http://newciv.org/GIB/BOV/BV-314.HTML

The Forest Garden

After thirty years of study, research and practical experience in
Agroforestry (see previous item),
Robert Hart has established a small model forest garden on his farm on
Wenlock Edge, a model that
could be repeated many thousands of times even by those who possess only
small town gardens.

 'The Forest Garden can enable a family to enjoy a considerable degree of
self-sufficiency, with minimal labour'

The Forest Garden can enable a family to enjoy a considerable degree of
self-sufficiency, with
minimal labour, for some seven months of the year, providing the very
best foods for building up
positive health. It is a miniature reproduction of the self-maintaining
eco-system of the natural forest,
consisting entirely of fruit and nut trees and bushes, perennial and
self-seeding vegetables and
culinary and medicinal herbs.

Robert Hart writes: 'It is no good waiting for the Powers-That-Be to take
decisive action in the
infinitely serious crisis caused by wholesale forest destruction, curbed
and restricted as they are by
blind prejudice and vested interests. Those who care, the ordinary
people, should take action
themselves to restore the earth's depleted forest cover, even though they
may live in cities.'

Once established after about two years, the Forest Garden is
self-perpetuating, self-fertilising,
self-watering, self-mulching, self-weed-suppressing, self-pollinating,
self-healing and highly resistant
to pests and diseases. The only work required is pruning, controlling
plants that seek to encroach on
each other, and mulching with compost once a year, after the herbaceous
plants die down in the late
autumn.