Notes from the Food Forest Tour at Sima's Roots & Fruits
In 2025, we hosted the food forest tours at our property in June and in September. Both times we had excellent groups of folks, lots of interest, questions, and sharing experiences growing food, and enjoyed delicious drinks and food - from rhubarb "lemonade", fresh sea buckthorn juice, and elderberry drinks, to black currant pie and fresh peaches.
There are many topics we cover during the tours - the history of our property, some of the issues we've encountered along the way, permaculture design, the plants that have done the best (or the worst) for us, lessons learned, the background and installation of swales, soil health, the importance of starting small, the ways to make more with less (this includes guilds, grafting, seed saving, propagation skills, and remembering you're part of a community), "quick and lazy" composting, the importance of biodiversity, and many others.
This blog post definitely won't cover everything we talk about in the 2 hours of a tour, but I'll touch on some of the topics that come up most often.
Soil Testing
First - a quick story to demonstrate the utmost importance of soil health and soil testing. We planted 2 heartnut trees - same age, same source, same size. One was planted into the mound of a swale, with amendments. The other was planted into our regular soil. After 3 years, the heartnut on the swale was ~8 ft, while the other one remained 1.5 ft tall. Turns out that our soil acidity (pH) was 4.5, whereas the ideal for most plants is 6.5. Because pH is on a logarithmic scale, a difference of 2 units means a 10 * 10 difference in acidity. So my soil was 100 times more acidic than the ideal. Oops. We were also deficient in a bunch of minerals. We moved the second heartnut to a spot that has been amended, and it's been catching up, but it's still lagging 2 years behind its larger sibling. Since heartnuts requires 2 trees for pollination, this means that the poor soil health has cost us at least 2 years of production. Here's a picture of me, standing on the branch of the larger of the two heartnut trees.
Starting Small
Our property has >1/2 acre of gardens / orchards. This means that we have to maintain >1/2 acre of gardens / orchards (funny how this works). We could've easily fit everything we needed into a much smaller area - maybe around 1/10th of an acre or a bit more. This means that while our gardens can indeed be be beautiful and productive (see some pictures - I ain't lying!), the soil isn't as amended as it could be, and the plants aren't maintained as well as they could be.
How do you start small? You develop a permaculture design for your project, with some really strong, well-thought objectives. You utilize tree guilds (see below) to 100%, to really pack the space. You use grafting so that you're not forced to have two trees for pollination, or a tree for early harvest and a tree for late harvest. You also connect with your neighbours, friends, and larger community, to see if you actually need to plant all the things you were planning on - maybe there's an awesome U-Pick nearby? Or your neighbour has a massively productive plum tree but would love to trade with your for pears? All of these steps allow you to do way more with your space. And keep in mind - the smaller / tighter your garden, the better you can pamper it!
Tree Guilds
Never heard of tree guilds? That's ok, I got you! A guild is a diverse mix of edible plants, all planted near or under your "main" tree. These plants provide a variety of services - some are nitrogen-fixers (=produce fertilizer to feed your fruit tree), others are groundcovers to reduce weed pressure. Others still produce mulch, deter pests, and attract and feed pollinators. The soil can be inoculated with mushrooms, to provide that wonderful mycelial network to tie your fruit trees together and support them. All combined, you get several layers commonly identified - the canopy, the understory, shrubs, herbaceous layer, root crops, ground cover, vines, and mushrooms. Here's a lovely visual from projectfoodforest.org.
Learning Skills
One of the most empowering things we can do with our garden is learn new skills! Pruning keeps our trees healthy and manageable. Propagation means that you can save a ton of money by buying a single plant and making copies of it, or receiving or sharing cuttings with friends or the larger community. Seed saving allows you to save a ton of money on seed purchases, quickly increase the number of plants you own - think saving hundreds of seeds from a single milkweed plant you bought, and also develop plants that perform best in your yard! Grafting is fantastic for utilizing existing trees to add new varieties - whether for pollination, to extend the harvest window, to create a "cocktail" tree (like adding a peach to a plum tree), or just because you're interested in adding a new variety to your garden! And of course, you can do this for very cheap (anywhere from free to ~$8), instead of buying a whole new tree. I teach all four of these workshops every year, and the best part - you get to take stuff home to play with (seeds from the seed saving workshop, cuttings from the propagation workshop, and scionwood from the grafting workshop). You can check out the workshops on my Shop page here.
Book Recommendations
Last and not least, here are some recommendations for books that might be of interest! As always - remember to check if the library has a copy. My go-to is borrowing a book from a library, and if I absolutely love it, I'll buy a copy. Otherwise, I'll just enjoy the single-time read and take notes if anything of importance comes up.
The Resilient Gardener, by Carol Deppe - a fantastic book discussing some of the most productive plants / garden components to focus on and just how versatile they can be; these are potatoes, squash, corn, and eggs. Carol is a wonderful author, with tons of knowledge - both academic and dirty-fingernail. Very informative and fun book that includes recipes and some notes on seed saving.
Breed your Own Vegetable Varieties, also by Carol Deppe - an amazing, in-depth book for the aspiring (or even experienced) seed saver. Going into incredible detail, while remaining enjoyable and accessible to the lay person. Highly recommended for folks really interested in improving seeds to create plants best suited to their own yards.
Gaia's Garden, by Toby Hemenway - an enjoyable, informative, and accessible book on permaculture design. An excellent first book to get into the topic, or keep it as your go-to if you're not big on ginormous books (which are the Edible Forest Gardens below).
Edible Forest Gardens, volumes 1 and 2, by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier - these are considered the Bible of food forest design. Volume 1 is theory-heavy, while volume 2 is more hands-on. I own, love, and frequently use both of the volumes. These books are not for the faint of heart, but they made permaculture design possible for me, despite my ADHD and deep desire to just buy every plant I wanted and plant things wherever.
The Holistic Orchard, by Michael Phillips - this book is incredibly detailed, covering all steps of taking care of fruit trees and berry bushes - from planting to maintenance, the various pests that can be an issue for each fruit/berry, and more. Keep in mind that this book is the gold standard, which means that most of us won't be doing everything that's being outlined, and that's ok!