Where is the Food Forest?

We live on the East Coast of Spain, almost equidistant between Valencia to the North and Alicante to the South. We are about a 20-minute drive inland from the nearest coast, in a beautiful valley called the Vall de Pop.

The food forest is situated near the house, on a ‘barranc’ which is a flat, field-like area. As we are in a hilly region, the barrancs have been cut into the hillside, like steps, to make them easier to work on.

How long have I been developing the Food Forest?

In the summer of 2021, I started to cut down the waist-high grasses, (which I left on the surface of the soil as mulch) and built a gravel path so that I could easily access the end of the garden with a wheelbarrow.

Where did I start?

I left a wide border, as I’ve always loved the ‘long borders’ at RHS Gardens. I planned to find some plants that would start to fill the space, and that would be easy to propagate through cuttings, division, or by anchoring branches to the ground until they grow roots. As I built up the stock, I would be able to spread the planting out further and further. And as it was only me building this garden, I needed to work within my time and energy levels. To start with I had no real idea how to approach building a food forest, so there was a lot of background reading and YouTube video watching going on!

What do I mean by Food Forest?

When I say Food Forest, I should first give a little background of some of my influences…

I loved this video of a 23-year-old food forest, and that has become a loose blueprint for what I’m trying to achieve. The couple shown in the video eat a high percentage of their food from the food forest, including preserving and dehydrating to ensure availability in less productive times, and they have a wide variety of fruit and (mainly perennial) vegetables to choose from.

My other favourite YouTube find at the time, was Sarah in India at My Food Forest, who has an inspirational space, and who also grows vast quantities of fruits and vegetables.

So, when I say Food Forest, I mean a forest-type garden, built in many layers from tall trees down to ground cover (and even underground!) which will provide a large amount of food over the years, for me, my family and the wider community.

What zone am I in?

Zones are a great idea, in that they offer an idea of what climate can be expected, but they are only guides. According to the Spanish zones map, (which you can check here,) we are zone 9b, but zone 10a can be found within only a few hundred metres! Over time, if the climate predictions are accurate, we are all likely to need to adapt to the zones above and below our current one, and I’ll talk about this further in a blog.