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This is exactly what I was going to say.

OP, you already have a forest. For all you know, it could already be a food forest. Observe not only the plants, but the animal visitors. What are the birds, reptiles, insects, and mammals that visit this forest?

The first thing you should do is find out the names, uses, histories, life spans, and everything else you can about as many plants as you can that are already in the forest. It's pretty easy, as most of this information is on Wikipedia. If you have a camera, take detailed pictures and post them to /r/whatsthisplant for help. If you're in Pennsylvania you likely have oak trees, but you need to be more specific. The more you learn about this, the more you will want to learn.

Pay attention to flowers, as they only open at certain times of year. Pay attention to the ground shrubs and herbs, some of them could be edible. I know there's an herb called violet that grows in Pennsylvania that is edible in small amounts.

I haven't read Gaia's Garden, but I love Toby Hemenway, and he has a great speech on YouTube that you should see if you haven't already. I recommend you read the book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.

Finally, make friends with your neighbors. Figure out how big your "block" is - that is, if you were to leave your property and make only right turns until you've done a full circle back to your driveway, what ground have you covered? What biozone is it in? How many people live in it, what do they do, who will they most likely vote for, and what is their favorite thing to serve for dinner? Speaking of voting, get to know your local representatives at the city, county, and state level. Also, get in contact with local universities and schools, if there are any. There are many benefits to this. First, you can get free labor from people looking to do community service projects in order to graduate. (People bitch about PDCs charging you to work, but universities have been doing this for decades if not centuries, and at a much more diabolical scale.) Also, by getting the educational/scientific community on your side, your property can become a center of education for permaculture, conservation, and sustainability around the world. Also, make sure to include a "public space" where you can sit several dozen people comfortably for luncheons and stuff, and maybe a space where somebody can address an audience. Think big.

Try to get your hands on Edible Forest Gardens ( vol 1 and 2 ) by David Jacke and Eric Toensmeier. It's the premier work on Eastern North American ecological agroforestry.

Martin Crawford's work is also very applicable since he's in a humid zone 3-5 ish British climate. His book is an amazing resource.

The Bullock Brother's have done a lot of work in Cold climate permaculture but they're in Washinton so it's still more humid.

Great Plains ecology is an interesting biome though and I'm not sure there's been a lot of work done on food forestry in that particular climate. I know a fair amount of work has been done on perennial grasslands but it gets more complicated since you are dealing with elements of dryland design and cold climate design. Some tropical techniques for water retention aren't going to work since frost is going to be a factor. Probably the best technique would be to follow the ecology and design around coolees since that's where great plains deciduous forests tend to thrive.

1. Water is life. You want to keep as much water on your property as long as you can. Have you put in swales on contour or keylines to stop, spread, sink the water into the soil so the trees can benefit?
   
   
2. What is your soil like? Is it acidic or alkaline? Is it compacted? Eroded? Deficient in minerals? Is it more clay or loam or sandy? Have it tested. There are ways to improve the soil. If it's compacted, you can deep rip. If it's acidic, you can add lime and dolomite. If it's clay, adding gypsum will break up the clay. Pioneer trees can also help break up soil with their deep tap roots. Forests are usually alkaline while pastures are more acidic. Forests have more fungi where pastures have more bacteria. You can get a jump start on changing over the soil if you take some starch like rice to a forest, leave it on the ground for several days, collect it, and scatter it where you want the fungi to take over. There are things you can add to increase the soil microbes that are so beneficial: compost, compost tea, bio-fertilizers, and inoculates on seeds.
   
   
3. What do you want to accomplish with a forest? Are you wanting to use some of the trees as a wind block? Are you wanting to stop some of the soil erosion along the stream? Are you wanting food (fruit, nuts) or fodder for animals or fiber or timber for building or trees that bloom to feed bees or trees for coppice or trees for firewood or a mixture? If you know what you want, then you can consult some books and local permaculture groups for trees that will live in your site-specific conditions that provide the function you want.
   
   
4. For each tree, you'll want to plant multiple nitrogen-fixing support plants that you will sacrifice so that the desired tree has nutrients. Legume trees, shrubs, and ground covers add nitrogen to the soil that will feed the main trees. Over the course of several years, you'll chop and drop the nitrogen fixers several times. Besides adding nitrogen to the soil, they will also shade out grasses and other non-desirable plants until your trees are established. You can also mulch with straw to shade out pioneer plants you don't want. Timing is important. You want to plant at times that give the plants the best time to get established. You'll want to chop and drop the nitrogen-fixing support species when the rains come. You'll want to use the mulch and cover crops at the same time as you plant your trees to prevent weeds from taking over. You'll want to time when the trees produce food. You can plan some early crop, mid-season crop, and late crop varieties. Thinking about your timing carefully.
   
   Resources:
   
   
   Creating a Forest Garden by Mark Crawford.
   
   Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier
   
   Forest Gardening by Robert Hart
   
   
   

I think that Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by Holmgren is the best. It focuses on permaculture theoretically (but not in a boring way). A lot of permaculture books are basically gardening/farming books with a permaculture slant. This book is actually about permaculture itself - what it is, how to use it, and why to use it. All 12 Principles are explained in detail so you can apply them creatively on your own.

The Permaculture City by Hemenway just came out this year and it is fantastic. If you currently live in an apartment, city, or suburbs, I HIGHLY suggest reading this book. Most permaculture books will bum you out a bit if you don't have a yard. The Permaculture City really made me appreciate where I am and made me feel like permaculture is possible for everyone in every situation.

Looby Macnamera's People & Permaculture is really amazing. I consider it a must-read, especially if the social aspects of permaculture pique your interest. I also think it's important if you live in a city, as people are the most abundant resource in a city.

Over at r/seedstock we have nearly 500 listings of places to buy seeds and the like. Do your own research though, while people have commented on those they've purchased from in the past, there are many submissions that have no such comments. Between c-ray and I, many are permaculture-oriented, but a few are your typical mail order nursery fare.

You probably want to think about fruit trees. In the central Illinois region, you've probably alot of choice in that regard. Pecans and walnuts will do fine, almonds are probably too iffy. Apples of all types, more than a few pears, apricots and cherries and peaches. All sorts of berries should do well, blackberry, blueberry and the like. Grapevines too, for that matter. All of these things will reduce your need to till, since they continue to fruit year after year without replanting.

You could also check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Perennial-Vegetables-Artichokes-Gardeners-Delicious/dp/1931498407

My mother-in-law bought it for me for Christmas, and I like it quite a bit. Good for ideas. I don't know that half of what's in there is anything I'd ever want to eat, but the other half is still 80 or 90 edible plants most of which I was quite unfamiliar with.

Also, do you have any chickens? 3 acres is enough to consider having a sizable flock, and their poop's as important as any of the eggs.

I am just about to finish Mark Shepards "Restoration agriculture". im sure its been brought up on the forums before...
I highly recommend it due to his more extensive discussion of growing staple crops in a regenerative fashion (instead of some fun loving feel good hugelkulture backyard project book =P).
heres a link
http://www.amazon.com/Restoration-Agriculture-Mark-Shepard/dp/1601730357

here is a link to his website though, where you can read a little more, purchase his hazelnuts, and many different kinds of rootstock (which i am going to do in a year or 2... thousands!!).

http://www.forestag.com/book.html


regards

Toby Hemenway would disagree with you.

the aggressive nature of bamboo is greatly overstated. This is partly due to the fact that things like sidewalks actually make it more aggressive - it will eagerly shoot under 24" of concrete to come out the other side. It is also partly due to bamboo's need for trimming - in the wild, all sorts of critters eat the shoots when they're small so only a few ever reach the crown. However, there are all sorts of bamboo barriers that do a righteous job of containing bamboo even if you're too lazy to go out and eat the shoots every now and then.

Is bamboo a voracious grower? Yes. Are its rhizomes tough to eradicate once a clump is established? Yes. But compared to some perfectly mainstream-acceptable plants like ivy and blackberries, it's a pussycat. People freak out about bamboo because it's what the cool kids do. Likely there was someone who moved into a house with a bamboo grove in the back, decide to take it out, and discover that it doesn't go quietly.

I once had eight sawed-off 55gal drums full of golden bamboo. They were beautiful. They were also on pallets, in a parking lot, 150 feet from the nearest bare earth.

That didn't stop total strangers from walking up while I was watering and saying "better be careful, that stuff will get away from you!"

Everyone here has already covered all I was going to say. In some of your comments you said you wanted to learn more about permaculture might I recommend Gaia's Garden. It is very general but it gave me a really great foundation for permaculture and the lists and ideas are fantastic.

1. I read a book called Paradise Lot that talked about a couple good sources of info on permaculture in the UK. First is Plants for a Future which is a neat database whose testing grounds are based in the UK. Second is a man named Martin Crawford, who has spent a lot of energy on designing temperate food dorests.
   
   
2. I'd imagine a loooong time. So long a time that I think it would be good to have zero expectations. I have no experience in this subject though, so don't take my word on it. I myself am interested in the amount of space needed for self sufficiency, the books I've read (about... conventional gardening) reported around 4,000 ft^2 needed to grow half the food a small family would need. Perhaps you could designate this amount of land to gardening vegetables and the rest to developing a forest garden?
   
   3)I know absolutely nothing about this subject, you're on your own :)

Nitrogen fixing plants. Nitrogen is notoriously hard to get from the atmosphere into a usable form for plants. Industry solves this with fossil energy. Legumes have the ability, with a symbiotic bacteria, to make it available at the root level to adjacent plants. You can practically throw a dart at this list and get fertility.

Sign up and get more woodchips than you can ever handle. Your mulch should be 5, 6, 7 inches deep (less so around the trunks, obv) and you can spread a new layer on every year. I do encourage you to leave a patch as grass just to compare to.

The Resilient Farm and Homestead will be a good primer for Permaculture thinking as it applies to homesteading.

If you're able to spend a lot of time watching videos, Edible Acres is a wonderful resource. The author is thoughtful, realistic and concise with a wealth of knowledge.

If you have an hour to kill (in the car or while mowing all that grass or spreading wood chips) listen to this presentation by soil scientist Elaine Ingham. Ingham is well-respected and, if you can make the information she provides in this presentation your fundamental understanding of what makes dirt work the way it does, you're off to a great start. It's heady, so don't expect to be chugging down facts, but if you can keep afloat, it might be worth a second or third listen.

Mark Shepard has been running a restoration agriculture farm for ~20 years. He has a lot of business experience and is an intense advocate for this approach to permaculture. Here's a link to his site and to his book to maybe help you get started. Honestly he sounds like the exact person to help you meet your specific needs.

• Serious Straw Bale
  
  
• The Hand-Sculpted House
  
  These two books have made me confident I can build my own small house with natural materials. I am starting a pole barn with cob walls this month and a small straw bale guest house on my property later this year with the guidance of these books.
  
  Also, this blog is a great resource for code issues related to tiny houses.

The Backyard Homestead is pretty good for a beginner. It isn't strictly a permaculture book, but I was surprised to see how many of the permie concepts it incorporated. Begin with something like that, and then as you expand you can get more hard core.

Great potential! Install a small chicken coop and create a fertilizer factory for starters. Also, Paradise Lot is a book that could be very helpful given your location and yard size.

If you are considering a forest garden, I would not recommend doing so without a proper design. I highly recommend these two books: http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132608

They will help you create the right design which will save you a ton of work/ resource usage in the long term.

John Seymour's The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It might not be about permaculture per se, but it is a great exploration of what our real material needs are, and how to meet them using time-tested agricultural techniques.

I was in a similar situation when I did my course, I read An Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison a couple months before hand. The course will basically cover everything in the book. It really helped me to retain a lot of the information I was getting during the course since it wasn't completely new to me, it also allowed me to ask questions I'd had since reading the book.

Also if you have a chance to regularly visit a place working with the principals of permaculture you would get some insight into how it looks and develops, as this is the season where things are really starting to grow again.

have fun!

I have one of his best talks in my Permaculture Headliners playlists, which I link in these comments.

He is the first permie I ever heard anything of after my interest got piqued by Dirt: Erosion of Civilizations.

The statement might start a flamewar in more intense tomato forums, but unless the tomato is a cherry or potato-leaved variety (Edit: or hybrid, which is a whole other can of worms!), the flower self pollinates before opening. See here or Seed to Seed an awesome book that howtosaveseeds.com references frequently.

There's an excellent book called Seed to Seed that goes into a lot of detail, put out by Seed Savers. This is my first year saving seeds from my garden, I found a lot of valuable information in it.

I was introduced by Gaia's Garden , it was a wonderful read and an even better starting point

I'm currently reading this book by Sepp Holzer, which had a really neat section about how he handles poultry. He uses natural protection for his birds, specifically mentioning rose hedges. Perhaps his method could work for your situation, too?

If you are looking for examples, Sepp Holzer has lots of videos on youtube. Search "temperate permaculture" and you will find a lot of stuff on youtube.

http://tcpermaculture.com/site/ is a great temperate permaculture resource with guild lists and explanations of how permaculture can be used in a temperate climate.

The absolute BIBLE I rely on is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132608/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1368994131&sr=8-3-spell&keywords=eric+tonsmeijer

It's pricy and worth the hardcopy. But it's out there in torrents. It has an absolute ton of information on HOW to do permaculture in a temperate setting. I can't recommend this highly enough. If there is one thing you do, find this and read it!

Funny you ask this. Just today I got out my copies of Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape and How to Make a Forest Garden.

I bought these a few years ago, read through them and kept the thought in the back of my head. Just today I began a much needed book organization and these came out on top of the 'read again' pile.

The concept is solid and if you will be on land long term this is a great way to go. I would keep a traditional vegetable garden in tandem though.

Sorry to not have any real experience.

> From my perspective it seems like a bunch of self-righteous liberals using abstract concepts to recycle old ideas and selling it to rich self-righteous liberals.

Oh, shit. Someone else has figured it out. They're onto us! Quick, grab your bags and get to the airport!

EDIT:- Yes, Permaculture actually does work. More seriously however, I became disenchanted with the amount of corruption that I saw in the scene, as well. The bottom line seems to be that no movement, no matter how well intentioned, is capable of surviving a head-on collision with human nature.

My advice would be to get the following four books:-

http://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-Designers-Manual-Bill-Mollison/dp/0908228015

http://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-Principles-Pathways-beyond-Sustainability/dp/0646418440

http://www.amazon.com/Water-Every-Farm-Yeomans-Keyline-ebook/dp/B00557Z0OE

http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Constructing-Universe-Mathematical/dp/0060926716

Study those yourself. If someone still wants you to get a certificate in order to do consulting, then look for the cheapest course you can find. Preferably find one where you can go to the site during the day, and have your own accomodation at night, which will give the people running it less of an opportunity to rip you off.

EDIT 2:- Some will say that you can skip Schneider, but I won't. You MUST, however, read Yeomans. Permaculture uses Yeomans' system itself, but Mollison did not write about it in his book. I repeat, you MUST, MUST, MUST read Yeomans.

I strongly recommend the book [Creating a Life Together] (http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Life-Together-Ecovillages-Intentional/dp/0865714711)

Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison

Thorough of all subjects of permaculture, many graphics, design examples, charts, and diagrams. Used as a textbook for many permaculture courses.

Enjoy!

I would check out David Holmgren and Bill Mollisons Books. They are both co-originator of what we know as permaculture today. Bill's book is more of a reference book, which is what it sounds like your after. Also Gais Garden is generally recommended.

my favorite

https://www.amazon.com/Resilient-Farm-Homestead-Innovative-Permaculture/dp/1603584447

Another good one is sepp holzers book

Do you have any plan on how the livestock you mentioned will be incorporated into that area? If not, I'd recommend Mark Sheppard's "restoration agriculture".

Also, if you're interested in a larger list of potentially compatible plants you can see one [here.] (http://www.americanplant.net/index.php/gardening-tips/organic-gardening/13-resource-library/plant-care-sheets/60-plants-to-grow-under-black-walnuts)

If you flip through the "look inside" feature on amazon for this book you will find some layouts based on the size of the lot. There are diagrams for 1/10 acre, 1/4 acre, etc.

That book is the Bible.

There is no other book like it.

http://www.amazon.com/Self-Sufficient-Life-How-Live/dp/0756654505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331018808&sr=8-1

The appendix in Vol. II of Edible Forest Gardens (2 volume set) by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier has a pretty extensive list. It's broken down by zone, size, function, moisture requirements, and a zillion other factors – including food and other uses.

Non-mobile: nature and properties of soils

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

And there's a give-away - a choice of one of Eric's workshops,either a forest garden tasting workshop or a bioshelter workshop. Or a copy of Perennial Vegetables if you can't make it to a workshop.

Get Gaia's Garden. Read it. Then decide what trees to plant.

Toby Hemenway. This book has some discussion of the non-native issue. This video might be the one you're looking for. See also this discussion thread.

Does anyone know how this one compares to "Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It"?

Earthbag Building and The Hand-Sculpted House are both on my shelf. They contain enough information to get you started.

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-War-Invasive-Species-Permaculture/dp/160358563X

Start with Gaia’s Garden (https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298/)

Permaculture on the scale for those of us that aren’t farmers.

I found this book on the subject very thought provoking and informative.

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-War-Invasive-Species-Permaculture/dp/160358563X

An unsurprising lack of actual textbooks on here. I recommend nature and properties of soils and Havlin's soil fertility. There are suggestions here that are homeopathic quackery and I suggest being skeptical.

Permaculture: A Designer's Manual is considered the bible for permaculture because of how comprehensive it is and how much information is packed into that book. It won't explain all of the effective strategies for different climates that we've developed over the last 30 years but I would definitely start there for the foundation. Then move on to books on topics that are specific to a particular topic within permaculture design.

​

My Recommendations:

• Permaculture: A Designers Manual - https://www.permaculturedesignersmanual.com/product-page/permaculture-a-designers-manual
  
• Gaia's Garden - https://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1603580298
  
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond - https://www.amazon.com/Rainwater-Harvesting-Drylands-Beyond-2nd/dp/0977246434
  
• dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520272900
  
• The New Wild: Why Invasive Species will be Nature's Salvation - https://www.amazon.com/New-Wild-Invasive-Species-Salvation/dp/0807039551
  
• The Worm Farmer’s Handbook: Mid- to Large-Scale Vermicomposting for Farms, Businesses, Municipalities, Schools, and Institutions - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603587799/
  
• The Humanure Handbook, 4th Edition: Shit in a Nutshell - https://www.amazon.com/Humanure-Handbook-4th-Shit-Nutshell/dp/0964425882