Reddit reviews Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops

1. Water is life. You want to keep as much water on your property as long as you can. Have you put in swales on contour or keylines to stop, spread, sink the water into the soil so the trees can benefit?
   
   
2. What is your soil like? Is it acidic or alkaline? Is it compacted? Eroded? Deficient in minerals? Is it more clay or loam or sandy? Have it tested. There are ways to improve the soil. If it's compacted, you can deep rip. If it's acidic, you can add lime and dolomite. If it's clay, adding gypsum will break up the clay. Pioneer trees can also help break up soil with their deep tap roots. Forests are usually alkaline while pastures are more acidic. Forests have more fungi where pastures have more bacteria. You can get a jump start on changing over the soil if you take some starch like rice to a forest, leave it on the ground for several days, collect it, and scatter it where you want the fungi to take over. There are things you can add to increase the soil microbes that are so beneficial: compost, compost tea, bio-fertilizers, and inoculates on seeds.
   
   
3. What do you want to accomplish with a forest? Are you wanting to use some of the trees as a wind block? Are you wanting to stop some of the soil erosion along the stream? Are you wanting food (fruit, nuts) or fodder for animals or fiber or timber for building or trees that bloom to feed bees or trees for coppice or trees for firewood or a mixture? If you know what you want, then you can consult some books and local permaculture groups for trees that will live in your site-specific conditions that provide the function you want.
   
   
4. For each tree, you'll want to plant multiple nitrogen-fixing support plants that you will sacrifice so that the desired tree has nutrients. Legume trees, shrubs, and ground covers add nitrogen to the soil that will feed the main trees. Over the course of several years, you'll chop and drop the nitrogen fixers several times. Besides adding nitrogen to the soil, they will also shade out grasses and other non-desirable plants until your trees are established. You can also mulch with straw to shade out pioneer plants you don't want. Timing is important. You want to plant at times that give the plants the best time to get established. You'll want to chop and drop the nitrogen-fixing support species when the rains come. You'll want to use the mulch and cover crops at the same time as you plant your trees to prevent weeds from taking over. You'll want to time when the trees produce food. You can plan some early crop, mid-season crop, and late crop varieties. Thinking about your timing carefully.
   
   Resources:
   
   
   Creating a Forest Garden by Mark Crawford.
   
   Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier
   
   Forest Gardening by Robert Hart
   
   
   

Try to get your hands on Edible Forest Gardens ( vol 1 and 2 ) by David Jacke and Eric Toensmeier. It's the premier work on Eastern North American ecological agroforestry.

Martin Crawford's work is also very applicable since he's in a humid zone 3-5 ish British climate. His book is an amazing resource.

The Bullock Brother's have done a lot of work in Cold climate permaculture but they're in Washinton so it's still more humid.

Great Plains ecology is an interesting biome though and I'm not sure there's been a lot of work done on food forestry in that particular climate. I know a fair amount of work has been done on perennial grasslands but it gets more complicated since you are dealing with elements of dryland design and cold climate design. Some tropical techniques for water retention aren't going to work since frost is going to be a factor. Probably the best technique would be to follow the ecology and design around coolees since that's where great plains deciduous forests tend to thrive.

I'd consider having the field plowed and sowing a mix of seeds to create a ground covering that doesn't grow as high, doesn't need cutting at all, and is a net adder of nutrients to the soil. Martin Crawford's book on forest guardening has a few interesting ones. The one I found most interesting and have been meaning to try is:

• Trifolium repens (white clover)
  
• Lolium perenne (dwarf perennial ryegrass)
  
• Festuca rubra (creeping red fescue)
  
  According to the book you should plant 3kg+6kg+2kg of seeds per acre anywhere from April to August, and the ground cover will last 10 years or more without management.
  
  The whole book is probably interesting for your situation as you can go and select a few base trees to plant right now and then leave them alone while they grow and you're otherwise busy. By the time you have some time again you'll have a head start. From the book I'd suggest you look into besides the ground covering I've already mentioned some large trees like alders that also add nutrients to the soil. You could just plant quite a few of them in all the acres you left wild and by the time you get around to it you can select which ones to keep and put the other down for firewood.

Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops

https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Forest-Garden-Working-Nature/dp/1900322625

Creating a Forest Garden: Working with nature to grow edible crops https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1900322625/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_BG0mDbTHGDF7F

Definitely second David Jacke's books - they're incredible! This one is also supposed to be good: http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Forest-Garden-Working-Nature/dp/1900322625/

Jacke is also working on a book about coppicing, which I'm really looking forward to: http://www.coppiceagroforestry.com/

Along those lines, OP may also find these guys inspirational: http://www.badgersett.com/info/woodyag1.html

I've collected many books on gardening from second-hand stores like goodwill. The Rodale's and the Home and Garden books are thorough, currently I'm using "The New Victory Garden" by Bob Thompson to plan my garden which organizes the chapters by tasks for each month. I'm also interested in edible perennial gardening; my favorite book is "Creating a Forest Garden" by Martin Crawford which has a great plant encyclopedia with ratings and guides for design and planting. If you have a little extra room and want to incorporate beautiful landscapes while growing food, it's well worth a look.