Could integrating ‘tree rows’ throughout your market garden be a regenerative solution for organic growers?
We are used to seeing typical market gardens, with their long, usually uniformly sized, beds. Row upon row over multiple acre fields.
But some farmers are including ‘tree rows’ in their designs, in an attempt at improving the regenerative qualities of the typical market garden system.
At Conscious Ground in NSW Australia, regenerative farmer Ivan Blacket included perennial ‘tree rows’ in his design when implementing their market garden.
With Blacket’s design, every eight market garden beds were followed by a single, slightly wider, ‘tree row’. In each tree row, a selection of perennial fruit, nut and timber trees had been planted. Banana palms were flanked by Casuarinas and Pecans. Between the long term trees was cassava, followed by sunflowers, corn and pigeon pea. Finally, flowers and cover crops such as clover, rye grass and vetch had been planted throughout the row.
A thin border of woody, leftover pruning material formed a small hugel mound barrier around the entire tree row, planted out with annual vegetables and some longer term plants such as asparagus.
Image description: A section of Conscious Ground's market garden from above. The rows where sunflowers can be seen in flower are the tree rows. Ivan Blacket designed one tree row, then eight beds, then another tree row. This pattern repeats throughout the market garden. This photo highlights how including tree rows can keep the growing space looking green and diverse even when much of the beds are under tarp.
What resulted was an incredibly diverse bed of mixed perennials, beneficials and longer term annuals, placed periodically throughout the market garden, amongst the normal quick-turnover annual beds.
The tree rows looked fantastic, each like a mini oasis of biodiversity breaking up the normal productive market garden.
Image description: Conscious Ground volunteer Ragna tends to one of the tree rows when it was still young. Longer term trees are yet to fully establish, but the biodiversity of the mixed perennials, beneficials and annuals planted in the row can be seen here.
There are colder climate examples of farms using tree rows in their market gardens too. At the Schumacher College in South Devon, UK, fruit trees are planted in rows throughout their market garden beds. The main difference being the speed that plants grow, and therefore playing a longer game with the expected turnover of the tree rows. However, once established, fruit trees such as apple, pear and plumb can provide an abundant harvest in addition to the annual vegetables in the market garden.
There are some incredible benefits to including tree rows in your system. Not only are they a step towards growing more regeneratively, they benefit the annual crops in your market garden too:
Here are some of the reasons why you might consider including tree rows in your market garden design:
1. Tree rows improve the biodiversity of your site.
Improving biodiversity is a key principle of regenerative agriculture. Improving the biodiversity of your site has so many advantages; from increasing resilience to pests and disease, to improving the numbers of essential pollinators and beneficial insects in your market garden. Including tree rows full of a range of perennial and annual plants of all different shapes and sizes brings a whole other dimension of diversity into your market garden.
2. Tree rows contribute to building healthy soil with increased microbial activity.
The soil in tree rows is disturbed far less than soil elsewhere in your plot. Even with ‘no dig’ methods, soil is constantly stripped of cover in normal market garden beds. In the tree rows, their perennial plants and cover crops lead to minimal soil disturbance, and the building of healthy soil. In addition, trees encourage a healthy environment for mycorrhizal fungi, proven to be amazingly beneficial for soil and plant health.
3. Crop security; added income from perennial fruit or timber crops.
With tree rows included into your design, you add another layer of potential income. Perennial fruit and nut trees, and even timber trees, can be included as an added source of income when the usual market garden crops are less lucrative.
4. Long term increase in forested areas.
You can plant trees in these rows that are very slow growing, with the long term goal of these trees making up the forest that inhabits the site in the future. As regenerative agriculturists, thinking about future generations is crucial. This was the case at conscious ground, where casuarinas had been planted throughout the market garden as long term timber crops and eventually to become forest.
5. Tree rows can provide shade and act as windbreaks.
At my land in North Devon, for example, where the exposed field gets a lot of wind, I will be designing tree rows throughout my market garden beds as windbreaks.
6. Beneficials can be planted throughout tree rows.
The tree rows provide a space to plant beneficial plants throughout the market garden. These plants could deter pests, encourage beneficial insects and pollinators, and fix nitrogen into the soil. (Oh and improve biodiversity!).
…. And the list goes on.
The summary is; if you can spare the space (around one bed every 8-10 beds) including a ‘tree row’ in your market garden design can have many incredible benefits to organic growers, and is an amazing way to include regenerative practices in your system.
Image description: The young tree row acting as an oasis of biodiversity and providing shade and wind protection in the conscious ground market garden. A mixture of beneficial plants can be seen throughout the bed. Some day the trees will be fully established and produce fruit and nuts too.
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