General performance
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My food forest produces a vast surplus, with minimal work.
Unintended positive side effects of practice
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I don't have time to harvest all of it. I think there could be a role for a "roving harvester" who harvests my (very large) surplus and sells it to local businesses.
Unintended negative side effect of practice
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Vast amount of pruned branches. I don't want to own or rent a wood chipper. I would like to turn more of it into biochar.
Knowledge and skills required for practice
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Reading Toby Hemenway's book "Gaia's Garden" is good enough.
Labour required for practice
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And the labor is pretty fun :-)
Cost associated with practice
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We hired a permaculture landscape designer to do a design to get us started. I have tweaked the design a lot as I have implemented it. Some plants are kind of expensive but most plants were started from cuttings that I got for free.
Does it work in degraded environments?
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But you need to design it to replenish what was lost. Easy to do though.
Does it help restore land?
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My soil was mostly clay, now it is quite rich.
Climate change vulnerability effects
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The diversity ensures that any losses are small. Also I am constantly letting unhappy plants die so that I can plant ones that will be more happy. By "happy" I mean the plant thrives with little or no care, and also the plant makes me happy i.e. it produces well, does not smother its neighbors, etc.
Time requirements
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You need to design it to produce both short and long term yields. Easy to do.