Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction to Community Orchards
I planted my first fruit trees in my local park over a decade ago, and there is so much to love. I love spending time in the orchard with my colleagues, caring for our trees and our pollinator gardens. I love harvest time, where we gather to harvest and share the fruit.
And I love seeing how our trees and plants have brought so much life to the park, including beneficial insects and other wildlife. But I'm always wondering. Can I make this space even more beautiful and productive? A next step could be turning part of our community orchard into a mini food forest, where fruit trees are planted side by side with shrubs and ground covers that create an ecosystem where everything is able to thrive.
[00:00:51] Introducing Dani Baker and Her Book
So that's what we're going to talk about on the show today, and I have a really fun guest. Her name is Dani Baker, and she's the author of an excellent new book called The Homescale Forest Garden. How to Plan, Plant, and Tend a Resilient Edible Landscape. Now, Dani is going to share her top three steps to turning your backyard into a food forest.
And these steps will work even if you already have fruit trees and if you're not starting your food forest from scratch. I'm going to chat with Dani in just a minute. But first I want to hear from you. I really look forward to hearing from you.
So now Dani, welcome to the show today. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:01:38] Understanding Food Forests
And let's start off with the first question and that is, what are food forests and how are they different than regular orchards?
A food forest or a forest garden is modeled after a forest edge where not only do you have your understory trees, which are like fruit trees, but you have overstory trees that may grow to 50, 100 feet. You have shrubs, herbaceous plants, ground covers, roots, and even vines twirling up where the light is good. So it sounds like it's a really busy environment. And one of the things that I understand about fruit trees is they like full sun. They like a lot of sun. So if you've got so much planted around them, will they get what they need? Most of the plants will be under them, which will be partially shaded by the fruit trees, but you can plant overstory trees that have open canopies or as Martin Crawford from England does, you can trim them up to about 30 feet and then there's 10 feet of ambient light above your fruit trees. Interesting. So I have this picture of this multi layered, beautiful forest and I'm just wondering, I'm sure that there are a lot of benefits, which we'll talk about in a minute, but is there any downsides? Are there challenges or disadvantages if you don't plan it correctly?
Wow, that's a loaded question.
[00:03:11] Planning and Challenges of Food Forests
Planning is essential. Studying your land carefully over four seasons, if possible, so you understand where the wet spots are, where the frost pockets are, where the land is drained well, where it may not be, where the wind comes from, if there's any standing water or any above ground water running at certain times of year, all of these considerations will not only tell you what you're dealing with on your land, but also suggest plants that would do well in different habitats that you may have.
So challenges. It's challenging to decide how to arrange plants together so they'll play nice. And I approach it as an experiment. I don't assume I know in advance. I make my best guess. I put the plants in and then I observe what happens. And if some of them are happy, that's great. If others are not, or if some overtake others, then I'm learning from that. And I know in the future, how to adjust my arrangements. Okay, I really appreciate that because it takes the fear away of getting it perfect. So you have to move something or whatever. The idea is you want a long term landscape that's going to be sustainable that's going to play together nicely. I really appreciate that now. So on the one hand, there's a bunch of sort of potential pitfalls.
But what are the advantages? Ultimately, what do we get out of using the space in that way?
[00:04:50] Benefits of Food Forests
First of all, you get an incredible amount of abundance in terms of food production, because not only do you just have fruit trees, but you have shrubs that have berries, perhaps herbs that have culinary and medicinal value. Perennial vegetables could be in the understory in the herbaceous layer as well, and then you build in through other plants, all the benefits that your plants require to be healthy. So for example, you build in nitrogen fixing plants, that accumulate other nutrients for the surrounding plants, that attract beneficial insects, plants that deter pests. So you arrange all of these together to be sustainable without very little human input over time.
That sounds great. Okay, here we have a garden, let's say whether it's my garden or somebody else's, you've already got, let's say a fruit tree or two, you've got some shrubs and you think, I should probably keep those. You want to turn it into a food forest.
[00:05:54] Steps to Create a Food Forest
What would you say is the first step? I think preparing the soil, probably sheet mulching. If you have sod surrounding everything, you probably want to eliminate that so you could make room to put in other plants that are more desirable. So I would sheet mulch with cardboard,
brown cardboard, and then covering it with some kind of organic matter, whatever you have in hand, and you have to top it with a couple of inches of something that doesn't have any seeds in it, because you don't want to create a bed of weeds. So I usually use dry leaves fallen from trees and then I top it with wood chips.
Aha. that's interesting. The leaves. Oh, so it's three layers on top. Okay. So here we have our garden and we have the grass and we're like, we don't want this grass anymore. We're going to put something else there. So we're going to sheet mulch, which means we're putting down layers of cardboard, like one layer of cardboard, let's say.
It depends what you're covering. If you have a lot of perennial weeds, you might want to put at least a couple of layers. And it's really, I use appliance cardboard because it's really big. And the edges are far apart. The less edge you have, the less opportunity for weeds to come up through. And it's important to overlap it at least eight inches across over all the edges so you're deterring the weeds coming up and then piling the other stuff on top. I would sheet mulch any time of year, and what happens is gradually as rains moisten the leaves and the woodchips and the cardboard it gradually decays but slow enough so that it cuts the light from the weeds inside below and basically kills off all of that undergrowth. Okay, great.
[00:07:34] Audience Questions and Answers: Origin of the guest's name Dani, Species to Consider and Considerations of Species, First Step of Food Forest Preparation
Okay, we got our first question for today. It's from Karen from Ashland, Kentucky. Hello, Susan and crew. A question for your guest. Not really on topic, but I am curious. The name Dani. Your name is with an I, right? Is it short for Danielle? Just curious. It's a beautiful name. Thanks. Thank you. No, it's short for Danida. D A N I D A. My mother named me after both her parents, Dan and Ida. Danida. Dani. Very nice. Good question. I would have just assumed Danielle. That's great.
Okay. Let's see. We have another question here from Natalie. Let's have a look. Okay. Natalie writes, good afternoon. I love your show. Thank you for all the wonderful guests you continue to have on covering such an interesting array of topics. Yay. Thank you. I have a question for your guest. I am starting my own small food forest on my rural property. So far, I've planted pawpaw, hazelnut, elderberry, and rosebud. I would like to further include catalpa, blueberry, raspberry, and black walnut. Do you have any recommendations for when, at what stage, I should plant the next grouping? Or do you have other recommendations for species? I'm near Port Perry, Ontario, in Zone 5b. So that's from Natalie. Okay, I would be careful about your black walnut. Black walnut roots and leaves and everything produce a chemical called juglone that deters the growth of other plants, some other plants, not all. Elderberries would be okay, apples would not. So if you do your research and if you only have plants that can tolerate the juglone, you're fine. But otherwise you'll need to make sure those black walnuts are far enough away. From the plants that are susceptible. So that's my one suggestion. That's a great suggestion. I don't hear anything about understory or, shrub layer or ground cover. So there's a lot of plants that you could include under the trees that you've described that would also be fruitful.
That's great. Okay. Our first step was prepare the ground. We're going to put one or two layers of cardboard. We're going to put how many inches of let's say compost or something? Six to 10. Wow. Because it'll sink down. it'll sink down. Yeah, it'll sink down. And then you put leaves on top and then you put wood chips on top of that. I was including the leaves and that's including the leaves and the wood chips.
My question is logically inside my head. You've got your trees. They're in the ground. You're building up this layer. Your trees are going to be in a little bit of a ditch with this, layer of six inches. No. No, because it all. First of all, it all will sink down with gravity. Plus, the soil life will take it up and into the soil. So I don't find that it raises the soil level significantly once it's all composted and decayed and integrated into the soil.
And would you have any concerns about all these layers suffocating the tree roots underneath? Cardboard is porous to air and water as are all the layers. So I wouldn't have that concern. You're not too concerned. Okay, great.
So that's our first step. Now, what would be our second step? Give me a hint. Let's see. Do we want to have, for instance, some plants that might feed our trees somehow support them in some way?
[00:11:12] Nitrogen Fixing Plants for Food Forests
You might want to include some edibles there too, that may or may not support your fruit trees, but definitely you're going to want to install some nitrogen fixing plants, some plants that pull up other nutrients from the subsoil that will feed your fruit trees.
Okay. All right, so we've got our existing trees, we've got our layer that's covered and now we're starting to think of what tree, what shrubs do we want and what plants do we want under our trees? So can we just choose anything or are there certain plants that you would say are great? And let's focus on nitrogen fixing great plants that will support our fruit trees. First of all, one thing I do is some of my nitrogen fixes are actually in the overstory. So I would plant, for example, a honey locust or a black locust, and they will actually grow to be far above your fruit trees, but provide lots of nitrogen. You can take care of all your nitrogen needs with a few large canopied overstory trees, but if we're not going to do that, maybe there's not space for that in your lot. Let's talk about shrubs. One shrub that I really like that's also fruit bearing is the goumi, and it is hardy to zone five. It'll grow maybe six by six, but you can keep it pruned if that's too large, all the nitrogen fixers can take pretty heavy pruning and it doesn't hurt them at all. In fact, it encourages them to release nitrogen to the other plants because when you prune a plant, it also prunes its roots, and those roots are high in nitrogen, and as they decay underground they provide that to the other plants around. So goumi has edible berries, it fixes nitrogen, and it's a fairly good small size shrub. If you need something smaller, New Jersey tea is the smallest woody shrub I know of, and it was used for tea in the revolutionary times in the U. S., the leaves were, but it fixes nitrogen. It has lovely white flowers that attract some beneficial insects. And it's very petite. So it won't take up too much space. That's fantastic. There are other nitrogen fixers, that could be in the ground cover layer or the herbaceous, like blue lupine, which does need quite a bit of light, but I'm sure on the outskirts of your trees, there's quite a bit of light. So lupine would be a good choice and it has pretty cut flowers. Nothing's edible about it, but it fixes nitrogen. The flowers can be cut and used in bouquets. Plus, they attract, of course, pollinators. And I found that the tip of the lupine plant is actually a trap crop for aphids. I've seen that's an extra function that it's offering. So that will keep the aphids away from your other plants where you don't want them. Also clovers, any kind of clover is going to fix nitrogen and Dutch white clover can take some shade and it's really good for pathways. I'm sure you need to walk around your fruit trees somehow, so if you maybe put a little path of Dutch white clover, which only grows to six inches.
I can take the foot traffic fixes nitrogen. The flowers are actually edible. So you wouldn't have to mow it, this clover. You would really not because it's so low growing. And you said it's Dutch clover. Dutch white clover. Yep. Dutch white clover. So these are all great options for the lower story.
So now we've got a few emails. One is from Eric in Toronto. Let's see who we've got next. Owen writes, hello, love the topic. What is your ideal guild to support a fruit tree? That's Owen from Grand Bend. So what is the question? A guild is just a combination of mutually supportive plants. I think it's up to the gardener what you want to grow. I don't think there's an ideal guild. You need to experiment on your own property to see what does well there and what does well together. I would choose the plants that I'm interested in growing and make sure that they're appropriate for the habitat that I have. If I have a south facing slope that drains well and dries out in the summer, or if I have a low area that's moist most of the time, I would you know with some shade, I would consider the habitat and choosing my plants and just arrange them so they're at proper distance from each other and see what happens.
Yeah, and I like that attitude because, again, everybody's fruit trees are different cultivars with different root stocks, and it's like children in kindergarten saying, all children like tuna fish sandwiches, and it's no, they don't all like tuna fish sandwiches. It's a very personal thing.
So my Russet apple may not enjoy being beside the tea plant, but it may really like being near a goumi, and again, in the beginning of the show, you gave us the gift of taking the fear away of trying and being okay if it's not a successful experiment. Yeah. So we're going to learn stuff. That's useful in the future.
So to me, that's priceless. I guess it's like a good relationship where you can communicate the trees saying, this isn't for me. And you're like, okay, you know what? I'll try something else. We develop the intimacy of our relationship. I know what you like over the years. I know what you don't like. So yeah.
Okay. We've got another email. This one's from Monique from Niagara Falls, Ontario. Thanks for the topic. Monique says if using cardboard for a bit of mulch, and Monique has access to a lot of it. What about the glue between layers of cardboard? Is that bad?
It's all going to degrade. It's not like plastic that's not going to degrade. Cardboard is approved. Our whole farm in my edible forest is certified organic and our certifier, it wasn't true at first, but within the last few years, they've approved brown cardboard as mulch. So I'm assuming that they've investigated that and have approved it, decided it's not harmful. That's good. Great. That feels good to me. Sometimes there's stickers and stuff on cardboard. I guess you peel that stuff in the tape. You peel that off. I take anything that's not biodegradable off like the tape. Yeah. I always remove all the tape. I don't like to use cardboard that has staples in it or anything like that 'cause they're hazardous. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point too. Yeah. Oh, staples. I've left those in the past. And certainly no foam attached. Nothing like that.
Okay. Another question. This one's from Sue from Detroit, Michigan. Hello to Susan and Dani with an I, love the concept of the name. So beautiful. That's really nice. Where can I purchase Dani's book? The book's available from all the online merchants, starting with Amazon, Wordery, whatever, your local bookstore I'm sure could order it. If you have a small bookstore locally or, may even have it in stock already. Yeah, so definitely worth seeking out. I have seen a virtual copy and I was very impressed. And I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy. That'll be great.
Okay, so here we've got some plants that will help to, we hope, feed our fruit trees. These are nitrogen fixing plants that we can experiment with and try. Are there other considerations or other types of plants that we might consider?
[00:18:52] Nutrient Accumulators and Their Benefits
When we were talking offline, you talked about dynamic accumulators, which sounds very important, but a little bit fancy. I actually call them nutrient accumulators, which is a little more communicative. So these are plants with mostly deep taproots that pull up nutrients from the subsoil. Now many fruit trees have very shallow roots, so their roots can't reach these nutrients. So when you interplant nutrient accumulators that pull the nutrients up and then as the plants die down in the fall, their leaves decay and all those nutrients become available to the surrounding plants. So there's a number of them. Dandelions are a great example. Dandelions accumulate actually seven nutrients in their leaves, including phosphorus, potassium, and calcium, which after water, and then after nitrogen are the three most important plant nutrients for a plant and then other micronutrients as well. So you're encouraging us to leave all those dandelions to let the little dandelion seeds blow around our gardens and orchards. I'm coming to accept them. In my second edition, I'm going to write how wonderful they are. I wasn't quite ready when I wrote the book that's out now, because I grew up, they're weed, right? You want to get rid of them. But no, they're actually very beneficial. And I actually saw something, observed something in my garden, my vegetable garden recently that proves the point.
[00:20:27] Revamping the Garden: Dandelions' Role
I had to revamp an entire part of my garden cause it all grew up in weeds. And one part of it was full of dandelions and another part of it had absolutely no dandelions, and I thought, why could that be? And the reason is dandelions only move in when there's a need to break up the pan and to pull up nutrients and in the section where there were none, those needs had already been filled. So they didn't go there. So I believe that after a certain period of time, the dandelions are going to give way to other plants in your park. Interesting. Okay, so they come along when we need them. I know our park is filled with dandelions. And luckily the city doesn't come along and take them. So we just have dandelions. And hopefully they are sucking up nutrients from the soil. They're dying and who knows? Let's hope they're making our soil better. I haven't seen much evidence of it yet. And these dandelions have been there for years, but the park has a huge stretch of grass and then trees around the edges. So maybe once you have other roots right from your understory plants, loosening the soil and getting in there and enjoying the nutrients that those dandelions release, maybe that all works together to make it better.
Okay, we have more to talk about.
[00:21:49] Listener Questions: Food Forest Planning
I've got some questions that came in now before we do point number three, from some listeners who submitted questions on Facebook. One is an email question from John from Aurora, Ontario. John writes. I'm planning a food forest in the Aurora Arboretum. The site is flat, sunny, and it's an open field with some pioneer trees, mostly buckthorn, small shrubs and grass. This fall, I hope to plant 24 trees. Eight different species in groupings of three. In the next few weeks, I'm going to mow the grass and remove other vegetation where I will be planting the trees. I will add compost to improve the clay soil. Now, here's John's question. What I would like help with is picking appropriate native vegetation for cover crops until I can get around to planting more suitable understory edibles. There doesn't seem to be much information available. Can you provide a reliable source of information or suggest suitable species? Thank you so much.
[00:22:57] Cover Crops and Soil Management
Yes, John. the first thing I think you really need to do is sheet mulch over your sod. And once you have that cardboard and other organic matter laid down, you could probably sprinkle some native seeds. Now, I'm not sure why you want to do just natives, but if that's what you would like, I would recommend some of the native indigos. They're herbaceous they fix nitrogen and several of them have very deep taproots, which you're going to need to break up your clay because you have, I believe you said you have heavy clay. So that's what I would recommend. If you would consider a non native, I would recommend yellow sweet clover. It's a legume that fixes nitrogen. It grows to be maybe three feet or more tall, and its taproot is equally long, going way down and breaking up the pan. It is a biannual, so it will flower in the second year. And if you want, if by the second year, you're ready to remove it and plant something else, you could mow it down before it goes to seed and you won't have to worry about it self seeding. Those are great suggestions. Now, would he have to till in this cover crop? I found that if you, sheet mulch and it starts to decay, you can often just sprinkle the seeds on top and when they have sufficient moisture will germinate and then the roots will go right through by now the cardboard is going to be moist. The roots will go right down through the cardboard. Okay. Sounds pretty easy and we're minimizing telling because we're doing the sheet mulching. So that sounds great and an alternative would be to till, and then plant the cover crop, but that would be quicker, but then you'd be destroying some of the the soil life and also burning up some organic matter. That you really don't want to do. I think it's a win if we do the cardboard mulching then. Yeah, John, thank you so much for submitting that question in advance. That was interesting.
I've got a great question here from Andrew from Ottawa, Ontario.
[00:25:22] Maintenance and Labor in Food Forests
Andrew writes, I would like to see some discussion regarding labour. Once established, there is a fair amount of upkeep. Particularly in the understory to keep renewing and avoiding certain species from overcrowding out others. I love that question because even our pollinator garden, you have to keep an eye on it. the bee balm moves over here and something else moves over there. How much maintenance do food forests need? That's a really excellent question. I think it's a misnderstanding that people have that once you plant it, you can just sit back and relax and just harvest. You have to maintain it. You have to manage it, if you want it to continue to be productive, but that being said, if you compare it with an annual vegetable garden of the same size, there's a lot less labor. Okay. huh.
Now that leads into another comment slash question that we've got. This is from Michelle. I don't have a location from Michelle. Michelle writes, I'm glad this topic is being covered.
[00:26:30] Permaculture and Climate Change
Permaculture principles are so important for us to adapt quote unquote to climate change. I moved my entire farm into a food forest about 10 years ago and it really reduces stress as a farmer because you have a diversity of crops to rely on for food. If the weather takes out your cherries one year, you don't sweat it as you have another 15 varieties of fruit trees. I'm really hoping that more people go to this, go this route. Plus I grow plants that I use for my holistic sprays to reduce fungal infections, promote growth, and enhance overall nutrition on our farm. It's a very sustainable system. That's from Michelle. What's your comment on that? She's so right. I have the same experience with my edible forest. We had a very damaging winter last year, the temperature went down to below minus 25 different times. And that wasn't really the problem. The problem was in between. It was at 32 or above, which means it was above freezing. So the poor trees and bushes. What were they to do? Is it spring? Is it time to open my buds? No, now I'm hit with another super freeze. I lost a lot of flowers on my fruit trees. But my berry bushes are just thriving and I've been harvesting raspberries, honey berries, my red currants are ripe now, the blacks are starting to get ripe. So she's so right with the diversity in a forest like this. If one crop fails, you have a bounty of another. And it's just an abundance. Amazing. Amazing. Sounds fantastic.
Okay, here's another, we've got another comment. This one's from Bob listening from Camden, Ohio. Hi Susan, right on today. Such a very interesting topic. Thanks for the information. Very useful.
Okay, now I had one more comment. I really wanted to share. This is Paul from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Paul says we got really motivated when COVID hit. I wasn't working and the kids were home from school. We spent the whole summer building our food forest. We are having a great time with it. So it's a project. In Paul's case, it's a family project. So exciting and motivating to take things the next step.
So we were talking about three preliminary tips for turning your existing backyard or garden or orchard into a food forest.
[00:29:10] Integrating Herbs for Pollinators
Let's go for tip number three, the third step for creating, turning your backyard into a food forest. And that has to do with integrating herbs that attract pollinators. Talk to me about that.
All of the herbs flower. I would think specifically the ones that I would favor are things like oregano, lavender, even lemon balm. Lemon balm is very attractive to pollinators and not only do they flower and attract pollinators, but their flowers are very tiny and they attract some beneficial insects, specifically the parasitic wasps that prey on bugs that you don't want in your garden. Plus, they exude an odor that can be confusing to pests.
So lavender, for example, if you come across lavender, you can smell it several feet away. So can the pests. But if they're looking for an apple tree and they encounter this lavender smell, they've lost the scent of the apple. The other thing is, a lot of these herbs have oils that sublimate, they evaporate into the air and many of them have antifungal quality so they can actually provide protection against fungal disease for some of your fruit trees and berry bushes if you have them in the ground cover layer. Is that why you often see in food forests, a lot of onion family, plants like chives and stuff, because again, it's the odor, That's right. Yep. They'll do the same thing.
And for instance, in your magical food forest and your enchanted forest, do you sell the herbs as well? Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, I sell them. I have people who come and pick them themselves. And also I sell them to local chefs and just regular customers. I harvested myself and the onions and the chives, of course, the whole onion family.
And one more about that with oregano, is it not invasive? I know that because a relative of mine planted some oregano for a little kitchen garden in Ontario and came back and then all in the wild area around her little kitchen garden, oregano everywhere. So that might be something people might want to look up. I'm not sure. It will self seed, it's self seeded in my garden. So if it's near a wild area, I imagine. So people should look that one up before they integrate it.
Okay, we've got another great email. I love these listeners. I love my listeners. They've got the best questions. Okay, get this. This is a good one. This is from Gail. Susan. Oh my gosh.
[00:32:06] Empathy in Gardening: A Psychologist's Perspective
I just realized that Dani is also a clinical psychologist. What a transition. How did that happen? Love it. I was near retirement age and I freaked out about what I was going to do with my idle time. So we bought this hundred acre property, we became farmers, then I didn't have any idle time. it's, this is an interesting question because to me, the skills that you use as a psychologist and the skills that you use growing plants are not that different. You need to have a lot of empathy for your plants so you can intuit if they're happy or if they're not, and if they're not happy you need to figure out what's making them unhappy and help them become happy again. So it's not that different from being a psychologist, is it? It's like people who talk about, I don't have a green thumb. And I always thought that I was one of those people. And yet I'm a very empathetic person with humans. I just never turned it on with plants. I never assumed that I was able to understand what they were telling me until I started to study fruit tree care. And I realized that everything I do with the trees is a two way communication. They tell me how they're feeling. They show me how they're feeling. Or if there's a lot of pests and disease problems, they're trying to tell me something. So it's not as much of a leap as Gail would think. That's right. Yeah. and how do you feel about changing your life in this way where you were once in an office and now you're outdoors all the time?
It's just so refreshing. It's so much better for my psyche, for my body, for my spirit. I fantasized about wanting to be a farmer when I was in college, but I couldn't talk about it because I was first generation in college in my family. So I couldn't say to my parents, I want to be a manual laborer. What would they say to you if you had, I couldn't even approach the subject. Wow. I think they're proud of me now. They're dead, but I think. I wrote a book. Yes. Oh, that's good. That makes the parents feel good for sure. Yeah.
Okay, so we talked about a few simple steps. Now, what I like about it is it takes the fear away, but this is a big subject, food forest. Is there any other advice that you need you would like to share with people?
[00:34:45] Practical Tips for Food Forest Success
Yeah, start small, plan a project that you know you can manage and build from there. I was super ambitious, but then again, I had my reasons. But, I wouldn't be super ambitious.
I would just experiment with a small pot, maybe one side of the foundation of your house, or one tree surrounded by things that you would like to grow in your yard, or even an edible hedge, that would feed you and the birds. And when you see that you can be successful, then maybe you'll come up with another project.
Exactly. Yeah. One thing that concerns me sometimes, because my angle is so much on the fruit trees and they are my passion. I find that in some food forests, people will do things like they'll plant strawberries right around in the under story of the tree or near them. And I'm like, Okay. Yeah. When I prune that tree and when I care for that tree and inspect it and scout it, I'm going to be stepping all over strawberries.
I don't want to do that. What are the other common issues that people can encounter in terms of the competition between plants? Yeah, you're going to have, I've certainly had experiences where one plant took over an area. Which was not my intention, but that taught me that this was a very aggressive plant. And if I want to grow it, I have to put it in a spot where it's not going to impose on other plants.
So that's one example, then of course, as your garden develops, you're going to have more shade. So certain plants that like strawberries that may have done very well when your trees were small, once they get larger and they're shading, those strawberries are not going to like it, they're going to try to move to the light and or disappear if they have nowhere to go. I think your first point is really important to plan in access to your garden. When you think about the chores that you may have to complete and the times of year, you'll need to do them. Make sure that you have at least foot paths if, not wider paths for a garden, like a wheelbarrow or a garden cart to get close to where you're going to need them. And that should be those access reach be planned in, at least the wider ones from the beginning. The footpaths can create themselves when you see how, where you like to walk.
And then don't worry if you're stepping on some plants, because you're going to have to get there anyway. And if you keep walking in the same place. The other plants around will be fine. And also, what about areas where you have high areas or low areas or damp areas? What are your considerations when you look at the landscape itself?
Matching plants with their ideal habitats. There are a number of plants that thrive in very moist soil. There are others that would die there. But they will like the high, dry, drained soil. If you study your plants, which I had to do, I didn't know about most of these plants when I started, and you determine what their ideal habitat is, and then you match them with it, you'll be much more successful than if you try to force a plant that likes the wet into a dry spot. That's going to increase your labor. You're going to have to water that plant two or three times a week. Whereas if you put it in a wet spot, nature will take care of it, vice versa. If you take a plant that likes it dry and put it in a wet spot, it's going to die. Wow.
[00:38:22] Exploring the Enchanted Edible Forest
Dani, can you tell us again, where people get this book and what's your goal is in writing it? How are you going to help us to make it easy for us to create these gardens? My goal was to inspire more people to try their hand at this, and I hope that you will just jump in and do it, do your research, but then just make a plan and implement it and observe and enjoy learning from nature. So that's my recommendation. And if you go to my website, www. enchantededibleforest. com, on the second page, there's a list of about seven different places where you can order this book online. Oh, fantastic. And also I noticed on your website, do you do tours? Is there an opportunity? Tell me about that.
What do you know? We're just south of the border here, folks. We're in the St. Lawrence River. You can reach us through the 401. That's right. 401. Thousand Islands Bridge. That's right. To my island. I was going to suggest that, to 81 route 81, two will bring right down where you are actually. That's from the States. That's right. Anyway, yeah, it's by appointment. So call ahead so I can make arrangements. So I'm going to be there to show you my garden. I'm going also. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I said, I'm going, I'm definitely going to come visit you. Yeah. Yeah. So people need to make an appointment and then you'll come and you would show us around and I think it's important for people to see what we are trying to create in a successful example because when you are trying to recreate it from a book, that's great. It's experimental, but to really understand. Yeah. And you do call it an enchanted forest? Do you not? I do. And so are there magical beings there as well? Not so much magical beings, but the reason I named it that was people who visit with will spontaneously come up with the word magical to describe their experience in the garden. So I wanted to capture that in the name of the garden, and I wanted to alliterate it so it couldn't be magical enchanted forest it had to be, magical edible forest it had to be enchanted. But yes, if there's just an ambience and when you emulate nature, you know the feeling you get walking in the woods. That's the feeling you get in an edible forest or a food forest. Awesome. thank you so much, Dani. Thank you. I so appreciate you coming on the show and I've learned a lot and you're inspiring. So I hope I will have the opportunity to do this and to follow your suggestions in our own space.
thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
[00:41:20] Conclusion and Book Promotion
So that was Dani Baker and she is the author of the Homescale Forest Garden How to Plan, Plant and Tend a Resilient Edible Landscape and it's valued at 34. 95. So grab your copy and have a look at it. It's a terrific book. Thank you so much for tuning into the show today.