A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both.

Therefore, the Amlamgog Forest of Food as envisioned by David Belliveau for Fort Folly First Nation has been extinguished, destroying the project as well as the perpetual benefits that would have been experienced by the community.

Petty bullcrap strikes again.

There are six zones of existence in Permaculture. Zone 0 is your home. Zone 5 is wilderness.

We went to visit Zone 5 in our area. You're not supposed to do anything in Zone 5. Zone 5 is where letting it be shows you how nature best expresses itself. Zone 5 is less prone to wildfires. Zone 5 is less prone to pest infestation. Zone 5 is always trending towards balance. Zone 5 is a teacher.

Zone 5 is the most stable zone. Zone 5 carries our cleanest water. Wildlife depends on Zone 5. It thrives in Zone 5. Treat Zone 5 with complete respect and your other zones will benefit.

May 5, 2025

-David Belliveau

Even though planting a garden isn't one of the priorities for the Amlamgog Forest of Food, the calendar doesn't give us many options. 

We're kind of pushing the limits by planting before "The First New Moon In June". But...we have lots of hay and we're not afraid to use it.

I do have a feeling we're planting all of this stuff for the deer, however. I think we may need a guard dog. Or a guard robot.

While it's not a perfect layout, it's pretty good. I looks crooked because it follows the contour of the land. A big rain shouldn't wash it away. It'll be a good width with a double row. It's a layer of cardboard covered with a layer of hay, which is covered with a layer of topsoil.

The plants will have to have shallow roots, since there's a shale gravel layer directly below the surface.

The raised bed has been planted with carrots, lettuce, beets and watermelon. 

The trees adjacent to the garden are part of the 8 hectares that we'll be looking at to install a food forest. The trees there don't produce anything that's very edible. Sure you can make spruce tip tea, balsam fir tea, chew some spruce gum and enjoy some birch syrup, but the land can do so much more.

This isn't an old growth forest. I'd bet that the oldest tree is barely 30 years old. The density of trees is also very high, which produces a large amount of deadwood. 

The time for thinning was at least 10 years ago. This isn't a very well designed or managed woodlot. It could use some help. That's up to us to design a new system that integrates edible species, water management and conservation, sensible access, and a few supporting structures. 

The biggest priority right now is to make sure to understand Permaculture well enough that any of the employees will be able to design a piece of property to produce abundance according to Permaculture principles. 

It'll still be June until we get a complete crew. By July, we'll be running at full speed towards a Food Forest Future.

I'd like to get a chicken coop, but we haven't gone through the design exercises to put one in its perfect place. We don't want to carry water for chickens. Having chickens should be almost effortless, if we design it correctly into a Permaculture system.

May 3, 2025

-David Belliveau

Here's what I asked for:

Can you show me some ideas for building a robot that can help to create a food forest? I would like the robot to be able to clear a 10 meter radius circle of trees, gather all the soil and store it for later use, cut down all existing trees and bushes, pull all the stumps, and shape the surface to collect water in the center and plant ground cover, vines, over story trees, under story trees, perennial root vegetables, and bushes that produce fruit or nuts.

Here's what Gemini produced...in about 30 seconds. Amazing.

Robotic Forest Architect: Concepts for an Autonomous Food Forest Creation System

Imagine a future where robots can help design and establish thriving ecosystems. Building a robot capable of creating a 10-meter radius food forest involves integrating several complex robotic functionalities, from heavy-duty land clearing to delicate planting and precision earthworks. While no single off-the-shelf robot currently exists for this entire process, a conceptual system, potentially involving a coordinated team of specialized robots, could be developed by leveraging and advancing existing technologies in forestry, agriculture, and construction automation.

Here are some conceptual ideas for building such a robotic system:

Core Robotic Capabilities and Potential Implementations:

1. Site Assessment and Mapping: Before any physical work begins, an initial phase would involve an autonomous drone or a ground-based robot equipped with sensors (LiDAR, cameras, soil sensors) to survey the 10-meter radius area. This robot would create a detailed 3D map of the terrain, identify existing vegetation (trees, bushes, ground cover), analyze soil composition and moisture levels, and identify obstacles. This data is crucial for planning the clearing, excavation, shaping, and planting phases.
   
   

2. Vegetation Clearing and Processing:
   
   

   • Tree Felling: For existing trees, a robust robotic platform equipped with an advanced felling head (similar to those used in robotic forestry harvesters) could be employed. This head would need to be capable of precisely cutting trees of varying diameters.

   • Bush and Ground Cover Removal: Lighter-duty robotic mulchers or brush cutters, possibly on a separate, more agile platform, could clear smaller vegetation.

   • Stump Removal: This is a particularly challenging task. While robotic stump grinders and crushers exist, the requirement to pull stumps suggests a need for powerful robotic winching or extraction mechanisms integrated into a heavy-duty base robot. This robot would need strong manipulators or specialized end-effectors to grip and exert significant upward force to remove the entire stump and root ball.

   • Biomass Processing: A mechanism for processing the cleared vegetation (chipping, mulching) would be beneficial, potentially integrated into the clearing robots or handled by a separate processing unit. This processed biomass could be used later as mulch for the food forest.

3. Soil Excavation and Temporary Storage:
   
   

   • Excavation: A robotic excavator arm, perhaps mounted on the heavy-duty clearing platform or a dedicated earthmoving robot, would be required to carefully excavate the topsoil from the 10-meter radius circle.

   • Temporary Storage: A significant volume of soil needs to be stored separately to preserve its structure and microbial life. This could involve an automated system of mobile bins or a designated, robotically managed stockpile area adjacent to the circle. The robot(s) would need to efficiently transfer the excavated soil to this storage area, potentially using conveyor systems or large buckets. The storage system would need to protect the soil from erosion and contamination.

4. Land Shaping for Water Harvesting:
   
   

   • Precision Earthmoving: A robotic grader or a multi-functional earthmoving robot would shape the cleared and excavated area into a concave form, with the lowest point at the center. This requires precise control over blade angles and vehicle movement based on the 3D map and desired contour lines.

   • Compaction: The shaped surface might require some level of compaction to ensure stability, which could be done with a robotic roller or vibrating plate attachment.

5. Planting Diverse Vegetation Layers: This task requires significant robotic dexterity and the ability to handle a wide variety of plant types and sizes.
   
   

   • Multi-functional Manipulator: A robotic arm with quick-change end-effectors would be essential. These end-effectors could include:

     • Seed dispensers for ground cover and some perennial vegetables.

     • Grippers or scoops for transplanting small seedlings and starts (vines, ground cover, some bushes).

     • Larger, more robust grippers for handling and planting bare-root trees and larger bushes.

   • Automated Planting Sequence: The robot would need to follow a pre-programmed planting pattern based on the food forest design, ensuring correct spacing and depth for each plant type and layer (ground cover, herbaceous layer, bushes, understory trees, overstory trees, vines). This would require precise navigation and positioning within the shaped circle.

   • Soil Backfilling and Mulching: After planting, the robot(s) would need to backfill the soil around the plants, likely using the stored topsoil, and potentially apply mulch from the processed biomass.

6. Autonomous Navigation and System Control:
   
   

   • Robust Navigation: The robot(s) would need to navigate autonomously within the 10-meter radius, potentially in uneven or challenging terrain. This requires advanced sensor fusion (GPS, LiDAR, cameras, inertial measurement units) and sophisticated path planning and obstacle avoidance algorithms.

   • Task Management and Coordination: If multiple robots are used, a central control system would be needed to manage their tasks, coordinate their movements to avoid collisions, and optimize the overall workflow. This system would interpret the initial site assessment data and the food forest design to direct the robots' actions.

   • Environmental Perception: Throughout the process, the robot(s) would need to constantly perceive their environment to adapt to unexpected changes, ensure safety, and verify task completion.

Conceptual System Architecture:

Given the diverse requirements, a single, highly complex robot might be impractical. A more feasible approach could involve a team of specialized, coordinated robots:

• Heavy-Duty Clearing and Earthmoving Bot: A large, tracked robot with interchangeable attachments for tree felling, stump pulling/extraction, and initial bulk excavation and land shaping.

• Soil Handling and Storage Bot: A robot or system focused on collecting, transporting, and temporarily storing the excavated topsoil. This could involve a mobile hopper system or a robot interacting with static storage containers.

• Precision Planting Bot: A smaller, more agile robot with a multi-functional robotic arm and various end-effectors for planting the diverse food forest layers. This robot would likely follow the heavy-duty bot after the land has been cleared and shaped.

• Survey and Monitoring Drone/Robot: An initial and ongoing component for mapping, progress monitoring, and potentially assessing planting success.

These robots would communicate and coordinate through a central control system that manages the overall food forest creation project, breaking it down into smaller, executable tasks for each robot.

Challenges and Future Development:

Developing such a system presents significant challenges:

• Integration of Diverse Technologies: Combining heavy machinery automation with fine-grained robotic manipulation and environmental sensing is complex.

• Autonomy in Unstructured Environments: Operating autonomously in a natural, unmanaged environment with varying terrain, unpredictable obstacles, and biological variability is much harder than in controlled factory settings.

• Force and Dexterity: Stump pulling and handling larger plants require significant force and precise manipulation, sometimes simultaneously.

• Soil Handling and Preservation: Developing automated systems for carefully excavating, storing, and reapplying soil while maintaining its health is crucial for a successful food forest.

• Cost and Scalability: Developing and deploying such a sophisticated robotic system would be expensive. Making it economically viable for widespread food forest creation would require significant cost reduction and scalability.

Despite these challenges, the potential for autonomous systems to assist in ecological restoration and sustainable land management, such as creating food forests, is immense and a promising area for future robotic research and development.

May 1, 2025

-David Belliveau

A very valuable resource to use in planning a Food Forest is the website, Plants For A Future ( https://www.pfaf.org )

Plants for A Future has information on more than 8,000 plants. More information on new plants is added every day. 

As it says on their about page, "There are over 20,000 species of edible plants in the world yet fewer than 20 species now provide 90% of our food. However, there are hundreds of well-known edible plants from all around the world which are both delicious and nutritious."

if you ever get a chance to use their site and find that you've been helped with their information, you can go to their Donate Page and give what you can.

One of the categories at Plants For A Future is "Food Forests", which shows more than 1,000 medicinal and/or edible plants of Food Forests from around the world. We're definitely not limited by the number of species we can choose to populate every nook and cranny of our Food Forests. PFAF will help a great deal as you design highly productive and healthy Permaculture Guilds in your Food Forests.