Forest gardening

I found an article online about forest gardening, and mixing plants with edibles. This seems so logical to me, and looks so beautiful. It feels like the most natural, organic method there could be. My problem is, I can only find a comprehensive plan by a woman in Australia. I live in North Central Texas, zone 8b, so I am skeptical about her specific plans being workable. Are there any books or articles y'all know of that would help? Also, as far as plants are concerned, I am determined to make sure I use nothing but natives.

Are you thinking more along the lines of permaculture? DD is experimenting with this in MI but the books she's using look more of CA origin.

Yes! I hadn't heard it called that, but the Wikipedia entry on forest gardening links permaculture as a "see also".basically the same concept. The Wikipedia permaculture article had more scientific words.

If you want, I can get the name of the two books DD has been using. She did raid my garden last week for some comfrey as part of her plan.

I've been working on forest gardening for a couple of years now, building 'guilds'. (Just 2 so far.)

There is a lot of discussion on permies.com about forest gardening all over the world. You have to be a member, but membership is free.

Neat website, Darius. I'm going to delve into it a little more myself since I have more shade than sun and would like to expand my capacity for edibles. Thanks.

Cindy, I would really appreciate the names of those books, thank you.

kg - will do.

kg -Here's the 2 books DD has been using as guides. Gaia's Garden and Sepp Holzer's Permaculture. She's digging brand new gardens at her new place in MI and is using the models in the books.

I have Gaia's Garden, really good book... plus I've watched many of Sepp Holzer's youtube videos. I don't own his book (yet). There is also a 2 volume set of Edible Forest Gardening books. http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132608/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369579479&sr=1-2&keywords=Forest+Gardening

The Edible Forest Gardening books look fascinating. What is the temperature/zonal range of their expertise?

Cindy, I don't own the books (yet) so I cannot answer your query. It might be posted in the Amazon reviews of the 2 volume set.

I did see that the authors live in the northeast but wasn't sure if the focus of the volumes is in North America.

Try looking at books on "edible wild plants"
Once you find a general one you like, you can go to the USDA plants database to find the species that is native to your specific area.

I planted a hedge row to attract birds, and quite a few turned out to be native- ish (native to the region, not to "Pueblo West") berry bushes.

Darius - thanks for mentioning the two-volume Edible Forest Gardening book. It made a wonderful gift for DD's birthday. She'll have those wonderful books as reference guides. She hasn't been able to get them from her local library as they're always on loan to someone else. (And now I'll get to actually study them myself!)

Cindy, what a lovely gift for your DD!

I'd love to have them in my personal library too, but SS checks don't stretch much. My local library doesn't have them, so I have to get them through inter-library loan and pay postage both ways. They only let me keep them 2 weeks so I've never gotten fully through both volumes.

Ouch! You must have gotten a lot out of the books in two weeks since you've already started establishing guilds.

Well, there are a lot of permaculture sites online about gulids, too.

I am hoping to read up on the subject when things slow down a bit. I'd like to grow more edibles but that means some heavy editing of my mostly ornamental gardens to make room for them.

Yes, I've had to do a lot of that here, too. In the long run (asI age) it will be worth it.

Well, I am overdue for serious editing anyway.

DH found some on-line gardening programs for me. One of them is "Gardening Australia" where permaculture seems like second nature to a lot of featured gardeners. Might be worth a view. Seeing these gardens has inspired me to look into this more.