Keela Yoga Farm's food forests

Our gardens and food forests are split into several areas based on different design principles. Please see some photo and info below but you may click onto individual blogs for more information.

To learn more follow us on social media or join our mailing list to get updates. Alternatively, book onto one of our food forest courses or permaculture interships

The Winter Garden Food Forest

Intensively growing perennials with annual beds mixed in between

We have planted fruit and nut trees in this food forest, each one was planted with supporting perennials in guilds. It is quite near to the house and the trees are still young so we will continue to use the space between the trees for a winter kitchen garden using the Back to Eden garden method (wood chip gardening), it also includes 7 sunken beds and perennial vegetable beds, a greenhouse and propagation area.

The photo above from 2019 and below from 2017 can you spot the difference?

The photo above of the food forest in September 2017 and below in March 2017, can you spot the difference?

2. The Horta – annual kitchen vegetables planted right next to the house

Here we have converted a slope into three mini terraces with 2 swales and flood ditches going through it. We have put in a small pond and intensively planted annuals and herbs here. This spot also stays warmer in the winter as it is protected by the wind and there are huge rocks that warm up from the sunrise. This prevents it from getting frost so we can use this for an early crop of fruiting vegetables that would usually be burned by the first frost. However, we are now using this area as a salad garden with various kales, spinaches, chards, perpetual spinages, lettuces and various perennial plants and herbs that can be included in salads. We found it is much easier to keep all salad plants together next to the house.

3. Terrace 1 – Our first food forest.

Food forest planted in 2018 and continually managed since then. More tightly planted focusing on more drought resisting varieties. More than 200 different plants here.

Terra 1 food forest — Above is the Terrace 1 food forest and an example of one of the many polycultures planted there, here is more than 200 different perennial edible plants. Photo from 2018, come and see it now!

4. The chicken food forest

Planted in October 2018 and including more than 100 perennial edible plants that chickens will enjoy to eat and will not destroy, for more information on this food forest please click here. p.s all of the below has been planted we will update the blog and photo soon.

Chicken food forest design — Drawing of the Chicken Food Forest. This shows the plants we planted during the October 2018 Food Forest Course with the spacing the plants will have in 5 years

5. Silvopasture for Chickens & Sheep

Planted in 2018 through 2019, this 150 square meter area is fenced off with over 150 tree and shrubs planted in swales. It includes a windbreak and plants and trees that will give us a yield but also sheep and chickens can enjoy and not destroy. We plan to integrate chickens in 2020 and sheep in 2022. Click here for more information on this field and its design.

Drawing at Maturity — Image of design-based at Maturity. Click here for more information on why it was designed and planted like this

6. Reforestation area

This is a 1-hectare area we have fenced off and planted more than 40 species of trees and shrubs as part of our reforestation effort in November 2018, November 2019 and to be finished in Spring 2020, it is complete with a new lake, a windbreak and many wild fruit trees. We plan to integrate sheep into this in a few years to help keep the grass, weeds and low hanging branches down that can present a fire risk until then we will cut the grass which will offset carbon and build soil.

more than 100 trees of 40 different species planted for nature to attract wildlife and offset carbon

7. Future areas to work with

More than 10 hectares for reforestation, Each year we plan to fence 1 hectare and fill it with trees using different Agroforestry methods including principles from silvopasture, restoration agriculture, carbon farming food forests, forest gardens.
4 Lower terraces, these hold more water and we plan to convert these into food forests with space for summer vegetables
Citrus alley with the outdoor shower, a path where we have planted citrus trees that receive water from the outdoor shower
We plan to plant more diversity into our 2 hectares of cork forest
We plant to remove eucalyptus and acacia trees for building and firewood and reforest these areas with native trees.

Other areas we garden in:

Propagation area — This propagation area is covered with shade cloth in the summer and plastic in the winter.

Billy Jean sits by the small pond waiting for frogs to play with. This is water from one of our greywater systems that cleans our shower and washing machine water. We plan to transform this into a flood based terraced system that waters itself every time we shower