I’ve recently received very useful advice from someone with experience in growing foodstuff in three different climates: whatever you want to cultivate in the long run, annual crops or a food forest, always start with berries.
It makes perfect sense: they are easy to plant and to look after, and yields arrive faster. Not to mention, for the most part they are easy to propagate from cuttings. Once established, some of them also send suckers – roots that travel in the ground and send out new shoots.
Others, such as blackberries, will also propagate through layering – when the stem comes in contact with the ground, it will most likely send new roots into the ground. Another advantage with berries, generally speaking, is that they can fit in tight places, and their root systems are compatible with other plants.
Below I’ll go over a few ecological projects in which berries will be very useful, at several moments during the lifetime of the projects.
Establishing your garden beds
In terms of practicality, we can find plenty of arguments for planting them next to trees. They are straightforward in terms of maintenance, needing occasional pruning. The thorny ones make excellent habitat for small fauna, and provide barriers against larger fauna. The occasional browsing by herbivores doesn’t impact berries, as the great majority grow back after pruning, while some are even stimulated by it.
As a hedge plant, the berries provide nutrition both for small and large animals. In turn, these bring high quality manures and also various fruit pits and seeds on site, helping establish a potentially productive food forest in the future.
Humans can help orchestrate this sequence by selecting, replanting and grafting these elements, into positions that can be even more advantageous for humans and the ecosystem alike.
For ideas of how to integrate berries into your space, please check out Sean’s videos at Edible Acres: https://www.youtube.com/@edibleacres
Establishing your food forest
As the urban density and overall population has been growing exponentially for the past 50 years, the need to provide valuable nutrition has also been on the rise.
With large scale agriculture failing to provide consequential value, for the investment it requires, and also being at the root cause of various ailments, berry shrubs address this need as they can be inserted in even the tightest of spaces. Fitting into the various micro-climates of the city, berries can survive and even thrive with only passive rainwater inputs, and lessen the need for maintenance of the space. No more cutting the grass, no need for biocides or other high-energy inputs.
For harvest, children or seniors can be involved too, with minimal effort, raising the compatibility with the contemporary urban reality. The raw consumption also brings much needed enzymes and microbiota back into our diet.
Establishing a low maintenance, high nutritional project.
As the urban density and overall population has been growing exponentially for the past 50 years, the need to provide valuable nutrition has also been on the rise.
With large scale agriculture failing to provide consequential value, for the investment it requires, and also being at the root cause of various ailments, berry shrubs address this need as they can be inserted in even the tightest of spaces. Fitting into the various micro-climates of the city, berries can survive and even thrive with only passive rainwater inputs, and lessen the need for maintenance of the space. No more cutting the grass, no need for biocides or other high-energy inputs.
For harvest, children or seniors can be involved too, with minimal effort, raising the compatibility with the contemporary urban reality. The raw consumption also brings much needed enzymes and microbiota back into our diet.
If you’re wondering about what size projects can include fruit trees and berries, look no further than the examples of Lana and Angelo: https://www.discoverpermaculture.com/vid3pm
Inviting Nature back into our lives and our habitat
As mentioned above about pioneering food forests, or establishing intensive gardens, we only need to provide the minimal conditions for birds, lizards, small animals (hedgehogs, squirrels, etc) to come back to our urban spaces and provide the valuable functions of insect and pest control.
Berry shrubs provide these animals with nutrition directly and indirectly; they allow them to come in close enough to our homes and urban arrangements, so that they can regulate different populations of slugs, snails, mosquitos, flies, caterpillars…
Once again, this reduces other costly operations that in recent times have fallen on the shoulders of local governments. Furthermore, this opens the door for more quality interactions between members of communities, in an environment that more resembles the natural one.
Add some flavor to our diets
And yes, as far as your taste buds go, they will be enchanted, too; if you decide to plant the ones that grow well in your garden relative to climate, you will have a myriad of options – I’ll list a few of my favourites: Honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea), Currants (Ribes spp.), Blueberry (Vaccinium), Raspberry (Rubus spp.), Blackberry (Rubus spp.), Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago), Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum trilobum), Aronia (Aronia macrocarpa), Cornelian Cherry (Cornus Mas), Elderberry (Sambuccus spp.), Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae Rhamnoides), Korean Pine Goji (Lycium barbarum), Basjoo Banana (Musa basjoo), American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) or Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria).
There are even plants such as Hawthorn (Crataegus Monogyna), Sand Cherry (Prunus Pumila) or Nanking Cherry (Prunus Tomentosa), that although not technically berries, can have similar functions in cultivated ecologies.
The many cultivars of these plants, spread all over the globe, provide nutrition to humans and animals alike. Integrating berries into food-scapes actually creates even more abundance, as the wild fauna will spread the seeds around.
To the ecological functions mentioned above, you can also add others by creative design; these can be related to your cultural and climatic realities, and not to theoretical or potential scenarios. This type of contribution, integrated into our daily lives, can go a long way in empowering others to do the same, while tending to their own preferences and needs.
