This is a picture of the back of my property. This area that is part of my lot, that I'm thinking of slowly turning into a food forest is a North facing slope with 5-10 percent slope. So, a little rise/slope but not too bad. To the right of the trees with the orange marker tape is my area, this is looking south. The lot is many hundred feet north to south, but only about 175 feet east to west.

It is also very rocky, but the soil that is there seems rich.

There is no opening in the canopy really, just dappled sunlight through the area.

There is some water that runs through this area and I can control some of that runoff if I want to for water, but currently this area is quite wet and bordering a little swampy/mucky. There are a lot of little humps/swells in the earth that are much dryer as well on the other side of the lot. Mixed forest and ferns dominate the landscape currently.

I have in mind to thin some of the trees and start at what would be the center area of a garden or food forest and then start working outward from that center spot. I've been here about 5 years and have been thinking of this project on and off, but not really sure where how to start - sunlight seems like the biggest issue; just too many trees.

This is a project for fun, but also - the idea is to serve as an emergency preparedness area in case of some catastrophic emergency for food, and also I figure someday, someone, me and my family or people to come later will benefit from something like this down the road, well - if I can make something of it.

Any words of wisdom from experience?


the second picture is the center of the area I'm thinking of converting and is about about 75 feet west of the first picture. this area I can get a garden tractor too. I really don't feel like I've done much, but just getting the area accessible has been quite an effort popping rocks out of the earth to make trails. This is about 4 or 500 feet up in the woods from the main house lot.

film - that is a pretty piece of property. Somewhat of a challenge with the lighting. Have you studied the sun patterns through those trees in an effort to minimize tree removal? Maybe more concentrated plantings where more sun shines through? Does it make sense to use hugel beds in the wetter areas? No words of wisdom from me I'm afraid but interested in your progress.

I've studied the sun and water a good deal. It is wet, and not much sun through the closed canopy. I figured that out several years ago - and doing anything got tabled, clearing the lot was too big of an idea, and probably too difficult/expensive to do - where to start, right?

Well, I've had a few years to sort of mull over the idea and come back to it here and there, and several trees recently blew over in an area and the canopy there has opened up; so, that has me feeling opportunistic. This probably will only get a couple small garden/areas 3 or 4 hours of direct sun, if that - and I sort of stood in some spots and eyed up 10 or 15 smaller trees that would block some sunlight to this area that I took out relatively easy; relatively.

I'd like to do guilds and put in fruit trees and go down the line, but I don't think unless I invest in major timber clearing fruit trees don't seem realistic. Still may not be possible.

I have a couple small 4 foot circles I raked the leaves off and raked in some cover crop seeds to see what would happen and they are sprouting happily. I think I may just take out a couple more trees in this starting area, and introduce some plantings to see if anything will take. Probably will try things like mountain spinach, sorrel, herbs - thyme and sage, see if I can get some asparagus growing. probably some other experiments just to see if anything will take a particular liking to the area.

With this sort of medium effort, if I can get some activity and see the area start to change - may keep me motivated to extend the work in future years.

The real trick I get stuck on is sunlight - my lot is long and narrow; only 175 feet wide. To get full sun on any of that ground, basically I think I would have to clear a strip the full width of the lot (175 feet) - and be a minimum of 50 feet deep. The sun angle in summer is 70 degrees mid day (at the highest it goes), but at around 10AM and 2:30PM it is only approx. 45 degrees - looked this stuff up years ago.

So if on each side of the property, East/West sides, if there are 100+ foot trees (and there are) , any earth within 100 feet will be in the shade when that sun angle is around 45 degrees. So, the West edge would get AM and Mid Day sun, and the East edge would get Mid Day and Early afternoon sun. The area in the middle of this theoretical strip would get more sun that on either of the edges. Exactly, how many hours that would be, I think there would be a small 25 or 50 foot wide area in the middle that would get 5 or 6 hours of direct sunlight. The edges still only get around 4 hours. It seems like with that size of an opening there would be more light in there, but when I started to try to figure it out - 6 hours in the middle and 4 on the sides is what I came up with.

Don't think I could grow fruit with that light. Can 1? Maybe I'm figuring out the sun calculations wrong, but if that's what I have to work with - and there is already a large canopy layer, I think I'll skip right past several layers of the food forest and see if I can get some perennial herbs and ground covers to start taking over the forest floor - and plant some other stuff just to see what happens.

Long post I know - I've put a lot of thought into what I could do with this property since we got here 5 years ago - have some trails and that is about it so far.

oh - since I took out several smaller trees, I'm going to try to get some mushrooms going on some of the logs. They don't need a lot of light … lol I have plenty of that …

film - Have you looked into growing gooseberries, blueberries, currants, strawberries? Short of clearing more trees to plant fruit trees, that may get you going on growing fruit. As you mentioned, lots of greens and herbs might work in the current situation. Admittedly, I'm not one for cutting down native trees. What kind of native trees do you have?

Most of the neighborhood area is mixed Red Oak, Red Maple, and Hemlock - there is also a lot of Fluttering Aspen mixed in. Since I've been here, probably had 7 or 8 of the Aspen have blown over or broken off 1/3 or 1/2 way up and just snapped in the wind and fallen over. The area where I'm now looking to get some plants growing is a 100 foot diameter area, where several Apen have blown over from the roots - this area is mostly very large mature Aspen, which is different from the surrounding area for some reason; no hemlock in this spot. I'm guessing this small area may have been cleared at some point 100 or 200 years ago, or it is just geologically different in some way I don't see yet.

The overstory right where I'm working is mostly the Aspen, and the understory is a mix of white birch, red maple, and red oak, some other species mixed in. Part of the reason I've been slow to get into working on this project is I don't like taking the trees down without a good reason. With this area opening up some naturally, I'm taking that as a cue to get something started.

I've thought about introducing berry bushes, but not unlike fruit trees - wonder if there is enough light to get them growing very well at all.

film - when you mention aspen trees, I'm guessing your far west of me? Some berries will grow in partial shade but you'd have to do some research as to how much sun they might need. They might do well in the 6-hours of sunlight range. If I could make a suggestion, have you looked into permies.com? I really have no practical experience, just what I've read and dreaming. These folks start out just like you with some challenging sites.

put in some small test beds spread around the area, this one went in about a week ago



am actually on the east coast about an hour from the Atlantic

Film - sorry, I should've realized aspen grow in other places. But cool to have aspen! I'm surrounded by oaks, shagbark hickory and cottonwood (yuk!). What are you going to grow in the test beds?

Film, that puts you close to me. Our Rubus phoenicolasius are very successful in woods with minimum light. If anything you'll end up with more of them than you want if you're not careful.

Are you looking for more traditional foods, or are you open to native wildflowers? Previous owner threw some potatoes down my hill and those are still coming up with no real assistance. But there are tons of edible wildflowers that could enjoy a shady life.

I just put a cover crop mix in the test beds, it is actually a Fall cover crop, but what I had some of on hand to use. Three of the 4 seeds are the same as the spring mix, think they just also have a grass in the fall mix. Not sure what will go in there down the road. The soil seems pretty good to me, rich and lots of worms, that cover crop only took a couple days to start growing. I think there is Red Clover and Hairy Vetch in there that can come back and possibly spread - the bean and grass dies out and doesn't come back.

Well, if I had my way - I'd get rid of a lot of the larger trees, and build a sort of curved/angled sun trap about 175 feet wide (east/west) by a couple hundred feet deep (north/south), but there are a lot of mature trees - so, that would take some time or $ to really make happen. I'll have to be starting a little smaller in scale.

I have some seeds starting that I might put some in our garden by the house, and also up in the back area; Sorrel, Orach, Pole beans, leeks, asparagus, sage and thyme, several others just to start experimenting. I'll probably plant some of that around the test beds just so I can keep track of where I put things.

film - is your entire property wooded? Are there any sunnier spots around the house? Gosh, that assumes that there is a house on the property.

yea, we have a house and the total property is about 2. 5 acres. The front section on the road is about 1 acre and is the house lot, we have a small raised bed and that is about it so far. The back half of the property is to the south and leaves more than an acre just wooded, so - that's where I'm starting with some food forest conversion work. This is a pic of the area where I'm starting, several large tress blew down here in the last few years, and then I followed that up with cutting out some of the smaller trees; well some is probably around 20 or so - 4-8 inch diameter trunks. I think some of this area will get a good 4 or 5 hours of direct sunlight through the middle of the day. This is toward the east side of the property looking sort of southwest, but a little more west than south.


I've seen quite a few threads on various forums about people wondering how to work a food forest into existing forest - so, my plan is to sort of use this cleared/open area as sort of a nursery to see what I can get to grow out there, then as I clear out more trees I can expand that out into other areas, until I get to a point where I'm satisfied with the opening and can get fruit and nut trees going - am a long way from that - probably years. The trees are just staring to leaf out so, in a couple weeks all the sunlight you see in this pic will mostly be gone, but for the area say in the first 50 feet of the picture.

actually, now that I've started working on this - I can already see the sun in the early and later part of the growing season will not be sufficient. When the trees leaf out in May, the sunny spot from the opening in the canopy will be more north - as the sun angle is still closer to around 45 degrees in mid day, then in the middle of summer will be around 70 degrees, and that sunny spot will move 30 or so feet to the south, and then back to 45 degrees and more north as we near fall. So, figuring out how to get sun down onto the ground is pretty tricky.

so, in an area like I have - if I plant things as soon as the ground is workable or after the last frost - I'll have a few weeks or a month for things to get started. Then the leaves will come out and the center planting area will fall into shade and dappled sun for a good month or more until the sun angle increases, then there will be a decent amount of light down in there for a few months, then it will fall into shade again.

this is a component of getting sun in there I had not really conceptualized very well, and don't think I would have if I had not actually picked an area and started doing some work there. I can see the earth tilting on its axis working through this - sort of makes me feel like an astronaut although, I'm just out in the middle of the woods ..

You do have some shade challenges for sure. Doing research on shade-tolerant food crops is perhaps the best place to start.

Shadegardener said:You do have some shade challenges for sure. Doing research on shade-tolerant food crops is perhaps the best place to start.

It is tricky looking up what to try to introduce. Most info is based on regular row crop and annual gardening, or for producers planting for commercial production. I have some info on smaller stuff - herbs and some bush type products to try. I think I have a good chunk of sunlight to introduce some things into and see what happens. I may also try to introduce paw pas and hazelnuts, but that is a longer process, that may not get in the ground this year - possibly fall if I grow from seeds, but not sure if that is a good idea. May try to stratify in some pots over winter and transplant next spring; need to pick up some of those tall tree starting pots.

I think another real challenge would be what would push up through all the leaf litter in the spring. I could figure out what grows in what area and clean up some of the leaves in the spring to expose soil, but that's an issue for this type of set up that poses some real questions about what can/will grow.

Have you read any books for additional information or plant lists? There are some out there with a food forest/permaculture topic that might help with choosing your plants. Are you planning for only perennial plants or annual plants?

I'm introducing some annuals. Put some radish seed up there about a week ago. Also, put in a bunch of various seeds around those test beds, sorrel, orach, leeks, rheubarb, beans, squash, thyme, sage, few slices of russet potato. I'd like to see what will sort of naturalize, maybe if I can get a good area - I could have a bed for annuals that I work a little, but - would like to set it and forget it. I have some tree seeds - hazelnut, paw paw, and some bush seeds as well, elderberry, blackberry - but the stratification on those is many months, so - might drop a few of those in the ground this fall, but likely will plant next spring.

I've been watching the light, and I really think this area will only get 3ish hours of direct sunlight - so, think that is the biggest limitation currently. One trick about this area is I'm losing 2 or 3 large aspen trees yearly. They all have big conks and mushrooms growing on them, and blow over or break half way up just snapping off.

Part of my idea is to introduce things, and then as the many doomed trees in this area fade out - to have things there already growing to be the succession plants. I'll probably start collecting apple, plum, pear seeds and just putting them up there in the ground to see if they will at least grow and start to establish, then as the current tree canopy opens up more I have some succession plants there already growing to take advantage.

I have a good cover crop growing in the little test beds I made. The tree leaves aren't fully out here yet so - most of the beds are getting good sun, march and april through about beginning of May - then several of them will fall into deeper shade. Then I think over the next month the angle of the sun in mid day climbs from 50ish degrees to 70 degrees which is almost directly over head, and a few of those beds will go shady now then then come back into sunlight in several weeks.

Sort of an interesting experiment. Difficult because it takes yearly cycles to observe what happens. I actually was up there yesterday, and had put some ribbon on trees marking the larger area for this project - that was probably 3 years ago - forgot I had done that.

Another think I have in mind is what will get smashed when trees come down, either naturally or manually. Planning on taking out the smaller ones that I can do pretty easy and then figuring it out from there.

film - it does sound like you're making progress but you're right - it's all about knowing your site and experimenting. Do you have any small fruits planted? Bushes for raspberries, blueberries (if soil is acid enough), etc?

all the soil seems to test at 7 … so not acidic, but probably putting in seeds for some fruits this fall to come up next spring. most of the seeds for fruit I got need a long stratification, so - makes sense to wait and do that naturally over the winter. probably some in the field and some in pots, to see if they germinate - and so I have samples so I can identify things.

I actually dropped several more medium sized trees today, 6-8 inch diameter, but some of them have a lot of leaf to make shade, and I can drop them with relative ease. It does give me pause as to what taking out trees to add light would/could do to plantings later down the road with impact and smashing.