Food Forest Journey

The journal

Doonan, QLDestablished August 2026

Banyula Zen Food Forest

Four weeks on the land, a mulch pile of many cubic metres spread by hand, and the first nucleus of a food forest going into ground that was bare pasture.

The Banyula Zen food forest on a sloping subtropical block

A sloping subtropical block brought up from bare pasture: fencing run around the whole food forest, swales dug and packed with biomass, then swales and pathways heavily mulched. The first banana circle and swales are planted.

1 entry, newest first.

Installation

A food forest nucleus, and a mulch pile put to work

Four weeks staying on the land, working across the whole food forest, the swales and the vegetable garden.

A tree had been cut down in the middle of the vegetable garden some time before, leaving a mulch pile of many cubic metres sitting there. I spread the entire pile across the whole food forest and into all of the swales, and used it up completely.

I dug swales by hand across the food forest, installed an extensive food forest nucleus, rejuvenated the vegetable garden, and helped install fencing around the food forest.

The part I like most about this one is how little had to be bought in. The mulch was already on site, the swales were dug by hand, and the fencing went up around work that was done rather than work that was planned.

A carload of native tubestock came up from Landcare to go in around the food forest. Natives through a Landcare group are the sensible way to get local provenance stock into the ground at volume, and they do the work a food forest cannot do on its own: habitat, windbreak and the insects that come with them.

Before and after, same frame
Aerial view of the property before the work: mown grass across the paddock beside the fenced garden
BeforeGrass to the fence line, the paddock doing nothing.
The same aerial view after the work: swales cut and the paddock covered in mulch
AfterSwales cut across the slope and the whole area mulched out.
Natives from Landcare
Joel in a car almost entirely obscured by native seedlings filling the seats and windows
August 2026A carload of native tubestock, picked up from Landcare and barely room left to drive.