Episode Details

A much-expanded edition of Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t is coming this summer. For sneak peeks and updates, and to be the first to know when it’s available, click here.
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We chat with Ryan Cullen, the field supervisor at Durham College, about the newly planted food-forest garden at the college’s Whitby campus.

Cullen explains that the idea behind the food forest is to grow a mix of food-producing species, layered in the same way that a forest is. There’s a herbaceous layer at ground level, a shrub layer, and a canopy layer of trees above. With time, the food forest becomes self-maintaining and, with the appropriate mix of plant species, can have self-renewing fertility.

The top layer of the food-forest garden is the “canopy” layer. Cullen says that they planted this layer with fruiting tree species including cherries, plums, persimmon—and even a hawthorn.

The lower herbaceous and shrub layers, which are still being developed, will be a polyculture—a mix of different plants. Along with edible properties, plants in the lower layers might make available soil nutrients (deep-rooted plants bring up nutrients,) supply nutrients (pea shrubs capture nitrogen from the air,) and attract pollinator species.

Lower-layer plants include bee balm, chamomile, rosa rugosa (for rose hips), strawberreis, and blueberries. Cullen says that this list will grow, as there is still a lot of planting to do in this layer.

 A much-expanded edition of Grow Figs Where You Think You Can’t is coming this summer. For sneak peeks and updates, and to be the first to know when it’s available, click here.