The Forest Garden

A diversity of crops in a Forest Garden.

The forest garden is the result of applying the ancient “Milpa” system of the Indigenous American farmers from the past: from before the European conquest of the Americas. The milpa was the way the people grew everything they needed for their families: from foods, medicines and refreshments to fibers, dies, insecticides and building materials; through flood or drought.

The milpa system was an original agroforestry system that incorporated many types of trees along with annual and perennial crops growing between and below. It could also be considered the original agro-ecological farming system, as it grew a great diversity of crops in beneficial associations with one another; in an ecologically sound manner that improved the soil instead of depleting it.

When the Spanish conquerors first entered the Americas they encountered an agricultural paradise; unlike anything in existence in Europe at the time. In the ancient capital city of Mexico, they encountered raised platforms surrounded by water, growing an enormous amount of food and flowers for the people of the Aztec empire, while back home, many of their countrymen were starving.

European agricultural practices had destroyed the soils of Spain thousands of years before the discovery of the Americas. The agricultural system of the Europeans was, and still is, the destructive methods brought to the continent by invaders from Turkey; originally introduced from Mesopotamia. They are the methods developed in what is now Iraq, at the end of the last ice age.

There, the people removed and burned the plant refuse; eliminating the organic matter that was needed by the soil. They plowed up the soil; exposing what organic matter was present, to the destructive forces of wind, heat and solar radiation. After plowing, the soil lay bare, exposing it to the compactive and erosive forces of the rain; leaving hard, hot, dry dirt with little organic matter.

This is the system they developed for growing wheat, oats, and lentils. The organic matter, originally present in the soil, produced abundant crops; populations grew and communities established full time armies to protect them and their food. But, the organic matter was always destroyed and never replaced, leading inevitably to a collapse in production and increasing hunger.

In need of virgin soils, the people of Mesopotamia employed their armies to invade the land that is now Turkey and from their all of the Indo-European lands. They replaced the hunter gatherers and imposed their destructive farming methods on the land. Eventually these methods were forcefully introduced to almost all of the farmland on earth.

Meanwhile, back in the Americas, the Indigenous American hunter gatherers were busy domesticating most of the crops that feed the people of the world today. They copied the conditions in which they found the plants they ate, in order to adapt them to growing close to their settlements. Instead of imposing an artificial environment on the plants, they copied the natural environment.

The result was an inordinate diversity of crops growing up out of the plant refuse itself; just like in the forest. In order to mitigate the damage caused by flooding, they learned to grow their crops on raised beds of soil. These were used from the great lakes of Canada to Tierra del Fuego in Chile. These beds were not opened except for the harvest of root crops. They were permanent.

The only plant refuse that was burned by Indigenous American farmers was that which was resistant to decomposition and it was charred and incorporated into the soil to enrich it in parts of Central America and much of South America. Instead of eliminating organic matter from the soil, they increased it each year through the decomposition of the organic matter covering the beds.

The mulch protected the soil from the destructive forces of the sun, wind and rain. The shade it provided, kept the soil cool and moist for plant roots. The decomposing litter provided nutrients and energy for the earthworms that continually loosened and enriched the soil. It also fed the beneficial soil microorganisms that protected and provided nutrients and moisture to crops.

This microorganism diversity below the soil supported a diversity of crops above the soil. Crop associations confused and repelled pest organisms. Other plants, such as marigold, were grown to kill deleterious organisms. Interplanted crops such as the three sisters of maize, beans and squash, complemented each other and actually increased the amount of food being grown in a given area.

These forest garden farms did not need imported fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, pesticides or other outside inputs. They were self-sufficient. They were highly productive: supporting many millions of people without a single tractor, plow or combine. The people of the Americas were well fed and healthy: until a severe climate change and the European invasion.

The opinion of some archaeologists that these farmers practiced slash and burn methods was due to a lack of understanding and on preconceived notions, based on the use of fire by North American Indigenous hunters to clear underbrush in forests. The forest gardens of the ancient Indigenous American farmers were an intensive system with a large number of permanent crops.

Indigenous Americans grew food on land that was too wet to farm, by building raised platforms. They raised food on land that was too dry to farm, by building irrigation systems and waffle gardens. They grew food on land that was too steep to farm by building terraces. But everywhere they grew on organically mulched raised beds, which captured rainwater in droughts and protected roots in floods.

The European conquest brought with it old world diseases to which the people had no immunity. It is estimated that 96% of the population at the time, died from these diseases; the majority dying without ever having seen a European. The conquerors then imposed their agricultural methods upon the people and upon their land; replacing forever the productive system they had developed.

Europeans spread Indigenous American crops around the world; created an agricultural revolution that saved countless millions of people from starvation. But, the sustainable methods that had been used to develop those crops disappeared for 500 years. Their reintroduction today, would generate another agricultural revolution with the establishment of millions of forest gardens.