Land per person with Forest Gardening
Hello all, I hope I am making proper use of the forum; I have a question that I can't find answers to using search engines or my usual resources and I wondered if I could put it to the collective knowledge of this group. Please let me know if that isn't the idea of this space!
My question is, as above, what is the estimated area of land needed to meet all of a persons food requirements when the land is operating using food forestry (vegan as livestock is not relevant for the purposes). I am at the very beginning of a potential project and I am looking for figures for preliminary outlines.
It seems difficult to give a definitive figure given all the variables, and obviously it will change a lot give the age of the forest but both figures from young and fully fledged one are useful when in context. I wonder if anyone has spotted any research or perhaps has one from their own project. If no such thing exists numbers of yeild per area or similar would be useful, anything would be appreciated :)
Many thanks!
Jake Rayson Tue 9 Feb 2021 1:28PM
Will ask him, and see if he would like to join the forum 🙂
Tomas Remiarz Tue 9 Feb 2021 11:50AM
Jake, do you know what chestnut varieties Bruce Slark is growing? Even better, could you invite him to join this forum and share his expertise?
The Tapir Tue 9 Feb 2021 11:45AM
I'll try again. Perhaps it doesn't work in the Loomio system. I
don't think we can post stuff up. It's definitely in the attachments
box.
Jake Rayson Mon 8 Feb 2021 6:59PM
No paper attached 😞
The Tapir Mon 8 Feb 2021 5:31PM
I'd say that was a good yield for west Wales (where I used to live).
I'd love to start the winter with 60 kg of chestnuts!
Re acorns, I attach a short paper with pictures.
Jake Rayson Mon 8 Feb 2021 3:10PM
prospective growers should be warned that the yields in the
UK are erratic
I've heard this said a few times. A local forest gardener in West Wales, Bruce Slark has had a decent yield (60kg from 2 x 12 year old trees). Must really depend on the conditions I guess.
As for acorns, I know that there are more readily edible acorns than Quercus robur/petraea (less tannin I think), some are listed on Forest Garden Spreadsheet. Again, I don't have any experience of growing or harvesting but fascinating subject, acorns for human consumption, like the Oakmeal company in Greece.
Re perennial starch crops, I must do some research on them! Mashua grows well but heck, I really don't like the taste.
The Tapir Mon 8 Feb 2021 11:23AM
That's a very good idea, worth pursuing.
I have collected them from park trees in southern England, very
tasty.
However, prospective growers should be warned that the yields in the
UK are erratic and will take at least five years to come on. Climate
change might improve things a bit, but the yields are small compared
with (say) spuds.
I'd say it would be better to use personal land for higher-yielding
crops and then forage for wild acorns. They need processing to get
the tannins out (not difficult) but they come out very similar to
sweet chestnuts, if not so tasty, but higher protein. Nobody wants
them, so once you have found good trees, you can collect as many as
you need, turn them into flour, grits, 'hoummous'.
Regarding perennial starch crops, I don't think very many would grow
in Britain. Perhaps if you had a large greenhouse?
Jake Rayson Sun 7 Feb 2021 11:07AM
If you prefer starchy crops, forest gardens don't do these very well
I'd say the big exception to this is Sweet Chestnut, which has very high carbohydrate content for a nut, similar nutritional profile to rice. Also, there are starchy perennial veg crops, nothing I've tried though.
The Tapir Sun 7 Feb 2021 10:42AM
Hannah
I think you have to ask yourself first whether the question really
makes sense: is it ever going to be a widespread practice?
But I'm sure you are still interested to know the answer. We all
are!
Basically forest gardens can generate a huge amnount fo fruit, and
if this is what you like, fine. It's seasonal: you'd have to work
hard preserving, but it's doable. Especially if you have nuts too.
But takes a long time to start yielding properly. If you prefer
starchy crops, forest gardens don't do these very well: then it's
better to go for two-dimensional row crops. And you get instant
results. But of course you can mix 'n match. At the extreme, you can
get 40 tonnes of potatoes per hectare, and if you wanted a tonne a
year, that would be 250 square metres. Call that 300 and incorporate
less spuds and more other fruit and veg, and some oil crops or nuts,
allow for rotations. That's a large garden, could be done. I'd give
you five years before you got fed up with it and decided there were
other things in life!
Jake Rayson · Sat 13 Feb 2021 10:55AM
Here's what Bruce said, via Facebook “I have are Marigoule and Belle Epine These are producing large quantities of decent size nuts every year. I also have 2 C-pumilla which have never flowered and a Maron De Lyon which is not near enough the other trees to set much fruit”