A Forest Garden Year

The thing about permaculture forest gardens is that to a conventional gardener they look like a total mess: no lawns; no raised beds; no crop rotations; very few annual crops; and absolutely no neat drills of seedlings.

To the untrained eye, it seems as though someone has simply mown a pathway through a scrubby woodland.

A guide in a forest garden is an absolute must, and this is the beauty of A Forest Garden Year.

In this 50 minute film, forest garden expert Martin Crawford leads you on a tour of his remarkable plot, transformed from a plain field into a cornucopia of edible and functional plants. Built on the principle that a young forest ecosystem is in fact one of the most productive ecological environments on Earth, Crawford's garden works with natural processes to produce an abundance of food with a minimum of effort.

But this is not just a spatial tour; it also runs through the year, introducing would-be forest gardeners to the spectacular annual productivity of this kind of growing.

Crawford is set to release a book on his garden next year, but the DVD offers opportunities that the printed page doesn't - including a tour of his polytunnel and potting area, and a fantastic demonstration of the dark art of tree grafting - a vital skill for those interested managing or growing fruit trees.