Food Forest - I wish I have one

Food Forest, Kitchen Forest, Kitchen Garden, Food Garden or Agro Forest are the old ways of growing your own food on land near your dwellings.


Back to the old days in the Malay Peninsular, now known as West Malaysia it is a common sight where everyone grow their own food. With modernization of agriculture and modern living this forest or kebun in the Malay language are a dying pockets of land scattered through out the country.


Its my dream to have one Food Forest the permaculture way.


These following photos are from my wife's family Food forest in East Coast Malaysia, its not maintained to its full glory. Someday it should be revive.
The size of this food forest is not that big, its roughly 1 acre in size with another plot of 3 acres located quite a distance away. Above photo shown tapiocas, bananas, egg plant and few other plants and herbs.
Egg plants above, tapioca and cherry tomatoes below.
Tapioca are grown for its tuber and the shoots, young tapioca shoots are use as vegetables. Their leaves are also good for Tilapias and Catfish.
Tapioca are easily grown from stem cuttings, just stick it in the soil and it will grow. It tooks 2 ~ 3 months for harvest and in the mean time the shoots are use as vegetable.
This tree above we call it Belimbing Buloh or Averrhoa bilimbi its scientific name, we use it as vinegar since its very sour. Its fruit like below, but now its not in season.
Apart from Tapioca another tuber that commonly grown is the sweet potato. We grown it from vines cuttings and like Tapioca this plant shoots are also edible as vegetable. Its common practice to have this type of plant where we could have the leaves or shoots before the tuber is ready for picking.
Cherry Tomatoes and Chillies are another common plants, many variety chillies or tomatoes can be grown. After awhile the most resistance species will thrive
Bananas are synonym with this area, these plants are very useful. The leaves are use for food plates and almost all parts of this plant is useful.
Below banana shown flowering and its "Jantung Pisang" or the lower part of the flower, that reddish part is edible.
Normally this Jantung Pisang are boiled and make into salad or dip in Sambal Belacan and consumed with rice.
Lemon Grass is another popular plant to be grown, it this case its a grass.
Papaya or Paw Paw as the Australian probably called it.
Ulam raja below another plants that are grown for its leaves.
Then there are those bigger trees like this one the Pulasan
Ciku Tree below
Longan or Mata Kuching
The kitchen forest is an important aspect of daily Malayo-Polynesian life and it should be maintain as part of our culture.
A Short video on the Food Forest.

3 comments:

  1. a'kum... caya lah bro.. kebun kat blkang rumah banyak manfaat.. cuma diantara kita yg ada tanah buat landskap yg bukan bukan.. ada yg biarkan ajer.. kita yg tak cukup tanah puas dok bikin macam macam.. how eber saya tabik spring ngan your family..

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