Creating a Food Forest
June 13 @ 9:30 am – 5:30 pm
Chapel Hill, NC (first half of day) and Hillsborough, NC (second half of day)
This workshop is focused on creating a Food Forest!
First, we’ll begin by touring Liane Salgado’s 15+-year old Food Forest / Forest Garden in Chapel Hill, NC. This is the most abundant and mature example of a food forest I know of in the entire Piedmont. This workshop gives a rare opportunity to learn from an established, local food forest.
In the second half of the workshop, we’ll dive into theory and design at the site of a newly planted food forest designed and planted in our workshops last year for Jubilee Healing Farm in Hillsborough, NC. While we’re there, we’ll discuss and plant some of the understory and guild plants that bring more life to the food forest while learning about their growing conditions and uses. We’ll also dive into how to begin with your own food forest!
Topics
- Tour of a Successful Piedmont Food Forest
- Food Forest / Forest Garden Theory and Design
- Laying Out a Food Forest Design From Pattern to Detail
- Avoiding Common Food Forest Mistakes
- Selecting the Right Plants for Our Climate and Sites
- Strategies for Small Space Food Forests
- Hands-On Work With Understory / Guild Food Forest Plants
- Some Favorite Underappreciated Edible Trees and Shrubs
- 50+ Food Forest Plant List
- Your Food Forest / Forest Garden Questions
About the Venue and Workshop:
Venue and Workshop Details:
The first half of this workshop will be held in a 2-acre mature Food Forest in Chapel Hill. The second half will be at Jubilee Healing Farm, a beautifully tended small farm located on 10 acres in Hillsborough, NC that supports volunteer and community-building activities and workshops for people seeking healing. There will be a short drive between the spaces near lunch time.
We’ll have the workshop part inside and part outside unless the weather disagrees! Please wear comfortable clothing for the day. If it’s going to rain a little, bring rain gear. A little rain is very helpful for Permaculture design!
We’ll likely do a little forest walking. Good to wear compatible footwear. If you’re concerned about ticks or other itchy expressions of the local ecology, please bring non-toxic insect deterrent.
What to Bring:
- Journal and pen
- Your own lunch and any snacks you need (kitchen available to heat up food)
- Water bottle
Also:
- Openness to new (and ancient) ways of seeing and living
- Kindness towards the plants, animals, soil, water, and other people here
- Inclusivity and welcoming spirit towards the people in the workshop
- Willingness to put your phones away and tune into your senses
- Curiosity about life and what each other and the land has to say
Sign Up
This year, we’re offering tickets at a sliding scale and standard rates. Please only choose the reduced rate tickets if you truly need to. Thank you for the support that allows us to continue sharing this work!
About the Facilitator:
Matthew “Watersong” Tracy started practicing Permaculture in 2011 and received his design certificate from Wild Abundance in 2015. He has been consulting and teaching as a Permaculture Designer since 2018.
Along the way, he learned from numerous Permaculture teachers, tended land with minimal inputs, worked with around 70 clients on their land, lived off-grid for a decade, and made (… and still makes!) a whole lot of humbling and valuable mistakes on his way back to life in harmony with the earth.
Matt is also an herbalist (…in training, like all herbalists..!) and has been putting strong-tasting plants in bottles to make helpful things happen since 2007. He prepares dozens of local herbal medicines for his community every year.
With all that experience, Matt is ever a beginner and student of the land. Nature is infinite. What can we do but listen and try?
Matt is honored to be a Permaculture guide to anyone interested in coming a little closer to the earth. Becoming a father in 2023 has made passing down these teachings that always consider future generations more important than ever.
Read the rest of Matt’s bio here.
