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Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

I love the idea of food forests and the work of groups like Food Is Free (http://foodisfreeproject.org/).

I don't currently have land, as I live in an RV and travel kinda full-time, but when I buy another house and settle down somewhere, I've sort of made some promises to myself:

1. I will not mow a lawn.

2. Any plant that requires maintenance has to provide food.

So, I'm looking forward to having neighbors steal fruit from my yard. I want pecan trees, and fruit trees, and blackberry vines, and prickly pears, and whatever else grows well where I'm living. I'm gonna rip up the lawn and replace it with edible plants and gardens.

Any one fruit tree makes more fruit than one person, or even family, can eat in a season...sure, you can can it, or freeze it, but I like the idea of grazing through the seasons, rather than hoarding.

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I don't want to discourage you, because i had the same dream 5 years ago. But what you are saying has gotten VERY expensive. As an initial investment (at least for me, I have very few to share plants/seeds with) its pretty high. Then you have some deer take out a tree and all the berries, so you need to invest in deer block (chemical or physical), then you have the fricken EAB borer killing your 30 year old Ash Tree, and the black fungus that's taking out the pear and cherries, and then you forget to close the fence one day so most of the cucumbers and beans go missing and the rest get taken out by the cucumber beetles and/or the wilt they carry with them. Oh, and i invested about $200 on some "deer resistant, rabbit resistant" flowers (useful flowers like sage and lavender) which slowly disappear each season.

In other words, start saving now :). Though I haven't checked your link yet, so maybe the solution is in there!

Yeah, I've had a house and gardens in the past. I know it's a pain in the ass and doesn't always pay for itself. But, it's also possible to pick things that are naturally hardy and suited to the climate and soil. Some things Just Work.

And, if you have enough of those that are very expensive at the grocery (fresh herbs like basil and parsley, tree nuts, avocados, come to mind, though the latter two take years to start producing) you can still come out ahead. And, food picked ripe is delicious and rare in grocery stores.

On the other hand, my neighbors drive me completely nuts. Each on the cul-de-sac has an acre or so, and i'm the only home-farmer. The rest barely go outside let alone grow some veggies...

Its bizarre and a little infuriating.

Yeah, the folks with soulless lawns and no food growing are a mystery to me. Why have land, at all, if you aren't going to grow something on it?

You should move to the Columbia Basin, try Richland, WA. I lived in the area for a few years and I had a great garden, along with many of my friends and colleagues. Land is inexpensive, we had 1/2 acre, you could easily get 2-3 on the edge of town for a few 100k. There were minimal deer in the desert. The odd squirrel would take some fruit. If you were closer to the mountains you might have to deal with elk in the winter. Lavender grew like weeds and never disappeared. Water was super cheap from the river and most houses have timed irrigation so you don't need to remember to water. Also, tons of sunshine during the long growing season.

We had more mulberries than we could possibly eat, passersby would frequently "steal" them from our tree.

Was it a lot of work, yes, did it pay for itself, no probably not, considering the low price of excellent produce at the farmers market, was it a fun and rewarding/learning experience, yes.

And groundhogs... Those damn groundhogs.

A relative has a fruit tree out front. He does not particularly mind when somebody walking by takes a piece. He does mind a good deal when somebody comes along with a shopping bag and starts to load up.

Sounds like he should give cuttings to the neighbors, so they can all have fruit trees.

Considering that he lives in the town with the state's land grant university, I don't think that the neighbors are short of options. Nor his is the only such tree in the neighborhood. There are four or six within a short walk.

I think you'll enjoy this short video[1]. It's about a couple in the south of NZ that purchased a small piece of land with a rundown house and transformed it into an 'edible garden' of sorts. They developed a very 'non-interventionist' form of permaculture.

I found it fascinating and inspiring.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GJFL0MD9fc

I did enjoy that video. That's a cool couple of acres. That's kinda my vision, too. It's hard to do near a city (too many misguided laws), so that's frustrating, as I don't really want to live in the country.

"2. Any plant that requires maintenance has to provide food."

After consulting my tree hugger friends, I made sure to plant a variety of plants, which bloom throughout the year. Food for the hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, etc.

It was expensive, but I'm not a very good deal hunter.

Those are good, too. Keeping pollinators happy is part of the maintenance of growing food plants. That said, many of the things pollinators like, at least in areas where I've had gardens, are wildflowers and grow like weeds (and are treated as weeds by many) when given a friendly environment. So, they can be very low maintenance.

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