What We Can Learn from Wild Food Forest Guilds

[@stonedapefarmer]

I've learned a lot just from seeing what berries and nuts and things always occur together here. Been eye opening.

[@BrokenGround]

Yes! Definitely! Would love to hear what wild guilds you’ve encountered!

[@stonedapefarmer]

@@BrokenGround The big one has been hazelnut, Saskatoon, madrone, and osoberry all gravitating toward each other with an Oregon grape (and less desirably, poison oak) understory. Occasionally huckleberries, though they're pickier about conditions, and snowberry, though that one isn't as interesting in the volume that it shows up, though still useful medicinally. White oak emerges amongst these as overstory where it has enough light to get established. Wetter areas give way to willows, cattails, and camas unless there's too little light, and then it leans toward elderberry, salal, and wild ginger with maple as a typical overstory tree. Alder, black locust, Scotch broom, clover, and vetch are dotted throughout, as needed, as fast growing nitrogen fixers, and conifers for winter photosynthesis to feed the soil. The other thing is that in spots where the invasive Himalayan blackberries are starting to establish, if you look around, you might find our native (and much better tasting) blackberries as well as our native raspberries. Which makes sense, because they're related and want similar conditions. But importantly, the much more aggressive blackberries provide cover for the much more tender and fragile native berries and allow them to get established in clear cuts without predation by deer, etc. AND, the whole reason the plants end up there to begin with us because birds and other creatures use the tangles of invasive blackberries as cover in clear cuts, even though they preferentially eat the native fruits, so they end up leaving seeds behind every time they visit the brambles. As long as you get in within a couple years or so and clear out the blackberries before they shade out the native fruits, they make a great nursery for other, less aggressive, berries to establish in.

[@BrokenGround]

@@stonedapefarmer Awesome observations! Where are you located?

[@stonedapefarmer]

@@BrokenGround In the Pacific Northwest

[@Greenmahn333]

👍

[@julie-annepineau4022]

I have wild blueberry growing on a ditch slope that is about a 75 degree angle. Here in PEI, Canada all our soil is fairly acidic and blueberries thrive in a lot of different contexts.

[@BrokenGround]

Wow, awesome that they are so adaptable. I wish I could grow them in Montana but I guess I have to be okay with just having them at our family cabin. They are so good!

[@jfbaker5351]

Bonjour from Outaouais!