Pre-order Plants for Spring 2024 Shipping
Welcome to the Food Forest Farm plant shop! Here you’ll find many of the plants we’ve been growing in the nursery since 2010. These plants will come to you healthy and ready for their new home.
All of our plants are multi-functional, that is, some perennial vegetables can be eaten by a human, or livestock (leaf hay), or be grown as mulch for biomass, and more! You can look at “All” of the plants, or filter with the navigation bar.
Perennial Vegetables: edible roots, leaves, shoots, buds, seeds that come from perennial herbs, shrubs, and trees
Fruit: edible sweet goodness
Leaf Hay: plants to grow and feed to livestock like cattle, sheep, goats and rabbits
Biomass: herbs, grasses, shrubs and trees that grow fast and can be cut and used as mulch, grow soil, fuel stoves and compost piles
Willow Custom Mix
Willow Custom Mix
Food Forest Farm has been trialing a dozen of the fastest growing most useful livestock forage willows for the Northeast USA. After three years of literature reviews and hands on nursery research and observation, we are ready to release a selection of our best. A single bundle will include a mix of our best varieties (2 of each), 6 dormant cuttings total.
Willow Custom Mix
Scientific Name: Salix sp.
Varieties in the mix:
BIOMASS/FODDER - Mix of fast growing shrub hybrids (Salix miyabeana x sp.)
Multi-stem shrub, 15-20 feet tall, 5 foot crown spread at 3 years when grown at 2 x 3 foot spacing. Hybrids produce very high biomass yields, are rust and beetle resistant, and are well suited for biomass plantings, privacy hedges, and living structures. A study done by the Rural Ag Innovation Network concluded that these particular shrub willows were favorable forage willows in a sheep willow grazing trial.
LOVED BY RABBITS - Rubykins Willow (Salix koriyanagi)
Rabbits love to nibble this shrub willow according to Vermont Willow Nursery. In our trials this willow also seems pest and disease resistant, and was one of the most vigorous growers with multiple trunks that sprawl low and outward (a good quality for sheep forage plantings). Also this willow is apparently a good candidate for basketry as the name Koriyanagi means ‘basketry willow’ in Japanese.
TREE WILLOW - Dart Snake (Salix babylonica)
This species of willow, incorrectly named Salix matsudana by many sources, is the most popular materials and fodder willow grown in temperate Asia, New Zealand and parts of Europe. Cold tolerant and can take drought. ‘Dart Snake’, a male clone, is a very fast growing upright tree form (30 feet), with curly jade-green branches used for flower arrangements. There is lots of potential for this species to be grown as a silvopasture tree, chopping and dropping branches for livestock to eat during dry years, when forage is sparse.