When I eventually own my own house, I want to develop and have a food forest, which is a type of low maintenance, self sustaining (little-no work) garden that produces hundreds of pounds of food in the first few years, and thousands of pounds of food year after year after the system matures.  The primary principle of a food forest, is to find a way for every organism to serve at least one purpose, preferably two or three; it could be a food crop, or provide habitat for predators like birds(pesticides without chemicals that you don’t have to pay for), attract pollinators, etc.  It has a high initial cost, since shrubs and trees typically cost more than little tomato and pepper plants, but after two to three years, they more than pay for themselves, and even become profitable! You could consider it an investment, both financially, and for your own independence/health.  One to three years of hard work and investment can lead to 20-80+ years of food that you don’t have to pay for and is healthier than anything you could ever find in the grocery store.

Since I live in an apartment, space is at a premium, and my plan was to get a head start, (since younger plants cost less than older plants) and  start growing and propagating certain plants that grow easily from cuttings. Propagating from cuttings is basically when you cut off the green, new growth from a plant and stick it in the dirt, and it grows roots and becomes its own plant, without having to buy another one. What most people don’t realize when they start a food forest is that the shrubs and herbaceous plants wind up costing a lot more than the trees, since they are smaller and you need a lot more to fill in the same amount of area.   So, in the spirit of getting started now and not making excuses for not having my own place yet,  I went ahead and ordered some berry plants that i plan to propagate heavily this next year, and turn 8 fruit bearing plants into 20+ that i can plant when i have my own place that will provide more fruit than I could ever want. I got two blackberry, raspberry, and elderberry saplings , plus a goji berry and autumn olive. All of these are easy to reproduce from cuttings, which is a quick/easy way to turn one plant into many plants within a year.