We planted a Tiny Forest in the Desert.

Seven months ago, I posted about our dream to plant a forest in the desert: https://www.reddit.com/r/homestead/s/7xfrXE61td

Well, we did it. We planted a Tiny Forest.

(Actually, two.)

Thanks to our awesome community (both online and in-person) our little homesteading experiment in ecorestoration and stewardship is blooming. We created a nonprofit around this work (For Every Star A Tree) and hope others will start their own rewilding projects using a similar model.

We’re using the term “Tiny Forest” as a euphemism for the Miyawaki method of afforestation. We started with 100sqft gardens—or Tiny Forests—to show that it is possible for this type of ecorestoration to thrive.

If the Tiny Forest concept succeeds (all signs are pointing to yes) we plan on expanding them later this autumn. The Tiny Forests themselves are only 100sqft each, and have ~27 native plants ranging from canopy trees, understory trees, wildflowers, herbs, groundcovers, shrubs, and more. We have a donation option on our website where people who want to support this project can choose a native plant, sponsor it, and we’ll add it as an extension to the Tiny Forest. Everyone who donates receives a semi-regular “Love Letter From The Land” update—this was important to me as a writer, offering something sentimental to stem against faceless exchanges.

This autumn and winter, we used about 15 gallons of water per week for each Tiny Forest. A lot of folks say this is too little, but in actuality the ground is staying moist for 7 days because of how much mulch we used. (We also had a rainy season, which has helped a lot.) The last time we needed to replenish our water system was seven months ago, when I first posted. We’ve been able to sustain on our irrigation system since then! Of course, now that it is getting hotter I anticipate we will use around 30gal per week.

This post is a spring update to show how the Tiny Forests are doing. The real test will be this summer. I’ll update again after a full year, in September/October 2024.