Food Forest

I just pulled 40 ears of corn out of one of my raised beds. There’s still another 20 or so still ripening. I love late May!

I started working on my perennial food forest about eleven years ago. Gardening is my hobby, not my job, so those eleven years took time I might have used for other things. That time I chose to use in my garden created a solid foundation in feeding our family, outside of the grocery store.

I put my perennial trees in first and worked my way, down in size, to flowers. Because I was new to gardening in South Texas (we came from Colorado, a very different growing zone!) I relied on our county’s extension office recommendations. Unfortunately, there have been a few plants that I have had to replace over the years, but for the most part I have been very successful sticking with the extension’s picks and Texas A&M’s suggestions.

Because we live in a super hot, dry area: a lot of subtropical and tropical plants work here. My garden is full of low chill fruits like an antique Southern Pear (Biscamp), Pomegranates (Parfianka), Elderberries (American varieties), Mulberries (Dwarf Nigra), Figs (Brown Turkey and Celeste), Muscadine Grapes (Paulk), Non-astringent Persimmons (Fuyu) and even Bananas (Veinte Cohol, Kokopo and Gros Michel). I consider my garden a giant science experiment and I am happiest out there seeing what new theories I can test out.

The biggest expense I have in my garden is the city water that keeps everything going.

I have four raised vegetable beds that are based on a combination of hugelkulter and lasagna gardening. Our land is a little over a quarter acre and I have plants tucked into every place I can fit them. We still have grass for our kids and dog, but there is a lot of amended soil (amended by me, over the years) surrounding the grassy areas and that’s where I grow my vining veggies and flowers.

The worst part of our year is our insane summers. In July last year our heat hit 105°F. I tried to work in the morning the other day. It was 86 degrees. We had a sprinkle of rain that day and it just made the air turn into a sauna. The “feel like” temperature after the light rain was 95. You just can’t win down here in this heat.

If we lost power for an extended period in the winter there are things we could do to survive that comfortably. If we lost power in our summers? Wow. I don’t know how we’d survive. However, if you are like me: covid supply chain issues were a wake up call about our stores of food and supplies. So, I now plant my garden for extra calories and I can things regularly. So, we can survive some random things better now. Like hurricanes. Those come through the south regularly and we would be ready for the type of situation that one of those could bring.

I am always trialing something outside. Last fall I decided to build a mushroom bed. I picked a spot in the yard that almost never dries out (as long as the sprinklers are working!) I’ll be waiting to see how that goes. I also have two separate 9 month fruiting bananas. I’m about to switch his fertilizer to bone meal to force them to flower. I’m very hopeful. I have a mulberry nigra that is super happy in our heat. It is a replacement for the astringent persimmon that got sick and I had to cut that guy down.

My garden is also full of things most people don’t know are food. So if I get a nosy neighbor who wants to pull my veggies out for themselves, I will still have a lot of things that would be left behind.

I am growing some Asian vegetables that do really well in our heat and that produce large amounts of fruits that can be canned. My trellises are full of vines like full sized watermelon, canteloupe, cucumbers, lima beans, green beans and cowpeas.

Unfortunately, a lot of this stuff is going to be ready to can when my oldest boy is doing marching band and JROTC. Those two things take an enormous amount of my time, since he isn’t driving yet. And my younger boy will be entering high school right when my older boy is leaving. So none of these crazy time consuming activities are going to stop any time soon.

I was running this whole crazy schedule for two years with my husband working out of state. That was a huge change in my available time for gardening.

So, I have some canning recipes I’ll be posting soon. Crazy, crazy busy with no end in sight! But it’s a life I absolutely love. I’m so happy with all of the things that appear in my days. My garden, my kids, this blog and all of the wonderful people I get to share this with, and a bright future: for my life to remain full and satisfying. I’m a happy, happy girl. See you outside in the garden!

If you are interested in building a food forest: you are in the right place. See links below on how to start.

Learn how to build a food forest with these 4 specific classes:

Beginner Gardener:

CLASS 1

CLASS 2

CLASS 3

CLASS 4