This Food Forest Guild grows in a space only 15 feet deep by 24 feet wide.

Planting Food Forest Guilds

A food forest guild is a unit or building block of a food forest, that includes plants in each of the nine layers of a food forest. 

One of the best things about arranging new plantings in guilds or groupings is that when they are still young and need water, you can water them all together, so you save water.

If you plant things far apart, you need to water many different areas.

So if you want to start small and build over time, create one or two tree guilds surrounded by companion plants that attract pollinators or cover the soil with green mulch, like clovers, or woodsorrel, as you get the trees established.  Ideally, as they share nutrients through the soil food web, they assist each other to thrive.