Trees in my food forest - Moringa
Living on the edge of the Daintree forest I can see firsthand how forests are such an awesome self-sustaining culture. The leaves and fruit drop on the ground and breakdown to form a wonderful thick rich humus. It makes sense to try to replicate that system in the area of our gardens where we grow food. That is where the idea of food forests in permaculture was born. I like trees that just give a little filtered light because the fact is that sometimes I still do need to have some sunshine. Living in the tropics, full sun is just too much for most plants. I find that I am continually cutting branches back to let light in or planting new shoots to create more shade in another area. Those branches that I cut back are returned to the floor of the food forest, either as green mulch or into the compost and added later. I am going to focus in the next few posts on each of the main trees I have as the upper layer in my food forest. A while back I planted a moringa tree in the herb spi