Food Forest Design Fundamentals

This workshop is hosted in collaboration with Waxwing EcoWorks, whose work we deeply respect. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we’re inviting experienced practitioners to teach alongside us; offering participants the chance to learn proven approaches from people doing this work every day. This hands-on, half-day workshop is designed for anyone interested in learning how to thoughtfully design a perennial food forest rooted in place, ecology, and community use. Together, we’ll move from observation to design, grounding our ideas in real site conditions and translating them into practical, scalable plans.

We’ll begin with an on-site visit, where participants will learn how to read the land by gathering measurements, observing sunlight and water patterns, and noting existing vegetation and constraints. From there, we’ll transition into a guided design session that walks through the value of working with native plants to the full food forest planning process, from scaled drawings on graph paper to…