Kat (00:02)
Hello Tiffany. How's it going?

Tiffany (00:03)
Hello, Kat. Mm fine. How are you?

Kat (00:07)
Fine. I'm all right. I'm just gonna dive right in because we're both ready for this. In New Mexico, where I grew up, my dad had an apple tree, a cherry tree, and a peach tree all in the backyard. And it was a total fight to keep these things alive. Eventually, dad took out the cherry tree and the peach tree because they needed so much water and attention. He did leave the apple tree. It's still there. Dad is selling the house. Somebody else is gonna get this apple tree.

Tiffany (00:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (00:23)
Hmm.

Kat (00:35)
It also had a worm problem for a while, which he got under control, but not without a lot of work. Meanwhile, at my house here in Texas, the prickly pear, pomegranate tree, and pecan trees in my yard produce prolifically without any input from me.

Tiffany (00:51)
Interesting.

Kat (00:52)
So why? Why would that be? Well, it's because here in Texas the plants that I have are native that will grow on their own, they're meant for this climate, and they have natural pollinators. If you've ever thought about how native food producers could be leveraged to create more sustainable food gardens, you may have considered a food forest. So what are they? And can you build one for yourself? Welcome.

Tiffany (00:55)
Yeah.

Kat (01:22)
To greening up my act.

Kat (01:40)
All right. So that's my long winded intro that I think I wrote actually before I did the research. It might have nothing to do with what I'm actually talking. I wrote this research like two weeks ago and

Tiffany (01:49)
I know, I love that. I had to reread my last one 'cause I was like, What did I say?

Kat (01:52)
I was like, wait a minute, what? Yeah. yeah. But if you're new here, we are greening up my act. Tiffany, who are we? Why are we?

Tiffany (02:01)
Why are we? Well, we are two people who got pretty fed up with like a bunch of greenwashing and not really knowing what meant anything and what was real and what wasn't. So we decided to start a podcast to look into stuff. And we also have both have marketing backgrounds, so we kind of understand marketing fluff because we've written a lot of it in our lives.

Kat (02:24)
Yeah. Yeah, we have we have lied as close to lying as you can get without lying for companies in the past. Well, I don't think I've ever outright lied.

Tiffany (02:31)
Yep.

Tiffany (02:34)
Yeah, not lying. More like bending the truth. Yeah. Any any line on a website that says up to two times more powerful. Up to is the up to just like notice that. Yeah. May give you wings and fly. You know, like may do this.

Kat (02:38)
Just or skirting around it. Omitting things, perhaps? Yeah.

Kat (02:49)
Yeah. The any any hedging. Yeah, any hedging. Yeah.

Kat (02:58)
it's possible. We don't it's unproven as yet, but it happened once, so it could happen again. Yeah. So yeah, that's our we are in that we know that mindset and we know, okay, so what is but also with being two white women who have college degrees, we are marketed to for certain things that I think most women in America, regardless of what race or

Tiffany (03:04)
Yeah, exactly.

Tiffany (03:23)
Mm.

Kat (03:28)
So so socioeconomic class or anything, we are guilt tripped into believing that we can single handedly fix climate change if you happen to care about it, which we do. and so anything yes, anytime they can guilt women into buying stuff, whether it's to look younger or to save the planet or those poor polar bears, you know, just show us a picture of an emaciated polar bear and we will shell out the cash. So we were tired of that. And I think

Tiffany (03:39)
With our wallets also that we can buy shit.

Tiffany (03:53)
Yes.

Tiffany (03:57)
Yeah.

Kat (03:58)
So we're like, all right, so what's real? What what really could save the polar bears? The answer is nothing you're probably doing in your house. But you can feel better about giving your money to certain companies or not spending money at all, which I think is our big yeah. Our our big push is the less the less money you spend. Right. Yeah. The less money you're spending, the probably better you're doing for the environment.

Tiffany (04:08)
Probably

Tiffany (04:12)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's not gonna be your beeswax wrap, sorry to tell ya.

Tiffany (04:25)
Yep. Yep. Totally. A hundred percent.

Kat (04:29)
Yeah. So okay. on that note, my sources tonight. I only had a few and you sent me a lot of them, I think. But the website called Project Food Forest, one called Permaculture Apprentice, a report from Stanford University, website called Community Food Forests, and then Garden Therapy. So all right, so what are we talking about tonight? It's food forests.

Tiffany (04:53)
Okay.

Kat (04:59)
Sometimes called food gardens, are intentionally planted agriculture for growing food meant to leverage nature. Okay. The idea is that the plants sustain each other and there can be minimal human input. So there's a lot of emphasis on trees, shrubs, and perennials, which we talked about last year, self-seeding annuals, etc. So this is not your food forest is not gonna have tomatoes, shrubs,

Tiffany (05:08)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (05:26)
Onions, carrots, fruit vegetables. Nothing you have to replant every year. also focuses on local plants and vegetation that will thrive because they're built for the land they're grown on, including sunlight, rain, soil type, etc. The plants are also meant to sustain other ecology you know, other local ecology like pollinators, birds, non food plants, and animals.

Tiffany (05:29)
Right. Yeah.

Tiffany (05:39)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (05:55)
So the self-seeding plants don't need to be replanted every year, like I said. So that's again the minimum minimal human input, right? Ideally. and then you need fewer pesticides, if any, some of them claim, because a food forest self-polices, ideally. So local pollinators will keep other pests under control. Rabbits and deer may eat some of the items that you plant, but they'll be turned off by others that you plant and

Kat (06:21)
Ideally, the food forest is so prolific that rabbits and deer won't eat all of it, basically. another aspect of a food forest is that you plant densely to provide shade for plants that need it and to prevent weeds. So basically, a green mulch, like we were talking about a few episodes ago. And that keeps invasives out as well. And you also ideally maximize rainwater so you

Tiffany (06:29)
Right.

Tiffany (06:39)
Yes.

Kat (06:50)
Again, leverage is the I wrote this in such marketing speak. Maximize rainwater by optimizing layout and natural ground shaping techniques. Yeah. Maximize, optimize. But basically you're laying it out, you're laying out your food forest in a way that uses the rainwater to the best of its advantage, right? guiding it to some places, you know, keeping it away from others. and then because the plants are native, they produce nitrogen.

Tiffany (06:53)
Leverage.

Tiffany (06:58)
Yes.

Kat (07:18)
And reduce or eliminate the need for fertilizer. So those are kind of the the tenets of a food forest. the ideally a food forest will produce fruits, berries, nuts, herbs, and mushrooms that you can eat for years. So like you were talking about perennial vegetables last year. You might incorporate if there are last year, last week.

Tiffany (07:21)
Okay, yes.

Tiffany (07:26)
Okay.

Tiffany (07:41)
Last year. You mean last week? We're tired.

Kat (07:46)
Which was ten minutes ago for us. Yes, it's bedtime for the babies. But you may have some vegetables too. I didn't see a lot of talk about like artichoke plants or asparagus plants in these instances, but it's possible to incorporate those. But it's basically an modeled after like a non man made forest. So it becomes self sustaining is the goal.

Tiffany (08:13)
Which is awesome. Yeah. so could you basically just have some woods in your backyard and add food?

Kat (08:14)
Okay. Yeah.

Kat (08:23)
I think you might. but I don't think that would necessarily hit the goals that you want. I I think

Kat (08:34)
There is some intention to a food forest that it is maximized to grow fruit or v or to to grow food generally for a community.

Tiffany (08:37)
Yeah.

Tiffany (08:44)
Okay. So like the goal is like everything in the food forest is produces something you can eat.

Kat (08:52)
Or helps the things that do produce things that you eat. Yeah. because yeah, like you know, we read braiding sweet grass. In a sense, every forest is a food forest if you know what to eat and what to look for, right? Ideally. but this is more like intentional. It's just it ideally would kind of kind of like the the d you know, deism was the ideology that

Tiffany (08:56)
Okay. Okay.

Tiffany (09:05)
Right. Yeah.

Kat (09:19)
God created the world and then just left it. You know, that's what the founding fathers believed, by the way. like a clockmaker theory that God sometimes will come and wind the clock, but then he just So it's kind of that idea that like you plant a food forest and you get it to a point and then kind of let it go, I guess. But you do harvest, yeah. So Sean brought up a point.

Tiffany (09:23)
Mm.

Tiffany (09:39)
Okay. But you harvest from it, I'm guessing. Yeah.

Kat (09:45)
this is kind of a side note, but like he was like, Why don't cities just plant fruit trees instead of decorative trees? As a city plant. Some do. Okay. But I I did a little research into that and some of the reasons are obviously they're messy because fruit trees drop fruit on the street and the sidewalk, which can actually be dangerous if you've got like a a plum slick, you know, down your street.

Tiffany (09:52)
Hm. Some do in some spaces, yeah.

Tiffany (09:59)
Yeah.

Tiffany (10:02)
Right.

Tiffany (10:10)
Yeah.

Kat (10:11)
it also attracts critters and bugs, which isn't great on streets or sidewalks. fruit trees require pruning, so there's a lot of maintenance. And that means you'd have to have manpower, money, and equipment to do that, which a lot of cities don't have. And cities are, you know, they have enough of a hard time taking care of the trees that they do have. You know, I don't know if you've ever had a tree branch fall on your street and seen how long it takes for them to come clean it up. It's not quick.

Tiffany (10:33)
Mm.

Kat (10:40)
And fruit trees take even more to maintain. also they take water, which costs money, which a lot of cities don't have. And then beyond needing maintenance, the quality of the fruit that you would get out of them, they they probably wouldn't spend a you know, good amount of money on really good fertilizer. also if they're surrounded by cars, you know, you're gonna have all kinds of

Tiffany (10:45)
Right yeah.

Tiffany (11:00)
Mm.

Kat (11:09)
Gross things on the surface of the fruit? Yes, exactly. And you know. So

Tiffany (11:10)
Well you definitely have to w wash yeah.

Tiffany (11:16)
Well, I was gonna say I have a quick story about that that's kinda interesting. My dad is a landscaper, which I think I mentioned. but he when one of his jobs when I was growing up was landscaping this hotel and he was just telling me it was like a hotel in my small town and it was frickin' beautiful what he did with that place. Like he absolutely made it gorgeous. Where people I think would just stay there because they were like they wanted to see the flowers. But

Kat (11:19)
Yeah.

Kat (11:22)
Yes. Yeah.

Kat (11:37)
Yeah.

Kat (11:43)
Yeah.

Tiffany (11:45)
There was an apple tree, and I don't know if he planted it. I kind of don't think he planted it, but it was just there. And this woman that he knew, 'cause it's a very small town, would come every year and gather the apples and make food with them. Yeah. And then he told me, womp womp, that he doesn't work there anymore. And the new owners of the hotel cut it out cut it down, got rid of the pretty little gazebo that was next to it.

Kat (11:58)
Yeah. I love it. Yeah.

Tiffany (12:14)
Cut down some other stuff that was right there and now it's just grass. And I guess the woman ran into my dad and she complained. She's like, Where's that apple tree? I used to use it every year and it's just gone. And it's like, mm-hmm.

Kat (12:20)
So I hate that.

Kat (12:25)
Yeah.

Kat (12:28)
I mean, yeah. It's sad. Yeah. And it's again 'cause it's too much work, you know. I don't two weeks ago when we were talking about like the the price of gardening, the benefit of gardening is not just the food that you get. It's it's actually really good for your soul. And like that that is what it comes down to is just going to the grocery store and picking stuff up without thinking about it has really

Tiffany (12:34)
Right.

Tiffany (12:41)
Mm.

Tiffany (12:44)
Yes. Yes.

Kat (12:56)
It's fine, you know, that's modern life, but there is really something about growing your own food. It really changes just your perspective on life. It's just worth it, you know?

Tiffany (13:08)
Totally. Totally. And have you seen the new Zach Galifinakis show on Netflix? I think it's called like I Have a Garden or something like v very silly. I haven't actually watched it, but it's about gardening. I guess he has a big garden, but

Kat (13:15)
No, I haven't. okay. That sounds like a

Kat (13:22)
Okay.

Tiffany (13:28)
I was going somewhere but I lost my train of thought. I'll think of it.

Kat (13:30)
Well i okay, yeah, there's a reason people get addicted to this. You know, and it's it's really hard. It's it's like a runner's high, you know. There's just something it's like, I don't know why, I just gotta keep gardening, you know, you just keep going. So so yeah. Okay. So back to our original originally scheduled chit chat tonight, but w the benefits of a food forest. So

Tiffany (13:33)
Mm.

Tiffany (13:42)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Tiffany (13:55)
Yeah.

Kat (13:58)
We usually talk about what the green benefits are, but I'm not gonna say that these are green claims. Cause again, it's kinda like you were saying last week, there's not really like food forests are gonna save the world by being green. You know, there's not like but there are some

Tiffany (14:13)
Yeah. Although I think yeah, I was gonna say there are definitely people who are saying like this is a solution to a lot of to some problems anyway.

Kat (14:19)
We should Yeah.

Kat (14:23)
So there's a lot of things here. Okay.

Kat (14:28)
Specifically for urban communities, according to that Stanford report, beyond the the t the benefit of just producing food. So food forests can reduce heat r heat stuff. I I said heat related and then didn't put the noun. heat related illnesses, in urban areas in a cost effective manner or heat related issues, I would say, in urban areas.

Tiffany (14:46)
Heat stuff.

Tiffany (14:49)
yeah.

Tiffany (14:55)
Yeah. Interesting.

Kat (14:57)
It can create green spaces for urban residents, reduce flooding, mitigate climate change through carbon storage, because trees, right? reduce food deserts by increasing local access to food. And then, you know, because we're hippies, natural medicine promotion. I was like, I was kind of iffy on this, but there are certain herbal remedies for symptoms, like willow bark as a natural pain reliever, you know.

Tiffany (14:59)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (15:02)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (15:07)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (15:16)
Mm.

Tiffany (15:23)
Yeah.

Kat (15:24)
There are things I wouldn't say like, we're gonna cure cancer through our food forests, but there is something to say for, you know, access to these natural remedies as long as you recognize that it's not FDA approved, you know, they can they can relieve symptoms, they're not necessarily gonna cure something. I don't hold me to that, but no promises.

Tiffany (15:42)
Yeah.

Tiffany (15:48)
Yeah, I will say, did I tell you about the coca tea in Peru?

Kat (15:52)
a little bit. Then when you were having altitude sickness? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean opium opium works as a pain reliever. You just can't take too much of it. You know, like natural remedies work. But you know

Tiffany (15:55)
yeah. Yeah, and that totally saved my life. Yeah.

Tiffany (16:04)
Yeah.

Tiffany (16:06)
Right, right.

Tiffany (16:10)
Yeah, and we went did I tell you about going to that like garden like herbal Okay, so we did like a med herbal yeah, like medicinal plant tour. Yeah. And this guy had like, if you have arthritis you can use this. if you have anything, headache. if you've if you're hungover you can use this. if you could you know, he had like some a cure for everything.

Kat (16:16)
No.

Kat (16:20)
Medicinal tour, yeah. Herbal pharmacy, yeah.

Kat (16:36)
Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, is that like, yeah, how do you think our ancestors like lived, you know? Just because it's not yeah, it's not like an antibiotic or like there are miracle drugs out there. A lot of the drugs that we take are not really miracle drugs. They're just things pharmacology can like, it kinda helps. And, you know, it's easier to regulate the dosage than willow bark, you know. But our

Tiffany (16:42)
Yeah, it was amazing.

Tiffany (16:49)
Yeah.

Tiffany (16:58)
Mm.

Tiffany (17:02)
Yeah.

Kat (17:04)
Ancestors got rid of headaches and cured hangovers and, you know, alleviated symptoms. And yeah, and there are some antiseptic properties to certain herbs and things too. They're not antibiotics, like I said, but they can help prevent infection and you know so those things do exist. I'm not poo pooing it a hundred percent. I'm just saying that like I I don't feel like

Tiffany (17:07)
Yeah.

Tiffany (17:09)
Tooth pain, yeah.

Tiffany (17:18)
Yeah, totally.

Tiffany (17:31)
You're not gonna go out and become a holistic medicine

Kat (17:34)
I don't feel like that's a good reason to start a food forest, you know? Because I think also it takes a certain kind of expertise that I wouldn't want people to start relying on because our healthcare system in the US is so bad that it's really easy to kind of fall into dangerous

Tiffany (17:38)
Mm.

Tiffany (17:47)
Hmm.

Tiffany (17:52)
Yeah, there's a lot of misinformation out there.

Kat (17:54)
Yeah, and and I would love to you know, if you've got people who know what they're talking about with with those herbs and things who really do know, that's really good. But just like, you know, some hippy dippy white girl starts a food for us and is like, Yeah, the mint will cure your depression and stuff, it's like, well, it's it's let's

Tiffany (18:15)
Yeah.

Tiffany (18:19)
Yeah.

Kat (18:21)
Let's fix our healthcare system and maybe integrate herbal remedies into things when we can too. You know, like I I just worry about falling into the trap of that kind of scamminess that can happen. That's my concern. So the report that this Stanford article cited is from the National Capital Project, also called MATCAP. And they did a study comparing

Tiffany (18:26)
Mm. Right, right, right, right.

Tiffany (18:35)
Yeah, totally. No, I get that.

Kat (18:49)
urban farms to urban food forests. Okay. They said if all underutilized publicly owned land in and they did it in the city of San Antonio, which is ninety miles south of me, sixty miles south of me. If all of the underutilized publicly owned land in San Antonio were converted to food forests, just as an upper limit on what's possible, they could provide a hundred and ninety two million plus pounds of food a year, which is a worth about nine hundred and ninety five million dollars.

Tiffany (18:52)
interesting.

Tiffany (19:00)
Okay.

Kat (19:19)
And enough to feed 314,000 households a year. So food forests would also provide $3.5 million in urban cooling services per year, potentially saving up to 600 lives a year, which is a big deal in Texas. Heat stroke is a real problem. Just in San Antonio. Reduce flooding, increase carbon sequestration, and significantly increase access to green space. So

Tiffany (19:23)
my god.

Tiffany (19:34)
Holy shit. And that's just in San Antonio?

Kat (19:46)
Compared to urban farms, food forests actually would probably produce less food overall, slightly less. But urban farms also can create runoff issues for nearby wildlife and reduce green spaces for residents. Cause you can't just have people traipsing through your tomato farm, right? In the same way that you could a food forest.

Tiffany (19:52)
interesting.

Tiffany (20:03)
Right. Okay, yeah, 'cause food forests are the idea is that they're just kinda open and you come and take what you need.

Kat (20:11)
Yeah. I think they're I mean that they s kind of I I think the difference is that a farm is just for food. A food forest can be for food and other things. You can't have a tomato farm park, you know? Like you can have a berry farm where people can come and pick the berries, but you can't have kids playing soccer on the berry f you know field.

Tiffany (20:15)
In an ideal world.

Tiffany (20:22)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (20:27)
Recreation and

Tiffany (20:31)
Right, right, yes. It's true.

Tiffany (20:39)
Yeah. You can't yeah, you can't have like there are there's no shade, so you're not gonna be comfortable yeah.

Kat (20:40)
While they're growing things. Yeah.

Kat (20:44)
Right. And and you know, like you can rope off things that are growing on the ground that can't be walked on in a food forest, but most of what you're growing is probably in the trees and the shrubs. You're not gonna walk through a bramble, a blue blackberry bush, you know. You could use the other green space like the clover and stuff to play on, you know. And there you could have a path through a food forest in a different way than you could a farm, you know.

Tiffany (21:01)
Right.

Tiffany (21:05)
Yeah,

Tiffany (21:08)
Mm. Yeah, and plus like you said, a farm isn't regenerating itself. So wow, that's really cool. That's kind of amazing.

Kat (21:15)
Right. Yeah.

Kat (21:19)
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, farms also don't serve the same like you were saying last weekend, it makes so much sense to me that perennial plants get deeper roots so they're better at carbon sequestration. Whereas tomato plants, you know, six inches of that gets torn out every year and the topsoil gets regurgitated, basically. Farms can't do carbon sequestration. It just doesn't work.

Tiffany (21:43)
Mm.

Tiffany (21:47)
Right. Yeah.

Kat (21:48)
So that makes a lot of sense to me. And also again, flood control. You want plants with roots to keep, you know, runoff from happening. And farms don't do that. So it's just it makes a lot of sense. Like a food forest not only provides food, which is what a farm does, it just provides food. but a food forest does all these other things too, which which is cool. So yeah.

Tiffany (21:52)
Yeah.

Tiffany (21:58)
Yeah. No.

Tiffany (22:13)
Yeah. That's amazing. Did I tell the story I feel like I did on this podcast about the teacher that I had who had the client that he at the nursing home?

Kat (22:26)
No tell it I don't remember this one.

Tiffany (22:28)
okay, maybe I didn't, but he was basically like telling us sort of how to approach clients, but just go in and be like, what are your problems? And their biggest problems at this nursing home were f employee retention, so people were quitting, and resident unhappiness. So people were not very happy there. And he's like, Well, what if I told you I could fix all your problems with a food forest? Yeah, well

Kat (22:45)
Okay.

Kat (22:48)
Okay.

Kat (22:55)
And they're like sure. Yeah.

Tiffany (22:58)
Yeah, but he ended up implementing it and he's basically like, You have a food forest, therefore employees and residents can visit it. They can pick their own damn food, and it just sort of helps. I mean it's not gonna solve all the problems, but it's gonna help. It's not gonna hurt. Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally. It's like a thing to do on property. Yeah.

Kat (23:15)
Right. It increases morale. Yeah.

Kat (23:21)
Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. No, again, it's again that value of gardening is not just in the food. It's in there's so much more to it that we have just been divorced from in our modern lives. So yeah.

Tiffany (23:31)
Yes, yes.

Tiffany (23:38)
Yeah, especially if they're like sort of hands off. Like once they're there, maybe you have to go in once a year or whatever, but mm hmm.

Kat (23:41)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, depending on what you plant and things. So okay. Well this is I think this is a good time to take a break and then when we come back I'm gonna talk about how to make a food forest. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (23:55)
Ooh, yay.

Kat (24:13)
Okay. So this is maybe a little bit too much. Okay. How can you make a food forest? Okay. Permaculture Apprentice, which was the first link I found. So best SEO in the game, I guess. She laid out a step-by-step guide with YouTube videos of how she did it. It's it's really long and in depth. So if you really want to start a food forest, she has a

Tiffany (24:33)
cool.

Kat (24:39)
lays it out for you. But I'm I just kind of knocked it down to twelve steps with an overview. Okay. It's more than that. It's 12 steps with substeps and videos and so it and it's it's you would love it. It's very garden term heavy. but great ideas. So number one, set a goal. Right? What do you want from your food forest? Is it a recreational place? Are you gonna feed a family of ten? I mean, I don't think this is

Tiffany (24:44)
Twelve steps even, okay. Dang, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

Tiffany (24:56)
Okay.

Tiffany (25:01)
Okay.

Kat (25:09)
Something you're just gonna do on your own property as yourself. I think this is a community effort, maybe, but figure that out. Yeah. Yeah, figure that out. Are you doing your own food forest in your backyard? Why? What do you want from it? Okay. Lay that down. Then figure out where you're gonna do it. You know, pick the site, map it out, do a site survey. Figure the lay of the land, where the water goes. that's the next step. Watch and learn. So

Tiffany (25:15)
I think it can be both, but yeah.

Tiffany (25:20)
Mm.

Tiffany (25:23)
Mm.

Kat (25:39)
Observe. Understand local wildlife. See what grows naturally in the area already. What animals and bugs are around. Identify the plants. Track the weather. This is gonna take some time, you know? You're gonna yes where the sun goes, yep. where the water runs when it rains and what's around you, not just in the site that you want to do it, but in your native area, you know.

Tiffany (25:53)
Yeah. See where the sun is coming.

Tiffany (26:07)
Mm.

Kat (26:09)
Okay, then make a layout and choose your plants. Are you gonna do an orchard, woodland, a savannah as your food forest? So there's all you know, what's local to where you are. Here it would be there's shrubs, pecan trees, you know, that kind of stuff. But yeah, don't don't be like, okay, it's an apple orchard in the middle of Albuquerque. That's not gonna be a food forest the way that you want it.

Tiffany (26:21)
Yeah.

Tiffany (26:29)
Right. I didn't realize pecans were native to where you are. That's awesome.

Kat (26:34)
Yeah, apparently. Yes. Yeah. I think. I hope I'm not lying. But yeah. Exactly. I've got thirty year old pecan trees in my backyard. At least. Yeah. Okay. So next step is to lay out your infrastructure first. You gotta figure out where water you you're probably still gonna have to do some some watering. So where's the water? Access to things? Structures. Like are you gonna need greenhouses anywhere? roads, paths.

Tiffany (26:39)
I mean they're happy there, so

Tiffany (26:44)
That's amazing.

Kat (27:04)
Depending on how big it is, you are gonna be tempted to just plant stuff. But if you need to get to your blackberry bush, you're gonna need a way to get to your blackberry bush. So you have to do some planning. This is another instance of like nature as God intended it, not just you can just blow some seeds and hope for the best. Let your let your backyard go wild. You can. Yes. Yes.

Tiffany (27:11)
Mm.

Tiffany (27:20)
Yeah.

Tiffany (27:23)
That whole like chaos gardening idea i hurts my i like over anal soul, but yeah.

Kat (27:30)
Yes, but if you can do that. But if you want this to be a legitimate food forest, you are gonna have to do some planting. Okay, next up, this was a really cool idea. Create a permaculture guild or a couple of permaculture guilds. So list the plants you're planting, you're going to plant, and how they help each other. So she has like a a circular graph about like this tree, you know, provides shade for this plant.

Tiffany (27:37)
Yeah.

Tiffany (27:52)
Ooh.

Kat (28:00)
And this plant provides nitrogen, you know, lists all their benefits. And then you have a guild of plants that need to be together. So she said, in short, guilds are a combination of a tree and other plants in other layers, shrubs, tall and low herbaceous perennials, ground covers that you intentionally grow together because they help each other in some way. Right?

Tiffany (28:07)
That's awesome.

Tiffany (28:20)
I love that. That's amazing.

Kat (28:23)
Guilds. You have a D and D group. You create your adventure party of plants that adventure together. You need a healer and you need a paladin and you need, you know, a b a big hitter and you know, like a mage, yes, you need a wizard and, you know, a rogue. So like duh. That's brilliant. Create a guild.

Tiffany (28:25)
Yes.

Tiffany (28:29)
Yes.

Tiffany (28:36)
A mage.

Tiffany (28:44)
Yes. I did that. I'm so proud of myself because I did that in the s in the smallest scale possible with my effort garden. Because then over the winter I was bored with and I was like, I need something to do gardening wise. So I actually did look up like plants that help each other. And so I planted n my nasturtiums, which are a p a flower, next okay, I didn't know that.

Kat (28:54)
Yes.

Kat (29:02)
I love it.

Kat (29:10)
Yeah, an edible flower too, by the way. Yeah. Yeah.

Tiffany (29:13)
next to my beans, I think. It's either the beans or the squash. I think it's the beans. Because the slugs will eat the nasturtiums and not they're sort of like a sacrifice. But I've already I've gone out and the nasturtiums have like slug marks all over them and I don't see any on the beans and I'm like

Kat (29:22)
Instead of the beans. See? Yes.

Kat (29:30)
Yeah. And then you don't need a pesticide or a spray. Exactly. So yes. I mean and it and it's not just like who gives nitrogen to whom or who provides shade. It's who yeah, who does the who is a pr yes, who's a prolific grower with thorns that keeps certain birds that'll eat your thing, you know, like you you can go really deep into I want I want guilds because that's what I w I'm always like, what should I I don't know what to plant, you know.

Tiffany (29:34)
Yeah.

Tiffany (29:42)
Protects

Tiffany (29:48)
Whoa. That's cool.

Kat (29:57)
'Cause I want not just to do like a row of tomatoes. I want, you know, the corns, beans and squash which help each other in all the different ways, right? I want guilts. I wanna I wanna do that with my flowers, I wanna do that, you know, so yeah.

Tiffany (30:07)
Yeah. It's really fun. Like then this tiny little microcosm that I've created. It's like, whoa, this is awesome. Yes.

Kat (30:13)
World. Yeah.

Kat (30:17)
Little societies. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. From there you can design your patches. So do you want rows, contours, groupings? You gotta know how you're gonna plant things. Again, this is very intentional because you can't just do, you know, tomato rows. You might have rows that go like this because the water comes down this way, you know. Figure out how you're gonna plant it. And then prep the site. You might have to improve the soil.

Tiffany (30:41)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (30:47)
You're gonna have to clear non native vegetation, all that stuff. There's a lot of prep work that's gonna go into it, especially depending on how big you're gonna make it. Then shape the earth for water retention. That might take some work. A friend of mine sent me a thing about there is a way to dig a little hole next to trees that kind of turns them the soil self watering, because it'll retain the water in a certain way. And I hey. Hi, buddy. My webcam just was like, I'm done. I'm tired.

Tiffany (31:09)
Hmm. Okay.

Tiffany (31:15)
Good night.

Kat (31:17)
Are you okay? You just couldn't see me anymore? Am I hiding behind my microphone too much? Okay. Anyway, So thi it's more complex. I highly recommend checking out her site to look into that. But you know, making plateaus and drains and things so so that you can maximize how the water works.

Tiffany (31:29)
Yeah.

Tiffany (31:36)
Yeah. I've learned one f sort of like pond like thing. It's called a swale. I don't know much about it. A swale. Yeah. But those are those are used in like food forests, I think. Yes. Yeah. It's cool.

Kat (31:42)
Yeah. Yes. Well, it's pretty word. Yeah.

Kat (31:52)
'Cause it's like a water retention thing, but it and the yeah. Yeah. S I love it. I mean and that's so necessary, you know.

Tiffany (32:01)
Yeah. But yeah, you definitely have to plan that shit out. You can't just well, you can but

Kat (32:03)
Yeah.

Kat (32:06)
I saw a woman who was talking about she does what you're planning to do, sustainable landscaping design. And she's talking about she's in Utah and she's like, Yeah, you can get a refund on your tax your house water bill or whatever by having I don't know, but she was talking about I don't know who it was. It was just it came up on my Instagram feed.

Tiffany (32:24)
Was this yard farmer?

Tiffany (32:28)
It probably was her. she's the reason I'm doing my certificate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause I've I've seen could did she do her front yard? I don't know. Okay.

Kat (32:33)
Okay. It might have been. So probably it got fed to me because you've been watching her.

Kat (32:39)
I don't know. This was just she was talking about, you know, people say, rain barrels, rain barrels, rain barrels. And she's like, We can actually maximize how the water falls off of your roof without having to collect it in the rain barrel. Because rain barrels can only collect so much and all this stuff. And I was like, Whoa, damn. Yeah. You know? Like, yeah, it's that's cool stuff.

Tiffany (32:44)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (32:51)
Mm.

Tiffany (32:57)
Yeah.

Tiffany (33:00)
Yeah, you can plant the more planes you have, the more the water sinks into your ground. And if you have a well, that's great. And if even if you don't, that's great. Yeah.

Kat (33:04)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds of tricks and things that we just don't think of. then you put in the infrastructure that you've already planned for. So make sure your irrigation, your paths, your fencing to keep animals from eating your tree seedlings, all that stuff. You gotta continuously build up and improve your soil as you go. And then get your plants and start planting. You can start with your own nursery, maybe, you know?

Kat (33:33)
Or you can find local plants and bring them in. She says definitely plant in stages and not all at once.

Tiffany (33:41)
that makes sense.

Kat (33:43)
Yeah. So you wanna do your trees and then the the 'cause you're not gonna have shade for the things that need shade until the tree is big enough. So this is a long term goal. This is not a one weekend proposition.

Tiffany (33:48)
Yes.

Tiffany (33:51)
That is long term. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Kat (33:56)
But again, that depends on the scale. So this step-by-step plan assumes you have the land already. Most of us don't have the space to create like a real food forest ourselves. So I'm gonna say let's back up a little and try these steps to start a food forest in your community. Okay. So number one, research what's already going on in your community food forest wise. A lot of places already have city or county initiatives around food forest.

Tiffany (34:03)
Mm.

Tiffany (34:07)
Right.

Tiffany (34:15)
Yeah, yeah.

Tiffany (34:25)
very cool.

Kat (34:27)
Austin definitely has one about a mile from my house. They already have community events, education, and yeah, you can pick food. So they especially if you live in a blue place, there's probably one that exists somewhere. Yeah. Then come up with a plan. If there's nothing in your area devoted to a food forest, come up with it yourself. So pick out where would be a good spot to do this. What would your food forest focus on specifically?

Tiffany (34:33)
Amazing.

Tiffany (34:37)
Mm-hmm. Okay, I bet there is one in mine.

Kat (34:56)
Which groups would be involved? Would you have schools, nonprofits, the government? How would your food forest benefit your community? You have to be specific here. How much food do you think you could realistically grow for the community in how long? But again, other benefits. We have this empty lot, nobody's using. Could we build a food forest here? It would help the kids give them something to do after school. It would, you know, there's a university nearby. They could do research, you know, all those things.

Tiffany (35:01)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (35:24)
Be as specific and open-minded about that as you can. And then how much time and money would startup cost? Now that's really hard to again, this is like a business plan. and it'll likely change. I think it's a really great idea again to leverage people who have already been doing this, although you can learn on the fly as you go, if you're really devoted to it. It's much easier to join a coalition that already exists than to try to create your own. But it can.

Tiffany (35:34)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (35:50)
Yeah. Totally.

Kat (35:54)
Then I said step yes, exactly. Though so my next step was write a real proposal with all the info from above. And then reach out to the appropriate department in your area. So in the city of Austin, Parks and Recreation Department would be the one to reach out to. The Festival Beach Food Forest that I was talking about was included in the master plan for the city. So like 2016, I think.

Tiffany (35:55)
You can get grants and stuff too.

Tiffany (36:16)
That's awesome.

Kat (36:20)
If you want to start a food forest at a university campus, schoolyard, apartment complex, unused parkspace, vacant city lot, you gotta find the right person to petition to get it started and the right steps to do that. So then research grants. Community food forests list a bunch of places you can find funding. That might be slightly out of date. It looks like it hasn't been updated since COVID. So but there are a lot of organizations that would likely love to help you.

Tiffany (36:28)
Mm.

Tiffany (36:44)
Okay.

Tiffany (36:48)
Wow.

Kat (36:48)
Like you were saying, there's so many grants available and nobody's taking them. Take the free money.

Tiffany (36:51)
Mm-hmm. Yes. That's awesome.

Kat (36:56)
Then I said step six, recruit your community. Get the word out. Get people on your side to attend city council meetings, help you do the actual work when it comes time. This is like the little red hint. Do you ever read that? Where she like, who will help me plant the things? And then Yeah, and then who will help me eat this? Nobody gets to help me eat this because you didn't help me do it. Well, hopefully that's not how you feel, but you're gonna need help. You're gonna need help. A lot of people like the idea of a food forest and not the work that goes into it. That's just kind of how things go. Step seven for me was have patience.

Tiffany (37:06)
Yes. Yeah, final door myself.

Tiffany (37:13)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (37:17)
Yes.

Tiffany (37:21)
Right.

Tiffany (37:25)
Yeah.

Kat (37:26)
Food forests can take a few years to truly start producing, and you're gonna need to stick with it and have people on your side who can do it when your dog dies or you get sick or crops can fail due to drought, storms, freezes, you name it, just like with traditional farming. So be prepared. You might have to start over from scratch. It's probably gonna be a lot of trial and error if you don't have a coalition that already exists, you can join. So so on that note, we're gonna move on to our next

Tiffany (37:36)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (37:44)
Yeah.

Tiffany (37:52)
Yeah.

Kat (37:56)
thing. Is this something a normal person can do or afford? This was a really tough one to answer because there's so many caveats. Yeah, I mean, you need the space to do it. That's first. I I don't really think you're gonna have a food force on your balcony in Manhattan or Brooklyn, you know?

Tiffany (38:01)
Yeah. Well you kind of already did, but yeah.

Tiffany (38:06)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (38:12)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (38:14)
And if you don't have the space, you're gonna need to do the legwork to petition the right people to convince them to give you the space. That might be easier in some areas or if you find an established food forest community to work with. Yes. But it takes a lot of time and effort and thinking and planning and failing, especially up front. And you're gonna have to do a lot of research. Like this is this is not nearly enough research for somebody to start a food forest. This is like this is the tip of the iceberg.

Tiffany (38:21)
Mm.

Tiffany (38:27)
Yeah.

Tiffany (38:41)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (38:43)
If you're already a pro at regular old food gardening, this could be a project to up your game. I think y you might your effort garden might turn into a food forest next week, you know? But it's I don't think it's for somebody who's never kept a houseplant alive necessarily. Not I'm not gonna discourage you. I'm just gonna say it's gonna be

Tiffany (38:53)
Maybe, you never know in ye years.

Tiffany (38:58)
Right, right, right.

Tiffany (39:04)
Maybe don't jump straight there.

Kat (39:06)
You're gonna need a lot more heart if that's the case. Which can happen. You know, some people just take something on, they're like, you what, I really want a food forest. Done, you know. Yeah. Yeah. There's that. Also, again, it can take years for trees to produce fruit, and building a whole ecosystem takes years itself, you know, thousands of years in some areas, you know. Let's be honest. Nature doesn't build mature forests in a summer and you won't either.

Tiffany (39:09)
Yeah.

Tiffany (39:15)
Mm. Or you hire people and you get help. Yeah.

Tiffany (39:30)
Mm.

Tiffany (39:35)
Mm.

Kat (39:37)
Also, this can get costly. Okay, if you're doing large scale land development, you're gonna need a lot of equipment for land clearing and path creation, as well as fencing, irrigation. Sourcing the plants might be easier if you can collect seeds from local forests and grow them yourself. But again, seedlings, things like that can cost money.

Tiffany (39:58)
I was gonna say anything anytime anyone's grown anything from seed, they know it ain't easy. Cheaper, but not necessarily easy. Yeah.

Kat (40:02)
Yeah. It's it's yeah. Cheaper but not easy. Yes, agreed. Yeah. I would say food forests are clearly an excellent idea and really good for communities. I couldn't find any sources for listing reasons why they wouldn't be good. Right? Unless like someone gets ready cuts off access to the community, right? Or people quit maintaining it. So but I would call this aspirational.

Tiffany (40:21)
Mm, mm.

Tiffany (40:26)
Yeah.

Tiffany (40:29)
Yeah.

Kat (40:31)
And I and inspirational. I think you can take a lot of the ideas from it and incorporate them in your own home gardening, you know, instead of thinking about what rows can I set up for corn, what long term native plants can I set up that could feed me in years to come.

Tiffany (40:39)
Yeah, totally.

Tiffany (40:51)
Mm. Yeah, it's cool.

Kat (40:54)
So if I had to give a granola rating. So every week if you're new here, we do we we rate systems and products on a scale of one to five granolas, with one being soggy, like boo bad, you know, three is crunchy and five is break your tooth off because it's so so damn good. So I give the idea of a food forest a break your tooth off. The idea.

Tiffany (41:19)
yeah. Yeah.

Kat (41:20)
But I think I'm kinda like you with perennial vegetables. It's kind of a three.

Tiffany (41:24)
Mm-hmm.

Kat (41:26)
Beyond the aspiration of it, like doing it, it's a little harder to do. I think it's gonna take a lot of setup and and research. I think it could be fun to just kinda like you said, an effort garden, an effort food forest. Like, what's gonna grow in my backyard? You know, with minimal effort that's gonna come back every year. That could be a fun project if you have the space and the time and the money.

Tiffany (41:46)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany (41:50)
And I feel like you could make like a micro food forest too, with like, these five plants love each other and they help each other and whatever. And you could maybe start that way even, which is cool. Like that's a really cool idea. Yes. I love that.

Kat (41:52)
Yes. Yes.

Kat (41:56)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Build your build your guilds, right? Build your little guilds. Yeah. So I kinda wanna do that. I have diff very diff disparate you know, I've got a blackberry plant I can't get rid of. I've got a prickly pear. I've got a fig tree. I've got a pomegranate tree. So what can I do with those to, you know, make them all happier, you know? And so I I wanna

Tiffany (42:10)
Mm, mm.

Tiffany (42:21)
Mm.

Kat (42:25)
Looking at that. Around them. Yeah. Or you know, yeah, what flowers do they want nearby? And I have got to do something with this prickly parrot is taking over my yard. It is so huge. Like Sean's like, I can't mow the weeds that we call grass, the lawn. he can't mow it around there because the fig tree's getting bigger, and then the prickly parrot, and he's just like, stabbed.

Tiffany (42:25)
Yeah, maybe like what could you plant beneath them? Yeah.

Tiffany (42:34)
Mm.

Tiffany (42:38)
god.

Tiffany (42:49)
That's how Joe is with my raspberries, so I feel ya.

Kat (42:54)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I've gotta figure something out there. But I we should start making nopales, you know, which are the cactus paddles. You just scrape stuff off and you they're delicious. You know. I should eat those. So yeah. Anyway, okay, so that's food for us.

Tiffany (43:09)
Nice. Right. Yeah. Interesting.

Tiffany (43:16)
Nice. I love it. That's very that is very inspirational. I love yeah. The guilds. I love that so much.

Kat (43:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kat (43:23)
I know, I know. Look up our the sources are in the show notes, so look that up and take a look and she draws like of course they're pretty, you know, designed drawings, but yeah, you can create a guild. It's a great idea.

Tiffany (43:29)
Yeah.

Tiffany (43:34)
Yeah, that is so cool. That is so fun. Yeah, especially like well no, I was just gonna say, especially like the community aspect of it too. If you can get your I know. Or school, I feel like. But yeah, like joining an association just that already exists sounds so cool. Why am I blurry? Yeah, I w I'm gonna I wanna look up and see if that's

Kat (43:39)
So next week go ahead, sorry.

Kat (43:47)
Like you were saying, a nursing home, what a great place for that.

Kat (43:56)
Yeah. Yeah. You could learn so much from it, yeah.

Tiffany (44:05)
around here. I kinda bet it is. There's a lot of gardeners around here, so mmhm. Very cool.

Kat (44:06)
Yeah.

Kat (44:08)
Yeah, I'll bet there's a food for us somewhere. And it's just, you know, just even just implementing little ideas about it, like we were saying. I think that would be great in your own life. So yeah, cool. So next week we're supposed to talk about bug catchers, which is your Yeah.

Tiffany (44:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love it.

Tiffany (44:22)
yes. We're starting our trilogy of bug specific episodes because we had promised we're gonna talk about bugs later, earlier this season. And here we go. It's gonna start. Yes. Was it bug catch? Yeah, I believe you. Okay.

Kat (44:36)
Yep. Get your creepy crawlies ready.

Kat (44:42)
Yeah, it's bug catchers. Yeah. And then I think I'm doing why yeah. Why are bugs important? Yeah.

Tiffany (44:46)
How to get over your fear? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and like to stop being afraid basically. Even my nephew. there you go. good.

Kat (44:53)
Yeah. Which I'm gonna dedicate to my friend Maria.

Kat (44:59)
She loves bugs and she takes she worked at the Natural History Museum and she would do bug tours for the kids and stuff. And she does taxiderby of bugs. Yeah.

Tiffany (45:06)
That's awesome. my gosh. Okay. I'm gonna save this story because I was gonna tell you a story, but I'll save it for that episode 'cause there that's gonna be a good one because it does there's so much to talk about there. So Yeah. So yeah, we're gonna start a three three parter. It's not like three parter, but anyway. The next three episodes was will be bug focused.

Kat (45:12)
Okay.

Kat (45:18)
It's true. Yeah.

Kat (45:29)
The Lord of the Wings. 'Cause they're insects or

Kat (45:34)
And we were talking about D and D earlier, so we might as well just nerd out. Yep.

Tiffany (45:36)
'Cause they're insects, yeah. I don't know that you explained it. 'Cause they have wings

Kat (45:40)
You're welcome, everybody. You got it? 'Cause legs doesn't make sense there 'cause it doesn't sound like rings.

Tiffany (45:49)
There you go.

Kat (45:52)
Literature. Lord of the Life Boo. Not as funny.

Tiffany (45:53)
Lord of the legs.

Tiffany (45:58)
that's awesome. cool. Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm I'm happy to know. Now I feel like I know what the hell food force is, so every time anybody mentions it, I'll be like, okay, I have some background. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's awesome. All right. Well, I'm excited to start our bug series. And what should we ask people to do?

Kat (46:11)
Yeah, a little more knowledge. Yeah. Definitely go read her website. But yeah.

Kat (46:22)
Yeah. if you aren't subscribed, you should subscribe. Get a get us in your notifications every week and

Tiffany (46:27)
yeah.

Tiffany (46:30)
Yeah, hit that little plus button and on Apple Podcasts and then download us. Make sure auto download because it's helpful. Or Spotify or whatever. So yeah. Cool. Bye.

Kat (46:36)
Yeah, that too. That helps us. Yep.

Kat (46:41)
Yep. Yeah. Yep. Cool. All right. See you next week.