Welcome, on this page you’ll find the food forest establishment protocol that’s specifically developed for a scenario where you want a food forest with swales and plant everything in the fall.

The protocol consists of nine tasks executed in this order: 1) Plan the food forest, 2) Define a layout, 3) Site clearing, 4) Test the soil, 5) Site survey, 6) Install swales, 7) Summer cover cropping, 8) Bare Root planting, and 9) Mulching (killing off the cover crops).

The first six steps are the same as in ‘Food Forest with Swales Establishment (Spring Planting) but instead of planting trees and shrubs immediately, you get to improve the soil with cover crops through the spring, summer and early fall months and then plant your bare root trees and shrubs during the dormancy period over late fall/winter the same year.