Permaculture/forest gardening - anybody tried it?

[Hagosaurus]

I’m really interested in forest gardening, ie growing an edible garden using mainly perennial plants, and trying to develop it as a functioning self-supporting ecosystem. Has anybody tried this? How did it work out?

I’m sceptical about forest gardening in the UK as we have light as a limiting factor. The tree layer is fine, currants etc fine as an intermediate layer, not much apart from alpine strawberries grows as a base layer. It’s difficult to get vegetables in. But that’s my thoughts. I don’t do it, apart from the combinations above.

In Portugal I’ve seen broad beans nestling in orchards for the shade, private veg garden routinely being surrounded by orange and lemon trees, with the veg in the shady bit in the middle.

Britain is odd, being more north than most other places with our (relatively) warm winters. So we are growing for much of the year in relatively low light conditions

Look up Danni in the wild on YouTube and see what she has done on her allotment, it may give you some ideas as to what is and isn’t achievable.

Top tip Seaitoverthere - I watched one of her foraging vids, and she covered lots of plants I already use, but other parts you can eat (bramble stem for instance!) I have lots of these in my garden already (been trying to collect foraging plants) so I’ll def be giving it a go.

I do agree about the light levels, and also more ‘foraged’ type harvests seem to be concentrated in spring/autumn, so def still good to keep a sunny area for some annual veg too.

Thankyou both