What is a forage garden? Creating a garden that feeds you

A forage garden is a garden that grows edible plants and flowers. The idea is to give you a constant stream of food, with little effort required on your part. You can harvest from the garden as you need it, and enjoy the greenery and flowers too!

Keep reading to learn all about forage gardens, tips from garden experts for creating one, and some common plants that you may want to include.

What is a forage garden?

Depending on the size of your space, a forage garden will look different for everyone. They are a bit different than a garden in that food gardens are usually carefully cultivated and manicured spaces and flower gardens are not more so planned for aesthetics rather than nourishment.

Forage gardens, on the other hand, are a type of garden that is designed with food and drink in mind, creating the perfect blend of beautiful landscaping and nourishing plants and flowers. While they may require basic maintenance, they are largely uncultivated.

The best part? Many of the common plants you find in gardens are actually edible! For example, did you know that roses, day-lilies, and dahlia tubers are all great for culinary use? Other plants found in forage gardens include native edible species, weeds, and other perennial plants.

Why it’s called a ‘forage’ garden

Foraging is defined as “to wander in search of forage or food” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Now, usually when we think of foraging we think of going out into the wild and harvesting from the earth. But, so many of the plants grown in common gardens (and weeds, too!) have amazing health benefits. They’re also super tasty when prepared right.

And, while foraging in the wild for food and medicine is amazing, it’s not always possible. By cultivating a garden that provides you with lots of foods and medicines, you can experience the same benefits of foraging without leaving your backyard.

Benefits of gardening

In Morag’s masterclass, she describes some of the many benefits to this style of gardening (watch the video below). Here are the reasons she loves forage gardening:

• Simplicity: The idea is to cultivate a greenspace that gets more productive as it grows. Many of the plants are self-seeded and perennial, creating abundance year after year
• Resilience: These gardens are designed to be self-producing and resilient. Since they are complex systems that require little maintenance, the produce and pollinators are abundant
  • Plus, your ecological footprint is lower when much of your food comes from your own living space
• Beauty: Just like landscaped gardens, forage gardens produce beautiful flowers and greenery
• Peaceful gardening: There is less worry about planting, weeding, and tending… The garden itself is doing most of the work!
• Community: The plants, the animals, the insects, and the gardener themselves are all a part of the community that relies on and nurtures eachother

Something I am personally drawn to is the sustainability of this type of garden. Sustainable gardening itself is an entirely different topic, but by design foraging gardens closely replicate concepts of sustainable gardens.

Here’s how forage gardens align with Jenny Dunklee’s sustainable gardening practices:

• Do not require chemical solutions: Not only are chemical fertilizers and pest deterrents damaging to ecosystems, they’re not necessary here! In fact, you want the weeds (have you ever had dandelion jelly, for example? It’s delicious!)
• Conserve water: When designed with water conservation in mind, you can design your greenspace to capture water. Plus, you’re watering one large space as opposed to small and divided beds (like in veggie gardens) – So the water given is water used, rather than wasted
• Plant native: Native species are easier to tend and naturally thrive in your zone
• Avoid tilling (or digging): Morag called this “an idea of least disturbance.” You are preserving root systems, creating more abundance, and protecting the soil in general
• Mulching: Mulching is a big part of this concept since it protects your soil and conserves water

How do you create a forage garden?

A typical forager’s garden can be created in just a couple of years in an average sized garden (about 15m/50ft long) and can provide a meaningful amount of food that is low maintenance.

Anna Locke in The Forager’s Garden: Grow an Edible Sanctuary in Your Own Backyard

Here are some easy garden ideas to help you plan your foraging garden. This is by no means a comprehensive guide, but rather meant to be a jumping-off point for those wondering about the topic.

1. Figure out what is native to the area

The idea is to create a low maintenance space but productive greenspace that reflects nature (as it would be untended). So, the first step is to figure out what naturally grows in the area and what is already there. There’s no sense in taking out the natural goodness already available! Work with what you have and go from there.

On that note, look in your current garden (if you have one), and figure out what is edible. Look at the shrubs, flowers, weeds, and everything in between.

2. Prepare the soil

My neighbour, who also happens to be one of the most impressive and prominent gardeners in our little community, once told me something when giving me planting advice. She reminded me that you only have one chance to set up your soil. What she meant is that once you prep the ground and begin planting, you can’t go back and re-do that process (without tearing everything out).

This is not to say you can’t keep nourishing your soil as you keep gardening! But, when starting out, it’s super important to take great care in preparing the soil. This is the foundation of your food system, and so you want it to be as healthy as possible.

Morag talks a bit about soil fertility in the video below, but she also has a video called How to Make a No Dig Garden. I would highly suggest giving it a watch!

3. Choose your plants

You’ll want to select a robust selection of perennial plants that will come back year after year. Consider what can be used as alternatives to things you often cook or bake with (ie. spinach alternatives, flowers for jellies, etc).

And, try to consider which plants produce in multiple ways. For example, you can grow zucchinis, which are delicious on their own… But you can eat the leaves and the flowers of the plant, too! I love adding male flowers into salads or stuffing them and baking them.

There’s more on which plants to choose in the paragraphs below.

For more detailed advice, I highly suggest watching the video below. It’s a masterclass about how to design and grow a forage garden from Morag Gamble at the Permaculture Education Institute.

What to grow in a forage garden?

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but here are some ideas to get you excited about planning your own forage garden. As this blog grows, I will post recipes and ideas for how to use each plant. For now, here’s some inspo!

Here are 15 flowers to grow in your garden that not only look beautiful but are edible too:

1. Lilacs: They have a delicate, sweet, and floral taste. I use them often in syrups and lemonades.
2. Day lilies: Have a slightly sweet and peppery taste. I love them chopped up in salads or as dessert toppings.
3. Dahlias: The flowers have a sweet and slightly spicy taste and make great infused syrups whereas the tubers resemble something like a potato.
   • Try these Dahlia tuber quesadilla pockets, for example!
4. Violets: They have a sweet and slightly tangy taste. I love using them as garnish on desserts and turning them into jelly.
5. Nasturtiums: Have a spicy and slightly peppery taste. Delicious in salads and also pesto!
6. Lavender: Has a floral and slightly sweet taste. It makes delicious infusions for baked goods. And obviously gin cocktails…
7. Roses: Rose hips have a sweet and slightly tart taste and are great for teas. The petals are absolutely delicious in rose jam.
8. Dandelions: Have a slightly bitter taste. I love dandelion jelly. Their leaves are also good in salad!
10. Pansies: They have a mild, slightly sweet and tangy taste. They’re adorable as cake or cupcake toppers and delicious in salads.
11. Calendula: Have a mild, slightly bitter and spicy taste. Excellent in sweet desserts and great for herbal infusions!
12. Chamomile: Has a sweet, apple-like taste. Obviously great in tea!
13. Sunflowers: Have a mild, slightly nutty taste. Great for jellies or dried and infused in salt or sugars.
14. Marigolds: Tangy, slightly bitter and spicy taste. Yummy in broths or in an infused butter!
15. Carnations: Have a light clove-like spicy taste. They make a delicious and uniwue tea.

Disposing of garden waste

The reason I love this style of gardening is that maintaining a garden requires a lot of resources (especially water). Much like the reason I disdain grass (that’s a rant for another time…), I don’t like the idea of pouring valuable resources into something that is only for show. But, I still love flowers.

This concept marries the two best qualities of gardening: You cultivate a beautiful space and nourish your body with plant and flower filled goodness. Plus, lemonades and salads look pretty gourmet when garnished with flowers!

But, on the topic of sustainability, what to do with unused plants and flowers? You can feed many types of flowers to your chickens if you have them! If you don’t, you can also compost leftovers and return them back to your garden as either compost or mulch.

Frequently asked questions

Resources

Here are the references from this article:

7 Sustainable Gardening Practices and Why They’re Important, by Jenny Dunklee

Forage, Merriam-Webster Dictionary

How to grow a forage garden with Morag Gamble