The daily Astorian., October 16, 2015, Image 20

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A ‘food forest’ that belongs
in the
garden
Q&A
with
Lisa Mattfield
Q: A visitor described your Ocean Park garden as
“a young food forest.” Is that an apt description, and
what does it mean?
A: Forest gardening, or edible forest gardening, is a
way of looking at and designing your landscape so that
you are using the general structures of your native local
forest, but using plants that you find desirable (like favor-
ite fruits and herbs). If you get it “right,” your food forest,
or forest garden, will feel like it belongs, and grow into
being as resilient as a piece of the local forest: needing
little human input while producing things you want (like
fruits, mushrooms or whatever).
Mine is “young” in the sense that many plants aren’t
producing yet, and I still have a long way to go reducing
the care it needs.
Q: How large is your garden and how long have you
developed and maintained it?
A: My property is about half an acre: that includes
buildings, driveway and everything. I’ve owned the prop-
erty about 13 years, but the first five or so were siting and
building the house and garage with very little serious gar-
dening (except, of course, for trying to reduce blackber-
ries). Most of the plantings and structure you see today
are from the last six or eight years.
Q: What part of your personality is reflected in your
garden?
A: Mostly the practical side: trying to grow a lot of
my food, in the laziest way I can. My long-term goal is
that most of the work I do in the garden be harvest-
ing. But the second criteria in most of my decisions is
making it pleasing to my senses: colors and scents that
please me; paths and seating areas that are comfort-
Photos by Katie Wilson/The Daily Astorian
Lisa Mattfield stands in the middle of her garden by a row of pole beans she is letting dry out naturally in the sun.
When the beans and outer husk are dry, she can shell them and use the dried beans for cooking or for planting.
able and convenient to use.
Q: What are you doing in your garden this month?
A: I should be finishing the last of the late harvest, and
catching up on the weeding and cleaning I always get be-
hind on in the late summer, and this year working on my
new paths. But I have been spending a lot of gardening
time cleaning up bear damage: He has climbed in over
my front gate a couple of times, and ate every one of the
Asian pears, and most of the apples from my young trees.
I’ve been cleaning up the tree damage, and trying to fig-
ure out how to reduce it next year (and maybe keep more
of the fruit for myself!)
Q: What are your favorite seed catalogs or plant
sources?
A: I have a large annual vegetable garden, and depend
on Territorial Seed Co. for most of the seed. Many of my
fruit trees are from Raintree Nursery, in Morton, Washing-
ton, and One Green World.
Q: What’s the most recent gardening book you’ve
read that you would recommend?
A: A friend recently lent me Ann Ralph’s “Grow a Little
Fruit Tree,” which summarizes years and years worth of
pruning advice into something I think I can actually use to
help grow fruit trees that will be easy to care for and sur-
vive bear incursions (I’d rather lose a year’s harvest than the
whole tree).
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LEFT: A banner hung over the entrance to Lisa Mattfield’s garden is intended to confuse deer and keep them from jumping the short wooden fence. While it’s kept the deer at
bay, it hasn’t done much to deter a particular black bear that breaks into her garden routinely to eat apples from her trees. RIGHT: A species of lilies from India bloom in one
corner of Lisa Mattfield’s gardens. These flowers look drab and weedy until this time of year, she says, and then they are one of the few blooming plants providing any color.
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