Food forest hoorneboeg | NETHERLANDS | current
This food forest brings together prehistoric landscape relicts and innovative strategies in permaculture.
The challenge of poor sandy soils is to keep rainwater available for plants in dry periods. With a changing climate, this issue is only increasing. It is however an ever-present challenge, that also peoples who lived here before we were here, faced. 2.000 and 4.000 years back, the so-called Hilversum-culture, aptly named after the municipality to which de Hoorneboeg belongs, used to grow crops in small fields that were surrounded by coppices on rills. These rills prevented wild animals and cattle from entering and kept winds at bay. Over time, they grew rich in organic matter, from leaves and branches. In the end they were productive themselves, in nuts, fruits, flowers.
Our plan celebrates the historic elements that can still be found, when using high resolution satellite imagery. Exactly adjacent to this field, the rills are intact, invisible to the naked eye. We chose to use this ancient knowledge and cross it with the creation of dirt and compost rills, such as practiced by permaculture farmer Sepp Holzer. We brought in new rich soil and enrich it with wood from the forest that can degrade and compost over time. In these rills, we planted trees and shrubs. In the fields in-between the rills, we sometimes planted food forest plants, and in other places designed an edible garden or nursery and in the largest, left the meadow to be.
place
The historical estate Hoorneboeg aims to reconnect man and nature. This food forest gives new meaning to an underused meadow, and in effect shows how poor sandy soils can be enriched to grow a large variety of edible fruits, nuts and herbs. At the estate, the fruits are processed into craft products.
Design
A meadow with mown paths forms the center, surrounded by rills with edible shrubs and trees, that harbour edible gardens. Each place is unique. The scale is focused on the visitor and offers discovery and wonder.
Brief
Forest compensation was required for an adjacent new carpark at the estate’s entrance. We proposed to make the meadow more intimate and create a variety of gardens. Our tool is the food forest, that provides an example for a way forward to bring man and nature together, exactly the mission of the estate Hoorneboeg.
