Recently, I showed you how I'm going about establishing a food forest
in my Hobart garden.
My food forest aims to have
all the plants I'm growing on my steep block
working together hand in hand.
And to do this,
it all comes down to complementary planting
and, most importantly, layers.
So, in the classic model of a food forest,
you have seven layers.
At the top is the canopy layer,
with tall fruit or nut frees.
Then there's the understory,
with its smaller dwarfing varieties of fruit or nut trees.
Productive bushes like currants and berries
make up the shrub layer.
Then comes the culinary and medicinal herbaceous layer.
For the soil we have the rhizosphere,
made up of root crops.
Hugging the earth
is the ground cover layer
of edible plants
that double as a living mulch.
And, finally, a vertical layer
of vines and climbers.
But if you have a small garden or live in an apartment,
you're probably thinking, "There's no way I could do that."
Well, yes, you can,
because I'm going to show you
how you can make your own potted food forest.
I'm at the CERES Nursery in Brunswick East in Melbourne,
which is the perfect place
to find all the pots and plants I'll need to get started.
First up, an easy starter pot.
Taking the forest right down in scale,
we can create a combination of vegetables, herbs,
flowers and leafy greens.
Now, of course, the bigger the pot you have,
the more options you can cram in there.
But the main thing is start small with maybe three to four layers,
knowing that you have to have at least three
to qualify as a food forest.
Now, when it comes to choosing a pot,
look for a really wide one,
'cause it'll give you lots of surface area to play with.
And, of course, you're gonna need some good organic potting mix
to help those plants pump along.
Now, when it comes to choosing plants for your easy starter pot,
there's so many you can choose from.
But today I'm going to use just three
and I'm gonna start with a rosemary bush
as my central small shrub layer.
Now, I love rosemary
because you can actually let it grow quite big,
or you can prune it really tightly
to suit the space you're growing it in.
Of course, you can eat it, it smells great,
and it doesn't look too bad either.
So, for this plant,
I'm just gonna pop it out of its pot.
Oh, and you can see it's quite root-bound there,
so we are gonna give it a firm tickle... (LAUGHS)
..to loosen those roots up
and make sure it's ready to grow into its new home.
So from here we're just gonna add some more soil.
The next layer I'm going to introduce is the herbaceous layer,
and today I'm going to use garlic chives.
And these are a wonderful plant.
Obviously they're edible, so that's a win.
But they're also beautiful.
And over time, as they grow,
you can actually let some of them flower
and they've got beautiful flowers
to attract all sorts of beneficial insects.
Now, when you're planting...
I've got probably 50 plants in my hand,
but you don't need 50 plants in here, do you?
..but just start teasing them out nice and gently,
making sure the roots aren't being snapped.
So just start spacing them out
and then you can go back and plant them in.
Dig a hole the size of the root ball
so that the roots are nice and comfy.
And when you're tucking them in,
you can actually be quite firm,
because otherwise the plant can fall over.
So don't be afraid to give it a good push.
The next layer I'm going to introduce is the ground cover layer.
I'm going to be using a thyme plant today
and I've got a few different types, because the more the merrier.
And this is gonna be sitting closer to the edge
so it can drape over the pot, which I really love.
Other really great plants you could use
in this kind of easy-to-start food forest
is oregano.
It has a similar growth habit to thyme
and you can get different types as well.
And look - that's it.
It's a really simple, hardy choice of plants here
which will thrive in this pot.
They won't compete for space above or below ground.
As the rosemary grows bigger and bigger,
you can actually choose to prune it to contain it,
or you might go, "You know what?
"I'm gonna take out the chive plants.
"I might add in a few quick-growing lettuces."
But you can play around with it.
These things aren't a fixed state of being.
You can really have fun with it -
mix things up, change things as you want.
And just enjoy the ride.
Next, a fruit tree pot.
A classic food forest isn't complete without fruit.
And while most mature fruit trees will struggle with root competition,
while they're young, there's a lot of space you can utilise.
For my fruit tree pot,
I've got the largest container I could find.
Lots of room for lots of plants.
And, of course, I'm filling it up with some top-notch potting mix.
Now, I've got a dwarf avocado here,
which will be my understory layer.
If you look after it well,
it's going to really flourish in this container.
Now gently remove it from its pot.
And just place it in the centre and arrange it how you'd like it.
The other thing to keep an eye on is when you're putting in the soil,
it's not too mounded up around the trunk,
because it could cause collar rot, which you definitely don't want.
Always pay special attention to the trunk
and make sure it's got good airflow around it
and not too much soil or mulch.
Alright!
So now we can move down to the herbaceous layer.
You can see I've got three calendula plants here
which have got beautiful edible flowers.
And three's a nice number.
It gives it a good symmetrical feel,
and it's good to think about design thinking
even in these small spaces.
I'm gonna pop in just a few quick-growing lettuces
amongst the calendula.
For our final layer, I've got some yummy strawberries here
which I'm gonna plant along the edge
and they can drape over.
All these plants have similar soil needs.
A final job is to add some mulch on top.
As we're growing in pots, it can dry out really quickly,
so it's always great to mulch it
to keep the moisture in for as long as you can.
Ta-da!
For the final one,
an alone together pot.
I've got a collection of different potted plants here,
including rhubarb and some culinary herbs.
In the big pot,
there's Camellia sinensis, the tea plant,
some native ginger,
and mountain pepper.
Now, planted in the same soil, they wouldn't be so happy,
but gathered together in their separate pots,
they'll get along just fine.
The great thing is that they're not sharing soil,
but they still benefit from each other's warmth, shade
and pollinator attraction.
This is the beauty of pots.
You can mix and match,
creating a range of microclimates by moving them closer together.
And, of course, you can move them around
to meet up with the seasonal sun patterns.
If you want to create a more unified look on top of the pot,
simply get some mulch
and put it directly on top of the pot plants
and you kind of disguise the rim of the pots.
It looks like you've planted them all into soil.
And there you go.
We've got a range of plants here, different soil types.
You're having the best of both worlds, packing them in,
knowing that you can change them as you want to
or as you need to.
And it looks beautiful.
You can see you don't necessarily need a large space
to create your own food forest,
because with careful plant selection,
you can fit one snugly into a space as small as a pot.