In April, we invited everyone to join us for a practical forest gardening workshop with Aberdeen-based Alan Carter, author of A Food Forest in your Garden.
A forest garden is an edible ecosystem; a food growing system designed and managed to emulate natural woodland. It offers a sustainable method of growing food all year round, mostly making use of perennial plants that grow back year on year. As the name suggests, a forest garden is made up of layers that mimic a forest. These layers are stacked, making the best use of minimal space to provide harvests of fruit, nuts, vegetables, tubers, herbs and greens, across the available canopies, understories, ground cover and underground space.
Compared to a traditional, annual vegetable garden (cabbages, tomatoes etc), a forest garden can offer a lower-maintenance and experimental way of providing crops, particularly once it is established. It is sometimes known as a ‘pantry in your garden’, because rather than providing gluts of crops in summer, the forest garden will provide regular harvests throughout the year. Forest gardens, with their diversity of crops and dense structure also provide good habitat for wildlife.
This workshop took participants through the basic steps in planning and planting a forest garden, using the Brander Garden as a hands-on example. Alan shared the principles of forest gardening in the morning, then after a bowl of soup, we headed outside to the garden to lay out and plant some areas using forest gardening principles.
About the project
This workshop forms part of our project Caretakers' Garden. Named after the former residents of the caretaker's flat at the Brander Building (now the Deveron Projects office!), Caretakers' Garden will build sustainable systems of care in the Brander and Square Deal gardens, for the benefit of current and future inhabitants. As a starting point, we are asking, what is our role in caring for these gardens in the present and into uncertain futures? How do we build the means for communities (human and more-than-human) to enjoy the gardens and care for each other in?
This workshop forms part of our project Caretakers' Garden. Named after the former residents of the caretaker's flat at the Brander Building (now the Deveron Projects office!), Caretakers' Garden will build sustainable systems of care in the Brander and Square Deal gardens, for the benefit of current and future inhabitants. As a starting point, we are asking, what is our role in caring for these gardens in the present and into uncertain futures? How do we build the means for communities (human and more-than-human) to enjoy the gardens and care for each other in?
Led by gardener Lindy Young, we will work together to create a learning space for novice and seasoned gardeners – a space for exploration, experimentation and exchange. Regular workshops, drop-in sessions and artists' projects will open the gardens up, inviting new 'caretakers' to come along and learn, help take care and be cared for.
Image shows a forest garden from above. Image courtesy of Alan Carter.
