Food forests are a relatively new addition to the mainstream edible landscaping conservation, but their cultivation is actually quite ancient. Food forest gardens are practicing the cultivation of forest ecosystems for human food production with conserving the biodiversity in the environment. Also this is a very effective type of ex-situ conservation which we all can do in small scale vise which is starting from our home gardens. Sometimes this looks like leveraging an existing forest to slowly integrate edible plants, but increasingly, it is the practice of imitating forest-like structures to increase the biodiversity, efficiency, and sustainability of food production systems.

A food forest garden is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions. A food forest does not have to be re-planted year after year. Once it is established, it is generally very resilient. An ideal food forest is as organic as possible. But it goes farther than that. Forest gardens depend heavily on a healthy ecosystem and cannot be sprayed with herbicides or pesticides or have non-organic fertilizers applied. A healthy ecosystem will take several years to establish itself, especially in an urban region or open farm area. We have to be patient and let nature take care of itself. Food forests are a new farming concept in most of the western cultured countries and it is well knowingly used in Sri Lanka as “Kandyan Home Gardens' '. The food forest gardens have been used for thousands of years in other parts of the world too. They are complex, just like nature. 

Generally, we can recognize seven layers of a forest garden – the overstory, the understory, the shrub layer, the herbaceous layer, the root layer, the ground cover layer, and the vine layer. Some also like to recognize the mycelial layer, layer eight (which includes mushrooms). Using these layers, we can fit more plants in an area without causing failure due to competition-same as in a tropical evergreen rain forest. So the layering is the important key in food forest gardening. 

• Canopy Layer or Over-story Layer: This is your tallest layer, composed mostly of large trees & taller trees which compromise with a wonderful canopy cover. This layer has the fullest sun.
• Under-story Layer: Smaller trees that can tolerate partial sunlight and shade to some extent. This makes up the understory. 
• Vines Layer: Bothe sun loving and shade-tolerant climbers live in the vine layer, using overstory and understory trees as trellising. They can move up or down according to the sunlight they need for their survival. 
• Shrubs Layer: The partial shade of the shrub layer is excellent for fruiting shrubs.
• Herbaceous: This layer is where you’ll find herbs and other leaf-bearing, perennial plants.
• Groundcover: This is the covering of the soil layer and is made up of horizontally spreading cover crops which is nourishing the soil in many ways.
• Rhizosphere: Root crops make up this layer, and it is the one part of the food forest where you might find annuals— if sun is available. 
• Mycelial: This is the subterranean mushroom layer.

We can personalize the food forest gardens according to anyone’s taste and according to the outcome that anyone wishes. Themes that use can vary. The selecting and placing emphasis on trees, shrubs, perennials, and self-seeding annuals, with the planting thickly and using ground covers to shade soil and suppress weeds. Also can utilize nitrogen-fixing and nutrient-accumulating plants, chop-and-drop techniques, and returning wastes to the land to create healthy soil rather than applying fertilizer by its own way. Planting a diverse array of plants that attract beneficial insects to pollinate the fruit crops and keep pest populations from exploding and causing damage, utilizing several ground-shaping techniques to keep rain water on the site, and designing for placement of plants to create microclimates and windbreaks. When the food forest gardening is combined with animal husbandry, it is enriching the garden soil automatically with its manure. It is very good practice to integrate gardening with animal husbandry with few hens, cocks, pigs, goats, cows, rabbits and ducks according to your available space in the land. 

There are two key features of a food forest: plant layers and plant types. Plant layers exist to mimic the verticality of forests. While farms and gardens, as we have come to know them, tend to grow along the ground in long, flat planes, forests are far more three-dimensional. They grow out and up, with extensive layering from canopy to ground that allows for much more life in a single area. This profusion of life is what makes forests such healthy places. In forests, things like pest-management, fertilization, weed suppression, pollination, and nitrogen-fixing are all happening naturally, as are greater ecosystem functions, like water retention, carbon sequestration, and climate stabilization— and forest layers are what make that all possible. 

The other important feature of a food forest is plant type. The perennials are the most suitable for the food forest gardening and it can be complemented by biennials and annuals for the short term advantages- especially for the kitchen. The dense foliage and intricate root systems we see in forests are constantly being prevented by things like tilling. When soil is regularly disrupted and exposed, it loses its ability to retain water, prevent erosion, cycle nutrients, build fertility, offer habitat, and to attract beneficial microbes that not only nourish plants, but hold carbon. So, a key feature of food forests is the ongoing presence of perennial plants such as fruit and timber trees, medicinal shrubs and flowers, and self-seeding annuals— plants that remain, year after year, building increasingly diverse ecosystems and producing food. The constant soil disruption that happens on the rest of the farm with a perennial, connected system— an orchard with native and fruit trees, layers of native shrubs, early blooming plants that will support insects and attract native pollinators, herbs, and eventually, stable underground fungal networks. The end result will produce not only food and flowers, but habitat, rounding out the ecological niches on the farm while building biodiversity and sequestering carbon. It will also be beautiful, a shady, cool place for all living beings. A food forest mimics the diversity of a natural forest where a variety of plants grow together as an ecosystem. By modeling this concept in the garden, plants grouped together complement each other, take advantage of niches and microclimates, increase biodiversity and ensure healthy soil and plants. And it looks beautiful. And part of it is about providing food to humans. More flowers to attract pollinators and beneficial insects. The idea is to maximize production while minimizing maintenance and enhancing the natural activities more and more over the human interference where the equilibrium goes wrong in most of the cases. So the food forest garden is a typical ecosystem creation in miniature at your own space. By novel ideas and novel creations it will update day by day and there is no particular way of gardening in this type of free gardening. You can add what you want at any time and you can split any feature in any moment according to your own capacity. These types of food forests can be practiced by anybody and no requirements needed basically or qualifications or any exceptions. In the first few years, a forest garden is vulnerable to vandalism, just as community and private gardens. However, the older it gets, the more resilient it becomes. To get established a food forest garden, it depends on which plants make up the food forest. A food forest will take longer than an annual bed to reach its true potential. However, a food forest will last much longer than an annual bed, and the return on investment is exponential. We will be able to plant annuals in that space during the food forest’s youth. After all, that is how succession works. A food forest should not have a stagnant design. It is ever-evolving, just like nature. Food Forest can act as a partner to design and help get the food forest established along with the passionate, committed local growers it takes to make a public food forest sustained and maintained.  The most brilliant aspect of food forests is that they mimic nature, and thus, once established, do not need a lot of inputs. If, hopefully and eventually, we have many immature food forests needing care in one year, we will train and utilize passionate staff and volunteers. Training citizens to care for food forests will be an important educational function that will help further our mission to teach about sustainable food growing.

The yields will depend on the condition of the soil, the slope of the land, the solar aspect, the wind conditions, the root pressure, the human pressure, and the weather from year to year. The site conditions will dictate which plants we can choose and how much those plants produce. The yield of a system that mimics nature is not something we can accurately predict, but by taking that risk, we are rewarded with a resilience that is not possible with conventional farming methods.