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The original was posted on /r/permaculture by /u/SustainableAcademy on 2024-10-01 01:42:10+00:00.
When it comes to making food forests, there are hundreds of "combos" possible, and life is too short to do them all... and some are just going to be better!
Just the same way the 3-sisters of Corn (trellis), peas (nitrogen fixing climbers), and squash/pumpkin (creeping ground cover), work so well, do you have any food forest combos that either you know work well, or you THINK would work well?
I will share a few to get the ideas and sharing flowing :)
1) Sub-tropical Combo: (This was used a Geoff Lawton's Zaytuna farm while I was there)
a) Tipuana Tipu (A.K.A. Ice-cream bean) - Sub-canopy, coppice-able, nitrogen-fixing, fruit-bearing, fast-carbon pathway. This is alternated with fruit trees... so 50% of the trees on the swale!
b) "Desirable" fruit trees - jackfruit, Chocolate Sapote, Mango, bananas, and more!
2) Temperate Climate Combo: (This is one I have installed for several clients)
a) Hippophae rhamnoides (A.K.A. Seabuckthorn) - Sub-canopy, nitrogen-fixing, fruit-bearing, leave harvesting, seed-oil pressing, hardy sub-canopy species. This acts like a hardy nurse tree, and can be spaced as every other tree... but that's a lot of seabuckthorn. Every 4th tree is a bit more manageable for being a support tree with multiple crop opportunities.
b) Saskatoon, Hazelnut, dwarf-apple, dwarf-pear - These can be mix and matched for your preferences. All are manageable (not huge).
c) Haskap - these are the "understory" shrub that fills in the gaps between trees. You can do 1 between every tree if you space them right. Alternatively or mixed in I have used Nanking cherry.
d) Clover for traffic-tolerant nitrogen fixing groundcover.
I look forward to hearing your combos! Give this an upvote to get this thread rolling! :)
Throwing a picture in of Stefan from Quebec with one of his combos: