Manufacturer: Iota Productions
Fifteen years ago, inspired by the pioneering work of Robert Hart, gardener Martin Crawford moved from conventional organic gardening to creating a forest garden from a bare field. Today his garden is a wonderful example of what can be done with a minimum of effort to produce an abundant crop of unusual edible trees, plants, shrubs, and ground cover. This 49-minute DVD shows how you can apply the principles of forest gardening to spaces big and small. Martin takes viewers through the seasons in his Devon, England, forest garden and shows them how to plan their planting to mimic the layering, density, and diversity of a forest. A wide variety of edible plants can be grown, for example: Nepalese raspberry and Siberian purslane, Turkish rocket and Good King Henry, lime trees (their leaves make a good salad), bamboo (young shoots are tasty when steamed), snowbell trees for their fruit, and the berries of mulberry or chokeberry. A Forest Garden Year offers tips on how to graft an apple tree from which you can crop a variety of apples over several months; how to grow shiitake mushrooms and perennial leeks; how to pollard and prune; protect crops from wind; attract beneficial insects; and increase beneficial minerals in the soil-all while creating a haven for yourself and for wildlife.
