Intro
  • 50 min - Talk
  • 10 min - Break

7-8pm

  • 05 min - Group instructions
  • 20 min - Breakout groups x4
  • 20 min - Report back (4 min per group)
  • 10 min - Summary/discussion

Find your land

Group exercise
  1. Each member of group thinks of suitable land
  2. Group chooses one they like the best
  3. Group formulates plan of action eg
    • What the land could be
    • Who to contact for the land
    • Who to invite on the group
    • How to find funding

Totemic flower

Individual exercise
  1. Pick a flower, any native flower (try Plant Atlas)
  2. Find it online
  3. Find it in real life
  4. Use PFAF to find its uses
  5. Grow it to know it
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