JANE: I'm in the Yarra Valley, about an hour north-east of Melbourne,
and I'm surrounded by over 300, mostly edible, plants -
some are medicinal - from all around the world.
They're all densely packed together to create a 1-acre food forest.
It's part of a conference wedding centre
owned by Louise Ward and her husband, who also live on the site.
Well, it actually means that you're mimicking the normal forest
as a food system.
You'll have all sorts of different things
that we would find when you go in a forest.
Some things you can eat some things you can't,
but they're all there, have their purpose within a forest.
And that's really what the edible forest is all about,
except many more edible things in it.
So, how did this all get started?
I started researching a bit more about gardens and growing things.
And while I was doing my research, I came across permaculture
and also the term "edible forest",
and I thought, "Wow! Now, that would be amazing!"
So I walked into the office I think the next day, actually -
really quite good, I'm quite impulsive.
I walked into the office and said, "Guys, I have had the best idea.
"Let's just build an edible forest."
Yay! And they all go, "Alright."
I say, "Yeah, it'll be like the Garden of Eden.
"People can walk in, taste.
"I can just see it in front of me.
"I think it's just a brilliant idea. Let's just do this."
I think they just were like, "OK, what is that, Louise?"
So, what was here beforehand? A paddock.
Purely a paddock, straight paddock. Ahh.
And was on a slope, so it was quite clay-based.
So nothing really you could do with it.
So to improve the clay soil, what did you do?
We started with just collecting manure everywhere -
horse manure, cow manure, as much as we could find.
And my poor husband was up and down the highway
with the tractor and the trailers and just getting as much as we could
because it was a big area.
So we started with building the path, so we had that
because we need to know where
we're gonna dump all this organic material.
Make a pattern or a plan. Make a bit of a pattern.
I always wanted to have something that was still structured,
but still was a forest.
So, what do you do with all the produce?
There's a lot of produce.
We're always having to think what we do with it.
But because we've got the business here,
we actually use that within the menus as well,
so we can preserve it.
We freeze them, we take them out
and then we can use them throughout the year
for all the different menus.
Horticulturalist Jamie Sweetman
has looked after the plants for nearly four years,
and takes the tour groups round the garden.
Everywhere you look, it's just covered -
plants and plants, and more plants.
How many are edible?
So we've got about 330 plants in here and about 200 are edible,
and the other 100 just fit into the systems,
so they will be attracting beneficial bugs, or nitrogen-fixing.
Everything has to have an excuse to be in here.
Even the roses? Even the roses.
The roses, actually, we make syrup with the rosehips.
Yeah. We make tea out of them as well.
That's a beautiful crabapple variety we have in here.
It's fantastic.
We've taken every spot in the garden, I think.
It is a really good effort to put this big netting up, isn't it?
It is, and we wouldn't be able to have this garden without it
because we are keeping out deer and rabbits and especially cockatoos.
All around the fence line is areas, little diamonds,
that all the little birds can come in.
So, we've got blue wrens in here. Look at them.
Yeah, perfect example of the little blue wrens.
It's lovely. Yeah.
They come in and out of the fence line as they please,
so do the bees and the dragonflies and all the good stuff.
This is a terrific looking plant, isn't it?
It is. This is our elderberry. Wow!
So Sambucus nigra. Yeah.
The flowers are huge on this one.
You can imagine when it's in flower.
And we make a cordial and a syrup out of those.
But the berries are the main stars, I think,
because they're really medicinal,
really good for coughs and congestion.
And, yeah, we do a syrup and a tonic with those.
Oh, yum. And then you've got a different elderberry.
Yeah, we've got a variety up there
that I think is better for the berries.
That one's Sambucus nigra 'Golden'.
So it's just a different variant. Because of the leaf.
Yeah, it's got a lot of a golden... It's got a golden leaf.
And the berries are just double the size.
And this one, the flowers are double the size.
So, this one for the flowers, for sure.
So, you should have both? (LAUGHS) I think so, yeah.
I imagine...
(CONTINUES CHATTING)
This is a wild and woolly one, isn't it?
It is. I think this one's everyone's favourite.
This is the Cape gooseberry from Peru.
Open them up and here it is in its own little loop.
Ooh. And you've got the berry.
Oh, can I take that one? Yeah.
Thank you.
Oh, it is nice, isn't it? Yeah.
Mmm. Mmm. Little bit tart.
So, these are like tomatoes, related to tomatoes.
You can grow them from seed.
That's very easy to grow, isn't it? Very easy.
And these usually actually fruit at the end of winter, which is great,
but this is doing a flush now.
Here's something you don't see very often.
What is it? Not here in Australia, you don't.
This is an Aronia berry.
The common name is chokeberry. Chokeberry.
Why? You're not gonna choke, are you? You won't choke.
But they're quite astringent.
But in saying that, they have
more antioxidants in them than blueberries.
Quite easier to grow.
They make a great hedge. Easy to harvest.
They all ripen at the same time, and you can harvest them.
They're very nice. Yeah.
They look like a blueberry. And they're in the rose family?
They are in the rose family. Hah! Well, beautiful.
You can kind of tell with the leaf shape.
Yes, you can. Yeah.
They're beautiful. I love them.
Ah, and what do we have here?
So, these are our way of doing the chop and drop method.
Mm-hm.
So, in permaculture, quite often
you'll cut something down and drop it on the ground
so that its nutrients can go back into the ground.
We'll pull that up soon, throw some mulch over the top of it,
leave it for a while, and building soil on site.
Oh! So most of it breaks down, obviously from the bottom.
It will. Little bits will be left.
And you just leave those?
Even though it's not broken down, we just spread it out a little bit,
put mulch over it, it will be a little hump.
Leave it for a year and come back,
and you've got beautiful perfect mulch to plant into.
Excellent. Good little compost heap. Yeah. They work really well.
This is nardoo, isn't it? You don't often see it.
That is nardoo. Yeah. So this is our wetland area.
And everything in here is actually edible as well.
So this is a lovely one.
Yes, this is our Persian silk tree,
and this is one of our nitrogen-fixing trees.
So, we have nitrogen fixers throughout the whole garden,
and what they do is they have the ability to go into the ground
and they have nodules on their roots that turn nitrogen into forms
that other plants can... find them accessible.
So, therefore, they're self-fertilising our garden for us.
(CHAT QUIETLY)
There's an awful lot of plants here, but you must have a special one.
I actually have a very special one.
It's a medicinal one, so it's not the most beautiful looking one.
Yeah. It's actually this one over here.
It's called the Gotu Kola. And look at it!
It just goes everywhere, a great big patch.
It's very, very happy over here. It's a great little groundcover too.
Good.
Gardening is just one of the best things I've ever discovered.
It's just, yeah, wonderful.
Getting your hands dirty is just
one of the most wonderful things in the world.
It's just really good for you mentally. It's everything.