Week 22 Special: A Young Food Forest Taking Shape at Sun and Bloom Farms - A Living Lesson in Permaculture Design

A Permaculture Case Study by Lucian Toma

Regenerative Water Retention, Soil Building, and Pest Management Strategies Inspired by Agroforestry, Regenerative Agriculture, and Permaculture Design

This year, I started sharing more consistently about what is happening on our unique farmstead (farm homestead) week by week. Part of that is simply practical. So much happens in a growing season that if we do not pause and tell the story as it is unfolding, the work can disappear into the pace of the next task. But part of it is deeper than that too.

A farm is not just a place where things are produced, especially a permaculture farm. A farm is also a place where patterns become visible. Soil changes. Water moves. Plants respond. Animals participate. Mistakes teach. Good decisions compound. What looked like an experiment one year can become a real system a few years later.

So for Week 22, I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of only giving a weekly update, I wanted to take one picture from the farm and use it as a teaching image. This one picture shows a young agroforestry, specifically alley crop, system we are building here at Sun and Bloom Farms, right alongside our annual vegetable, medicine, forest farming and cut flower production.

Some of the food forest systems on our farm are more mature at this point in our context. Some were planted close to five years ago. Others are around three years old. Many of those plantings were designed with food and medicine production in mind, especially fruit trees, berries, perennial herbs, and useful support plants. But they were also designed with the permaculture principle of stacking functions in mind. So they have not only produced food, medicine, beauty, habitat, and soil improvement, as mother plants they have also given us cuttings, seeds, experience, failures, and confidence.

This agroforestry system in the picture is newer. More specifically, it is a young alley cropping system. A food forest is one agroforestry strategy, and many of the more mature plantings I described above are closer to that food forest or plant guild approach. This system is a little different. Alley cropping is almost like a food forest organized in rows: perennial crop rows, support plant rows, and managed alleys between them that can produce food, flowers, fertility, mulch, and animal impact while the system matures.

We started this alley cropping system last year, and we are continuing to build it this year. As a perennial system that takes a few years to start producing food in abundance, it is growing in parallel with the growth and expansion of our annual production. And that is important, because for us, agroforestry and food forest design are not separate from making a living from the land. They are not separate from feeding ourselves. They are not separate from flowers, vegetables, nursery plants, animals, compost, mulch, water, or the forest edge. It is all connected. 

This picture shows one young section of that connection.

The annual production that helped make the food forest possible

When we first arrived here, one of the early production areas we began working with was an old orchard space. Many of the trees had already died, and some of the remaining trees were in poor enough condition that we eventually determined we would not be able to bring them back into health.

But before we started changing the land, we observed. That is the first principle in permaculture: observe and interact. We spent time learning the regional context online and at locally available webinars and workshops, studying the landscape  in person, collecting information, walking the site, watching the water, noticing the old trees, the slope, the access, the soil, and the patterns already present. In many ways, we were working through the same 10-step permaculture design process that we now teach in our courses and use with clients, a framework we have articulated clearly and offer freely for people to learn from and use. We then moved from observation and data gathering into a preliminary overview design and plan, and then we started the physical work. I even have some older videos where I am standing in this space talking about what we planned and hoped would happen here, and it is beautiful to look back now and see that some of those early ideas have actually taken form.

We cleared some of those trees in stages. We did not have one big perfect plan and one big perfect implementation moment. We worked with what we had, when we had it. The trees that came down became part of the fertility story of the farm. Some became mulch. Some became firewood. Some became biochar. Some became habitat and organic material. Then we began running chicken tractors through that area, letting the birds scratch, eat, fertilize, disturb lightly, and participate in the transition from a declining orchard into a new growing system.

The high tunnels you can see on the left side of the picture are at the edge of that transition area. Our first high tunnel was not actually a high tunnel in the beginning. It was a wedding tent we brought with us from California. We adapted it, strengthened it, and turned it into a growing structure. Later, we added another high tunnel that I bought locally and modified. Then we added another kit we bought online. Last year, we added a larger tunnel that we built in two pieces. (the company we bought these things from has been very supportive and offered us an affiliate partnership at one point - let me know if you want the link).

I do not share that because the structures themselves are the main point. I share it because that is often how real regenerative systems are built. Piece by piece. Season by season. With what is available. With practical decisions that are not always perfect, but that move the larger vision forward.

We knew we wanted to grow perennial systems. We knew we wanted berries, fruit trees, medicinal plants, and forest-edge production. We knew we wanted nursery plants. But we also knew we needed food now. We needed production now. We needed a way to feed ourselves through the year and begin creating a farm economy while the longer-term systems matured. That is what the high tunnels have helped us do.

At this point, we can grow food through much of the year. Even in the middle of winter, we can harvest beautiful food for ourselves and share some with people in our community. We have not yet chosen to take on a full winter CSA the way we do during the main growing season. That would require the right people working with us and the right rhythm around the farm. For now, the high tunnels allow us to eat well all year, start growing for the market early, end late, and extend the season without overcommitting the farm beyond its current capacity.

We also know that plastic is not ideal. That is something we hold honestly. It is not perfectly aligned with the deepest version of our values. But in this stage of our farm, the tunnels are helping us build soil, grow nutrient-dense food, stabilize production, and support the transition toward more perennial and living systems.

Inside each tunnel, across roughly 5,000 square feet of covered growing space, and in a few additional outside initial permanent beds to the west of the high tunnels, totaling around 5,000 square feet, we have been building soil every year. We add compost. We add mulch. We use cover crops. Sometimes we allow plant residues to break down in place. In two of the tunnels, we have also integrated chickens during the winter. They come in after the crop cycle, terminate plant material, eat pests, scratch through residues, and deposit nitrogen and other nutrients.

Over time, we have built more than a foot of beautiful living soil above what was once hardpan in the high tunnels. That is not just fertility. That is transformation.

Permanent market garden beds and living soil

On the east side of the high tunnels, we expanded the garden for the first time about two years ago. This is part of what you are seeing in the picture. Like the high tunnels, these outdoor beds were built slowly and intentionally.

Because this area is on a slope, we had to think carefully about water. We did not want to place everything exactly on contour because we also needed to manage the beds efficiently. We wanted parallel rows, clear pathways, and a layout that could function well for production. So we worked with the slope and designed the beds slightly off contour.

The outdoor production area is made of permanent market garden beds with very low disturbance. Some beds are annual production. Some hold perennial crops. We have asparagus in places. We have self-seeding plants. We grow cut flowers, medicinal plants, fruiting annuals, and food crops.

The beds themselves are rich in compost and organic matter. This is intentional because this is where we have much of our annual plant production. In these beds, we are encouraging faster nutrient cycling through well-crafted compost, organic matter, and biological activity. This is more of a bacteria-dominated soil system, where the biology can break down organic material, release nutrients quickly, and support quick-growing crops. 

The pathways are different. They are heavily mulched. That mulch suppresses weeds, absorbs water, breaks down slowly, feeds the soil, and supports a more fungal network underground. Over time, those pathways become more than walking spaces. They become moisture reservoirs, fungal corridors, and slow-release fertility systems.

We give this understanding an important place in our permaculture courses. We have also created a Master Regenerative Soil Building and Management course around it, because we want this understanding to become more pervasive in our community. We teach it both in person and online, and we keep seeing how much changes when this kind of soil understanding is unlocked. Food systems and plant systems become healthier, more productive, and more resilient when we understand that soil fertility is not only about adding nutrients, but about building the living relationships that cycle those nutrients.

We have bought compost when we needed to. Some of it was what I would call dead compost. It had organic matter, but not the kind of biological life we are really trying to build. So we used it as material, but then we brought life back into the system with cover crops, living roots, vermicompost, our own farm-made compost, and especially extracts and aerated teas made from these farm made composts. There is nothing quite like making extraxts and teas from compost and vermicompost on the land where it will be used.

Because we have animals, gardens, flowers, perennial plants, and a lot of diverse organic material, our compost can become very rich. It carries more than a high diversity of nutrients, it carries diverse and powerful biology too. And that matters because fertility is not just a list of minerals on a soil test. 

Fertility is cycled by life. Organic materials improve soil structure and aggregation, but that process is done by decomposing organisms. Bacteria, fungi, worms, arthropods, and many other members of the soil food web break down organic matter. Then other organisms consume and digest those decomposers and release nutrients into the soil in plant-available forms. In the process, they also create substances that help hold soil particles together, making soil more able to absorb water, hold nutrients, and support roots.

So when we talk about building soil, we are not only talking about adding stuff. We are talking about feeding a living system. That is how we manage both the high tunnels and the outdoor beds: permanent beds, low disturbance, compost, mulch, cover crops, living roots, biological inputs, and patience.

Designing with water instead of letting water decide everything

Because the high tunnels shed a lot of water from their plastic surfaces, and because the outdoor production area sits on a slope, water movement became one of the major design focus in this part of the farm.

When water falls on plastic, it does not infiltrate where it lands. It runs off. Then it joins the water already moving across the slope. If we had ignored that, the water would have found its own way. It always does. On a farm, even a gentle slope can create problems when water starts concentrating in the wrong places. We have seen many farms where water moves through mulched rows, raised beds, tire tracks, and paths in ways that slowly create erosion, wash out fertility, and damage production - on conventional farms, and especially where black plastic is used as mulch, that issue is even more pronounced! 

So in this section of the farm production, we used a keyline-inspired approach. In large-scale keyline systems, subsoil rips are often made with a tractor and a specific implement to help distribute water through the landscape. In our case, we did not use a tractor. We did the work manually. We made long, narrow rips, roughly six inches deep, slightly off contour and parallel to the growing rows.

The goal was simple: slow, spread, and sink the water. As water moves down the slope, it crosses those rips. Instead of gathering speed and erosive force,  it enters the rips, spreads more evenly, and begins soaking deeper into the soil. Organic material also collects in those lines, which means carbon and nutrients begin moving into the soil profile instead of only staying on the surface or washing away.

This kind of water work can be done at many scales. It can be used in large grazing systems where water is not infiltrating well or where erosion is developing. It can also be used in a smaller market garden and agroforestry system like this one, where annual production, berries, tree crops, mulch, and forest edge are all close together. 

The principle is the same. We do not want water to leave the land as quickly as possible. We want to guide it, calm it, invite it into the soil, and let plant roots access it over time.

A young alley cropping system

On this slope, we are developing an agroforestry system called alley cropping. In simple terms, alley cropping means we have rows or lines of main crops, usually perennial crops, with managed alleys between them. Those alleys can be used for annual crops, flowers, cover crops, animals, soil building, pollinator habitat, or other functions while the trees and shrubs are still young.

As the perennial crops mature, the alleys change. A mature fruit tree row casts more shade. A berry row fills in. Root systems expand. The system becomes less open and more woody. So the way we use the alley now will not be the way we use it forever. That is part of the design.

In the beginning of a food forest or agroforestry system, there is often a lot of sunlight, a lot of open ground, and a lot of opportunity to grow annual crops, flowers, cover crops, and fertility-building plants. Later, as the canopy develops, the system shifts toward more perennial production and understory management.

This is one of the reasons we like food forest design so much. It is not static. It has time built into it.

The blackberry row from our own farm cuttings

One of the main rows in this system is a 100-foot row of blackberries. These plants came from cuttings and propagation material from our own farm. That matters to us. We have spent years building mother plants, trialing different berries, observing what grows well here, and learning how to propagate more of what works.

The blackberry row is still young. This is its second year. We should see some fruit this year, but most of the real production should begin next year. For now, we are managing the row with very deep mulch. The mulch suppresses weeds, holds moisture, breaks down slowly, and helps create the kind of soil environment perennial berries prefer. Compared to an annual vegetable bed, where we often want faster bacterial nutrient cycling, a mulched perennial row leans more toward fungal relationships. That does not mean bacteria are absent. Soil is never that simple. But woody mulch supports a different kind of decomposition, a different kind of nutrient release, and a different relationship between roots, fungi, and organic matter.

Perennial plants, especially woody plants, tend to thrive when they can connect with fungal networks. Fungi can extend long distances through the soil, break down more complex organic materials, move nutrients, and help plants access resources beyond their immediate root zone. This is part of what we are trying to encourage in this system.

We are also beginning to integrate flowers, beneficial insect plants, and pest-deterrent plants into these rows. The goal is not only beauty, though beauty matters. The goal is ecological pest management.

If we can attract pollinators, predatory insects, and beneficial organisms into the system, we are not only growing crops. We are growing relationships.

Chickens, cover crops, and the productive alley between berries and trees

Between the blackberry row and the fruit tree row is an alley that we manage seasonally. During late fall and winter, we run chickens through this area. Our chickens are mostly heritage breeds, and we love them because they are beautiful, hardy, full of personality, and very good at scratching and pooping. :) In this system, they are not just egg layers. They are part of the soil management team.

The chickens scratch through the soil surface, eat weed seeds, disturb pest habitat, break down plant residue, and deposit manure. Chicken manure is rich in nitrogen, but it also contains other nutrients connected to what the chickens eat, both from their feed and from what they find in the landscape.

We use electric fencing so they do not overwork the berry row or fruit tree row. Sometimes they get some access around the plants, but we are careful. Chickens can be wonderful, but they can also compact soil and damage young plants if left too long or unmanaged.

After the chickens move on, we seed cover crops into the alley. The cover crops absorb and hold some of the nutrients the chickens left behind. They keep living roots in the soil. They feed soil organisms. They protect the surface. Later, we terminate the cover crop by mowing it down. We could bring in sheep or goats, but this is not the right context, we willdo that in another alley crop area with proper fencing, but in this specific section we are currently using mowing and mulch.

After mowing, we may use a clean, chemical-free landscape paper made from pressed plant pulp, almost like a cardboard mulch. Then we add compost and plant into it. In the past, we have grown peppers in this kind of alley. This year, we may grow flowers. Then, when that production cycle is finished, the chickens can come back through and help terminate the system again.

This is the kind of rotation we are interested in: Animals. Cover crops. Compost. Flowers. Vegetables. Mulch. Animals again. Not as separate enterprises, but as one fertility cycle.

The fruit tree row: resilience, diversity, and support plants

Beyond the blackberry row and the managed alley is a line of fruit trees. These trees are also young, mostly in their second year in this system. We planted different kinds and varieties because diversity is part of resilience. If one variety struggles, another may thrive. If apricots have a hard year, plums or peaches may do better. If one apple variety has pest or disease pressure, another may handle the season differently.

We are also choosing fruit tree varieties for staggered harvest. Some fruit ripens early. Some ripens in mid-season. Some ripens later. That spreads food, labor, and abundance over more of the year.

Around each tree, we have mulch. Over time, the plan is for the tree row to become a more continuous deep-mulch row, similar to the blackberry row.

Between the fruit trees, we planted perennial nitrogen-fixing shrubs. We experimented with a few types a couple of years ago. Not all of them worked. That is part of the process. One that did work very well for us is a native false indigo, a beautiful nitrogen-fixing shrub that we now use as a support plant. This year, because of that experience, we planted more of the same between the fruit trees. We use these plants for chop-and-drop. That means we trim them and lay the cut material on the ground as mulch. As the plant grows, fixes nitrogen, drops leaves, and responds to pruning, it helps feed the soil and support the fruit trees around it.

We also use comfrey in the system. Comfrey is a dynamic accumulator, a pollinator plant, and a strong biomass producer. We can chop it and lay it down as mulch around trees. It supports pollinators while it is flowering, and it helps cycle nutrients through its roots and leaves.

In addition to comfrey and nitrogen-fixing shrubs, we are adding pollinator attractors, beneficial insect plants, and pest-deterrent herbs. We want this tree row to become more than a line of fruit trees. We want it to become a living guild system.

Another native row before the forest

Beyond the fruit trees, we are planning another row of native plants from the Missouri Department of Conservation. These plants were very affordable, and we are excited to use them as another layer in the system. This row will combine habitat, food, medicine, and wildlife forage.

Part of the idea is to create a generous edge before the forest. We want plants that feed pollinators, birds, beneficial insects, and wildlife. We also want a kind of soft barrier. Instead of the wild animals moving straight into the fruit and berry production, we want to offer an abundant edge that gives them something to interact with before they reach the crops we are managing more intensely.

Of course, wildlife does not always follow our plans. But design can still shape relationships.

The forest edge and forest farming

At the far right of the image is the native forest. We have done some light clearing in places, mostly removing or shifting material near the lower understory. We are careful with this work because the goal is not to erase the forest and turn it into a garden. The goal is to work with the forest as a living system.

Every year, little by little, we are plugging in classic high-value forest farming species. Some are medicinal. Some are edible. Some are fungal. Some are simply part of increasing the useful diversity of the woodland edge.

Some of the species and crops that we are working with, that have already been plugged in, and that some will be plugged in later for our context in Missouri forest farming include American ginseng, goldenseal, black cohosh, blue cohosh, ramps, pawpaw, spicebush, Solomon’s seal, wild ginger, bloodroot, mayapple, ferns, elderberry along sunnier edges, persimmon along open woodland edges, hazelnut along productive edges, and serviceberry in partial sun and edge conditions.

We also have stacks of logs inoculated with shiitake, oyster, and lion’s mane mushrooms, and I will share more about that in a future article.

We are not growing all of these at commercial scale in this one place. Some are in small trials. Some are in other parts of the farm. Some are long-term plantings. Some are part of the learning and propagation process. But that is how forest farming begins for us. Not by forcing a forest to become a field, but by learning what kind of production belongs under trees, along edges, and within the shade and moisture patterns that already exist.

Food flowing from annuals to forest

One of the things I love about this section of the farm is that food and fertility are beginning to flow from the annual production area all the way to the forest edge. At the top and left, we have high tunnels and permanent annual beds producing vegetables, flowers, and medicinal plants. Then we move into berries. Then a managed alley. Then fruit trees. Then native habitat and food plants. Then forest farming. 

Water moves through that whole system. Nutrients move through that whole system. Insects move through that whole system. Roots and fungi move through that whole system. The forest is not separate from the market garden. The market garden is not separate from the orchard. The orchard is not separate from the chickens. The chickens are not separate from the compost. The compost is not separate from the food.

This is what we are striving toward: connected systems.

We do not build it all at once

When we came here, we did not try to turn acres and acres into food forest production all at once. That can sound exciting, but it can also become overwhelming, expensive, and hard to maintain. Instead, we built pockets.

We built some silvopasture areas where animals could move under trees and benefit from shade, shelter, and seasonal tree crops like acorns and nuts. Those areas may become more productive over time, but right now they already serve the animals and the land.

We built small food forest guilds near forest edges. We planted berries, fruit trees, medicinal plants, and support species in different parts of the farm. We cared for many plants in pots while we figured out where they belonged. We propagated from mother plants. We learned what survived. We learned what struggled. 

Each new planting could benefit from the systems that were already growing. That is important. A new food forest does not begin in isolation. It begins within the ecology that has already been cultivated. Beneficial insects are already present. Fungal networks are already developing. Mother plants are already producing propagation material. Compost systems are already alive. The people are also more experienced.

So the system in this picture may be young, but it is not starting from nothing. It is being planted into the momentum of the whole farm.

Seven-year cycles and returning to food forests

We have built and helped design food forests and agroforestry systems in other places too. At our previous farm, we planted fruit trees, grapes, berries, medicinal plants, and many support species. That system is around seven years old now. Even without us actively managing it the way we once did, it continues to grow and produce.

We are planning to visit it again soon. There is something beautiful about that. Many indigenous cultures around the world tell stories of planting food systems that people returned to in cycles. Food forests were not always managed in the rigid way modern agriculture imagines farming. They were tended, visited, harvested, remembered, and woven into culture over time.

That kind of thinking is present in many traditions, including stories from the people of the place I come from, the Dacians, and from many other agrarian and forest-based peoples around the world. There is something deeply human about planting a system that may feed someone years later. There is something deeply healing about returning to a place and finding that the trees kept growing.

Why this matters now

In my last article, I wrote about why I believe the future of regenerative living will be agrarian, relational, and deeply practical. This is part of what I mean. The future we need will not be created only by ideas. It will be created by people learning how to work with soil, water, plants, animals, buildings, communities, and economies in a more integrated way. It will be created by people who know how to grow food, but also how to think in systems. It will be created by people who can look at a slope and ask:

• Where does the water go?
• Where should the trees be?
• Where can animals help?
• Where does fertility come from?
• Where can annual crops support perennial establishment?
• Where does the forest want to participate?
• Where can beauty, food, medicine, income, and ecology meet?

That is permaculture design. Not as a trend. Not as a slogan. Not as a collection of random techniques. As a way of seeing and working with life.

An invitation to learn with us this September 2026

This September 2026, we are hosting our in-person Permaculture Design Certification & Farm Immersion Course here at Sun and Bloom Farms.

I am very excited about this because students will be able to walk through systems like the one in this picture and see them in real life (and our sit down lectures will be more like briefs, because the participants will get our guide-book to read in advance!). They will be able to see the high tunnels, the permanent beds, the berry rows, the young fruit trees, the cover crop alleys, the compost systems, the animals, the forest edge, and the places where things are still imperfect and still becoming.

We will be taking soil tests. We will compare different parts of the farm. We will look at water movement. We will talk about why certain plants were placed where they were placed. We will taste vegetables. We may taste fruit. We will smell flowers. We will look at insects. We will talk about mistakes. We will talk about what is working.

For local students, there may even be moments when cuttings or plant material can go home with you, so these systems can begin multiplying in other places too. That is really the point. We do not want this knowledge to stay here.

We want more people growing food forests, gardens, homesteads, orchards, agroforestry systems, community landscapes, school gardens, medicinal plantings, and resilient farms. We want more people to understand how to design from their own context, for their own land, family, community, and future. The course is not just about learning techniques. It is about learning how to think clearly, observe carefully, design responsibly, and take action in a way that fits real life.

If that is something you are longing for, or if you know someone who is ready for that kind of learning, this is an invitation.

Come learn with us this September at Sun and Bloom Farms.

Registration is open now.

https://www.sunandbloomfarms.com/inpersonpdc.html
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And if there is enough interest, we may also offer a focused Food Forest and Agroforestry Design Masterclass in the future, where we can go even deeper into systems like this one.

For now, we are grateful to keep building, keep learning, and keep sharing the story as it grows.

— Lucian
Sun and Bloom Farms
Lebanon, Missouri

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