El Bosquecito (Little Forest)

Food Forest Keepers: Jonny & Edlin

We moved into our home at the beginning of 2021. Jonny grew up here in Suisun and Edlin grew up in the Los Angeles area. Since moving in, we have been slowly renovating to create our forever home. Our dream has always been to have a garden where we could grow our own food and become a little more self-reliant.

One sunny day, we were walking down the street and noticed a flyer at a local store advertising the Sustainable Solano backyard program. We looked at each other and immediately knew we had to sign up.

Site Details

Installation Date:

November 2021

Size:

1,323 square feet

Sun Exposure:

8 hours

Soil:

Clay

Number of Swales:

1

Secondary Water:

Lawn Conversion

Laundry-to-Landscape Greywater System

Rainwater

Roof water diverted to swales

Total annual water impact:

76,191 gallons

Design:

Designer: John Davenport

Plant List:

Avocado (Little Cado), Cericis (Oklahoma), Cherry (Lapins), Feijoa (Pineapple Guava), Fig (Panache), Lemon (Meyer), Lime (Dwarf), Peach (Babcock), Persimmon (Fuyu)

Bamboo (Golden Goddess), Blueberries, Ceanothus Ray Hartman, Lavender, Rosemary, Sage (Cleveland)

Artichoke, California Fuchsia, California Poppy, Chamomile, Comfrey, Fava Beans, Nasturtium, Native Milkweed, Parsley, Strawberry Clover, Tree Collard

Alyssum, Strawberries, Thyme

Daffodils

Installation:

We absolutely enjoyed everything related to the installation process. It was three separate days and we learned a lot about permaculture, flood mitigation (because we live in a flood zone), and sustainable landscaping.

The process included preparing the site and digging swales on the first event, planting all of the trees and seedlings the next time, and installing a laundry-to-landscape system along with five trees in the backyard on the last day. During each event we were able to meet so many awesome people who were also interested in gardens and sustainability. We enjoyed lunch together generously provided by Jonny’s mom and shared a lot of laughs along the way.

It was such an amazing experience to have several members of the community come learn and experience this with us. It was so beautiful to see the power of working together to create something so wonderful. We would like to thank everyone who came out to help us dig and plant everything!

Vision for the Future:

We plan to eat from the garden as much as possible and to share produce with the community. We have already been able to see the effectiveness of the swales acting as flood mitigation during the recent rainy days and already had our first harvest with parsley and added it to our dish this week! We are stoked for what’s to come and to see everything grow.

Ideally, we would like to see a future where more people can have the opportunity to have similar gardens. How great would it be if everyone could have food in their yards and share what they grow? But until then, we are extremely grateful to have our bosquecito. Thank you so much to Sustainable Solano for making all of this possible!