Martin Crawford's two acre forest garden is in the grounds of Dartington Hall, which has long been a hub of progressive ideas and activity. Twenty five years ago he began to create a "food forest" based on concepts pioneered by ecologically minded thinkers like Bill Mollison in Australia and Robert Hart in the UK.
 It's a big subject but in essence the food forest has seven layers: the canopy layer, the low tree layer, the shrub layer, the herbaceous layer, the groundcover layer, the 'rhizosphere' and the vertical layer (i.e. climbing plants).
 I've visited Dartington before - in summer when the garden was dense with growth. In late February it's barer but winter is a good time to get a sense of the structure of a garden. As part of our course Martin gave us a guided tour and spoke at length about it.

 This photo gives an idea of Martin Crawford's wide ranging approach. The trees at the back are conifers that were already there and have the effect of acting as windbreaks. The tall trunks are fast growing Italian Alder introduced to provide further windbreaks. In the foreground is a New Zealand Flax which is hardy in the UK. He demonstrated how the leaves can be used to provide different thicknesses of fibrous twine and noted that it has edible seeds and is a good bee plant.

 Another example of innovative plant combinations. The main trunk is a heavily pollarded Lime tree. I was surprised to learn that the leaves are edible and can be used in salads. The stems scrambling vigorously through the tree are a Kiwi vine.

 A good sign of an unpolluted site: plenty of lichen. This particular tree seemed to have more lichen than any other for some reason. It's one of the Zanthoxylum species which gives us Szechuan pepper.

 Several paths circulate the walker through the garden. Even at this time of year the foliage is quite dense. There are a number of bamboo species in the garden which Martin rates highly for edible stems (and useful poles, some the size of drainpipes!)

 Functional as it is the garden has the feel of a sylvan idyll. At the heart is a sunny glade with large pond fed by a trickling stream.

 The wild look of the garden is enhanced by the fact that Martin generally only prunes when a specimen reaches the size that it stops fruiting. Above is a Hawthorne -not our native Hawthorne which he doesn't rate highly, he's not very sentimental about such things. I seem to remember him saying this was an American variety.

 On the floor of the forest there are numerous low growing and ground cover species. In the photo above we see Nepalese Raspberry and the fronds of Day Lilies poking through (which have edible flowers).

 In a similar vein this is our native Primrose (edible flowers) and Siberian Purslane (edible leaves). Disclaimer: only eat plants if you are certain what they are and know them to be safe/healthy for you to consume!
 Not all plants have to be edible in the forest garden; for example Comfrey features both as a soil enhancer and a valuable bee plant. Such plants are described as 'system plants' i.e. not edible but they have a part to play nonetheless. 

 This was intriguing: Oak logs inoculated with Shitake mushrooms. Martin reckoned that each log would produce around a half kilo of Shitake each year for about 10 years.

 It was too early for many flowers but various Prunus species were coming into bloom. Like all woodlands the peak flowering will be in the spring taking advantage of the extra light before the canopy leafs up.
 When I visited the garden several years ago it was August. Martin showed us around foraging as we went, drawing attention to the particular tastes and flavours of the plants around us. The first theories of food foresting were developed in tropical and sub tropical environments where the sun is far stronger, even on the forest floor. Indeed in such parts of the world the forest has always been an abundant source of food and materials.
 In the UK we have different forests and a different light. We have utilised our woodlands in various ways over the centuries but the extent of food production by native species would be extremely limited by comparison with the tropics. Martin's achievement is to have researched and grown plants from all around the world which can contribute to forest gardening in a temperate climate.