The Food Forest Handbook: Design and Manage a Home-Scale Perennial Polyculture Garden

Create abundance through this unique approach to low-maintenance, high-yield, sustainable food production

A food forest is a productive landscape developed around a mix of trees and perennials. Rooted in permaculture principles, this integrated approach to gardening incorporates a variety of plants such as fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial herbs and vegetables. Food forests can help increase biodiversity, protect valuable habitat for beneficial insects, and promote food security and resilience, all while providing an abundant harvest.

The Food Forest Handbook is a practical manual for the design and management of a home-scale perennial polyculture garden. Simple, straightforward instructions guide the reader through:

Getting started - site assessment and planning Tending the forest garden - maintaining soil health, succession planning, mulching, pruning and more The fruits of your labor - crop profiles, harvest, storage, nutrition and recipes.

This timely book makes the concept of food forests accessible to everyone. Focusing on the potential of perennial polyculture to enhance local food systems, The Food Forest Handbook shows the reader how to mix and match plants in unique combinations to establish bountiful landscapes and create genuine self-reliance in years to come.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a five-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He has been permaculture teacher for thirty years, and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm .

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture.

Michelle Czolba is co-owner of Pittsburgh Permaculture and co-founded the Hazelwood Food Forest. She has extensive experience in the design and maintenance of perennial polyculture. Her formal training includes biology, chemistry, and herbalism, and she has earned a B.Sc. in Environmental Science and a M.Sc. in Sustainable Systems. After obtaining her Herbal Certification Michelle founded Wildly Natural Skin Care, and developed her own full line of handmade, wildcrafted and organic skin care products.

Darrell Frey is the owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a 5-acre permaculture farm, solar greenhouse and market garden located in Western Pennsylvania. He facilitates workshops and delivers keynote presentations on permaculture design, perennial polyculture management and ecological land use planning, and has been a sustainable community development consultant and permaculture teacher for 30 years. Darrell writes extensively about the principles involved in regenerative, organic agriculture and is the author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm .