100 Easy Food Forest Plants for the North Carolina Piedmont
One of the challenges in designing a diverse food forest is knowing which plants grow well.
Books and the internet can be helpful resources, but at the end of the day this information has to be somewhat bioregional.
It can be hard to get information on what will do well where you are – and even once you’ve got that, it can be hard knowing which plants to choose from the hundreds (or thousands?!) of possibilities!
I’ve studied, applied, and taught Permaculture in the hot and humid NC Piedmont region for around a decade now and it’s led me to develop a consistent palette of plants to design with.
This list is a designer’s tool that took countless hours of learning for me to be able to develop. I’ve decided to share this list for a small donation. It goes into more depth than you’re likely to find elsewhere online.
The Food Forest Plant List includes:
- 100 Easy Plants for NC Piedmont Food Forests
- Plants for each layer of the forest garden
- My own notes on most plants including edible and medicinal uses
- Functions for each plant – comes in handy when designing guilds!
- Shows which plants are relatively easy to propagate – so you can save money and start your own plants
- Sort by layer, function, native, growing conditions, and more.
- You’ll get access to updates as I improve the list!
This is the list I wish I’d had from the start, 10 years ago. The most popular Food Forest lists I’d seen were all made for England, Australia, or Massachusetts – significantly different ecosystems than NC.
The list is in the form of an interactive spreadsheet that works with Excel, LibreOffice, Google Sheets / Google Drive, or any standard spreadsheet application. It lets you sort or filter by Layer of the Food Forest, Functions (nitrogen fixing, pollinator plant, fodder, medicinal, etc.), Growing Conditions, Native, and more.
I’ve also bolded a smaller subset of the 100 plants in case you really need a smaller number to just get started with. These plants will work on most hot humid Southeast sites in zone 7-9 as long as you get the shade and moisture conditions right. If you’re looking for plants for a small site, they may be all you need.
You can order it here for $15.00. I’ll do my best to send it within 24-48 hours of receiving payment.
Happy forest gardening!
