An intriguing short video by permaculturist Geoff Lawton about a food forest in Morocco.
It does leave me with questions, though, such as: what sort of labor does it take to keep this system going? And also, what other kinds of inputs does it require? Is it irrigated, and if so, how?
Still, it’s inspiring to see so much abundance in a dry space. Come to think of it, LA has lots of palm trees already. If we’d just give up our cars, we could plant that understory of carob and banana…
I would hate to think that this food forest could not continue for another 2,000 years. It really does seem that we have been farming incorrectly and that with companion plantings (such as the Native method of the 3 sisters) and with keeping the ground covered instead of raking up everything and spreading Round Up on everything that we could turn things around. Maybe this is just a pipe dream of mine. But life is strange at times and unpredictable so maybe there is hope.
You need to watch his videos at geofflawton.com, or failing that, Greening The Desert on youtube to understand how it works. The combination of swales and chop and drop mulching collect and store water and raise the water table, and create soil, so once the plants are established, it pretty much takes care of itself. I am so convinced from his videos and that the drought will move north into Oregon that I’m digging swales into my backyard for my fruit trees, even though the soil there is clay.
I think you would really like his videos- they are all so interesting and inspiring. The one downside to them is that he’s obviously pitching his permaculture classes, but if you can ignore that (I can) you can still learn a ton.