The NB Food Forest Tours
In 2024, the very first NB Food Forest Tour was organized by yours truly and by my friend Andrew Mathis (the owner of Oasis Farmery, just outside of Fredericton). I have been interested in food security and urban gardening for a very long time now. Given our shared interests in permaculture and perennial edible plants, it was only natural we'd eventually stumble on the idea of public visits to the food forests we knew about. And so, thanks to funding from the Community Food Action grant, through Public Health New Brunswick, the 2024 NB Food Forest Tours were born.
So what the heck is a food forest?
As opposed to the typical gardening approach, a food forest has a diverse mix of edible plants, with 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.
In short, the mix of plants allows us to increase productivity (by using the vertical space), and reduce pests (by not having a bunch of the same kind of plant over and over again). But there's more - all these plants also fulfill different functions. Some of the plants will be a nitrogen fixer, which generates fertilizer for the entire clump of plants (in the picture, it's the blue false indigo). Others will be mulch plants - plants whose job it is to generate loads of biomass, which can get cut back and used to mulch the ground, suppressing weeds and feeding the soil over time. In the picture, this is the comfrey, which is a permaculture darling. The ground cover (and the various densely-planted layers) suppress weeds and keep the ground cool. All these plants flower, thereby feeding the pollinators. They create a complex habitat, perfect for various songbirds to nest, which is great because they tend to feed their young caterpillars and bugs that they pick off your plants for free!
Want to learn how to plant your own?
If you learn well from books, there's a massive number of options; I'll list 2 - the beginner-friendly Gaia's Garden and the go-to book if you're into a deep dive - the incredible Edible Forest Gardens. There are various courses, including Andrew's Intro to Permaculture & Food Forest Design, available both in-person and online. Hell, there's even a Martha Stewart article on planting these!
NB Food Forest Tours
Now, back to the NB tours. You can see the full pdf brochure for the 2024 tours here, with full descriptions of each of the nine properties. Here are some pictures from the various locations. The tours went so well, and we had lots of excellent feedback, with people learning lots of new techniques, discovering new types of foods they can grow, making connections, and trading or purchasing plants or products to take home with them.
Sima's Roots & Fruits, Kingston Peninsula. I talked a LOT about how to reduce work, not get overwhelmed, why testing soil is so very important, and about many, MANY mistakes we've made over the years, in the hopes that visitors are able to avoid some of the same issues we encountered. And of course I talked about some of the wins, highlights, and super-cool stuff we grow, eat, and do!
Oasis Farmery, Durham Bridge. Visitors learning about permaculture, raising chickens, 4-season greenhouses, ecological ponds, and of course food forests!
Fredericton Botanic Garden, Fredericton. Andrew and I hosted the tours, together with John Welling, the Head Gardener in 2024. We talked about the vision for this public food forest, and the six different types of sub-food forests implemented on site - orchard, woodland-edge, "fingers of productivity", shade, berry berm, and wildlife hedge.
2025 NB Food Forest Tours
And now that it's spring 2025, it's time for a whole new Food Forest Tour! This time, we have some of the same familiar faces - the food forests at the Fredericton Botanic Garden, Oasis Farmery, St Mary's Community Forest, Mike's amazing site in Saint John, and of course us. In addition, we have a whole host of new and very interesting sites - from the commercial, beyond-organic food forest at the Laughing Apple Farm, the municipal food forests in Edmundston and Riverview, the Praxis food forest in the Knowlesville community, three new farm/nursery sites (FoodsGood near St Andrews, The Earnest Gardener near Moncton, and the Angry Goose Acre n Nursery in Upham). And of course an impressive variety of private hosts in Fredericton, Saint John, near Moncton, and in Belledune. This means that you can now pick and choose - do you want to see an urban or a rural site? Commercial, public, or private? Small or large? Old or newly planted? Geared toward traditional choices of plants, or full of exciting things like figs and pawpaws? These tours have them all! Interested in checking out the full 2025 brochure? You can access it here. And of course, registration for the tours is now open!