Forest Food Garden

One of the concerns raised by young people is learning about and growing good food. Many people grow vegetables on allotments, but another way is to copy the layers of a forest by:

  • Growing nuts and large fruits on trees
  • Currants and berries on shrubs
  • Plants such as comfrey and Nepalese raspberry at ground level
  • Root crops such as sweet potatoes and onions underground
  • Climbers such as vines and kiwis up fences and trees

Two projects began in 2020 at the University of Sussex and Priory School in Lewes, allowing information and skills to be shared and exchanged between young people. The Sussex students have produced a podcast which can be heard here.

The University of Sussex Forest Food Garden is at the northern end of the campus and will be planted in four sections over the next six years.

Students have measured the area to create a scaled map with 1 cm to every metre.

At Priory School, the area is much smaller but has a pond. A group of pupils has been working on a design that includes plants donated by them, such as quince, black elder, goji berry, pear, redcurrant, and gooseberries.

The plants for Priory were planned for inclusion in a Forest Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, but when this didn’t happen, they were donated to Priory instead. They were looked after for two years by Deborah Smith and Tony Whitbread, seen here digging them up on 18th March 2021, before transporting them in a trailer to Priory.

Goji berry
Redcurrant
Black elder

Deborah Smith and Tony Whitbread

Students being filmed on ITV Meridian News

It was an exciting day as ITV Meridian filmed the project, which was shown on the evening news:

In 2023, the University was invited to make a contribution to an Agroforestry Research Symposium organised by founder Martin Crawford and which can be seen here:

A future vision for the Sussex University Forest Garden by 2nd year student Rebekah Fleming

To be back,
Is a wonderful thing.
The seagulls are still calling
And the leaves are just as fallen as they lie
Damp and quiet
All of those 10 years ago

Walking through the reds and browns of campus, those bricks
The walls which hold so much learning
But past them, to the classroom of wild grass, of moss, of fruits and wonky veg, of messy shrubs and messy learning
Where structures were fluid
Where ideology mingled with the seeds we sowed,
No ivory towers, just the path to our forest garden.
Our forest garden passed through gentle hands, year after year.
The baton.
Our proud creation, constantly in motion.

Today, what do I see?
I see growth,
Real growth,
Not statistics or GDPs or economies, I see the slow, gentle growth,

The growth intended by the keepers of the long view,
That which they held onto patiently.
Distributing class by class
With a trust that one day, these seeds, taken by us pollinators
Would be planted, take root and grow.
In back gardens or city centres
In deserts or at sea
Where there is community, where there is need

These sturdy little trees
Now naked of their bushy green leaves.
Who kindly took
Our angst, our hopes, our fears,
All of our efforts in the fierce urgency of then,
All of that,
Taken up through the roots of this forest garden,
To bear fruit for bodies and minds to come
For this moment of now, which I am breathing,
Within the silent bustling of the still that is captured here, that sweet earthy smell, where matter decays contently,
lying dormant until the time is right,
When weather is bright,
To start its new birth, filled and flowing with the past nutrients of then,
To feed their every day to come.

In the Spring of 2025, Martin Crawford was served with an eviction notice by the Dartington Hall Trust, which led to many messages of support, as well as a petition set up by students from Sussex University.  As a result, it looks as though things have settled, and negotiations on the long-term security of The Agroforestry Trust’s forest garden are underway.