Today, I counted the number of food-producing species (fruit trees/nut trees/perennial vegetables, edible leaf-producing trees, aromatic herbs) in my food forest and I listed all species below. I might have forgotten some species and over time, I’ll add new species/cultivars so the list is constantly changing.
This first version of the species list is counted 8 months after beginning the plantation of the food forest. After the species name I added the number of different cultivars. This further increases the diversity of the food forest.
In total, I counted 47 different species and 90 different cultivars. Adding also the non-food producing auxiliary species such as Paulownia, the total number of species becomes 54. This is not a bad score after only 8 months on a surface of +- 1500 m2.
However, I know many food forests with more than 200 different species (though not all edible or tasty). This means that there’s still a lot of potential to increase the diversity of my food forest which I plan to do in the coming years. I plan for example to graft the plum (prunus) rootstocks with nectarine, peach, almond, apricot and other prunus fruits.
I have not reached 200 different species yet but the food forest is already much more diverse than a classical apple monocultural orchard… Here’s the list. I added mostly the English name but sometimes only the latin name as no English name exists.
Food producing plants in the food forest
-paw paw: 0 cultivars, all seeding
-kaki: 2 cultivars
-plum: 3 cultivars
-fig: 3 cultivars
-apple +- 20 cultivars such as Elstar, Idared, Boskoop, Winter banana, grand mere, Grise du Canada, a local Campile variety I grafted myself and more.
-olive: 1 cultivar
-pomegranate: 3 cultivars
-pindo palm: no cultivar, seedling
-Elaeagnus pointilla fortunella: 1 cultivar
-Elaeagnus pointilla amoroso: 1 cultivar
-Elaeagnus umbellata: 1 cultivar
-Elaeagnus angustifolia: 1 cultivar
-Elaeagnus ebbingei: 1 cultivar
-Zanthoxylum simulans ‘Chinese pepper’: seedling
-sea buckthorn: 1 cultivar
-Myrtus molinae elite: 1 cultivar
-prickly pear: propagated vegetatively
-raspberry: 3 cultivars
-gooseberry: 1 cultivar
-black currant: 2 cultivars
-red currant: 2 cultivars
-blackberry: 2 cultivars
-goji berry: 1 cultivar
-asparagus: 1 cultivar
-rhubarb: 1 cultivar
-kiwi: 2 cultivars
-kiwi berry /arctic berry: 3 cultivars
-Chocolate vine (Akebia quinata): 1 cultivar
-feijoa: 1 cultivar
-cherry: rootstock only
-Amelanchier: 2 cultivars
-strawberry tree: wild seedling
-Japanese plum-yew: 1 cultivar
-Gaultheria shallon: 1 cultivar
-hazelnut: 3 cultivars
-bay leaf/laurel: seedling
-grapevine: 2 cultivars
-avocado: 2 cultivars
-prunus tomentosa: 1 cultivar
-cornouiller: 1 cultivar
-strawberry: 4 cultivars
-rosemary: 2 cultivars
-lemon verbena: 1 cultivar
-lavender: 1 cultivar
-nepeta: 1 cultivar
-thyme: 1 cultivar
-Jerusalem artichoke: 1 cultivar
Auxiliary plants in the food forest
-paulownia
-alder
-ash
-acacia dealbata
-willow
-butterfly bush
-Forsythia
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