Nowadays, agriculture is mostly based on monoculture which has proven to degrade land. Furthermore, large-scale crops are heavily chemical-dependent, with all these pesticides, fertilisers, improvers etc. slowly eroding and polluting soil and underground water.
With that being said, forest gardening is a good solution to brake monoculture’s monotony and offers a variety of benefits that can solve many of the above problems. First of all, a forest garden is self-reliant and it doesn’t need any specific care from the gardener. The consequence of this is forest’s garden ability to not only maintain soil fertility but also reclaim polluted soils.
For example, in a forest garden all beneficial nutrients are provided to plants through annual leaf fall. A comfrey provides ground cover and is a mineral accumulator, aromatic herbs protect fruit from pests, currant bushes are planted around the drip line of the trees so that they get watered and redcurrants benefit from the shade of an apple tree. All this demonstrates that forest garden it’s a self-sustaining system, a whole «factory» someone could say and a way to work with the land rather than against it.
The food (fruits, vegetables and roots) forest gardens provide is rich in nutrient, diverse and of course organically produced, promoting good health. It is strictly forbidden to use any herbicides or pesticides in a forest garden otherwise it will be no different from conventional agriculture, Forest’s garden mission is to be 100 % organic so that benefits wildlife and human health. Adding some animals (for example chickens) is one of the best ways to keep a forest garden “clean” from chemicals as chickens love scratching around in a forest garden, helping to control pests and adding manure too.
Hippocrates said well “make food your medicine and medicine your food”. Noting this maxim Robert Hart (n.d.) – pioneer in forest gardening – urges people to get to know forest gardening in order to grow their own healthy food combining positive gardening and positive health. With this in mind, it is evident that forest gardening is an organic gardening system beneficial both for soil quality and human health.
