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Design the orchard and food forest

Plan perennial food (fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, perennial herbs) in Zones 2 to 4. Trees take years to bear, so the design and variety choice must be right first time.

How

  1. Find your site's average winter chill. Arizona extension defines chill hours as cumulative hours roughly between 0 and 7 degrees C (32 to 45 degrees F) in winter, and notes warm daytime temperatures above about 15 degrees C (60 degrees F) can cancel some of them.
  2. Requirements vary a lot by crop and variety. Mississippi State Extension lists about 200 to 800 hours for peaches, 200 to 1,000 for apples, 150 to 700 for blueberries and 100 to 200 for figs. Chill models differ (hours below 7 C, hours between 0 and 7 C, or the Utah model, per UC Davis), so compare like with like and get your site's figure from local weather data or your extension service.
  3. Choose varieties whose chill requirement is below your site's chill. For the low desert, Arizona extension suggests under about 400 hours, with examples such as Anna apple (about 200 hours) and Flordaprince peach (about 150 hours).
  4. Place trees by mature size and shade: tall trees on the side away from the sun's path so they do not shade vegetable beds.
  5. Design guilds around each fruit tree: NC State's example combines bee-attracting flowers, nitrogen-fixing legumes, bulbs to suppress grass, comfrey as a mulch plant and berries.
  6. Plan to build the food forest in stages over several years, starting with the ground layer and adding taller plants as each layer matures, as NC State describes.
  7. Plan permanent irrigation for young trees, guards against animals, and access paths for harvest.

Do these first

Sources

  1. Deciduous Fruit and Nuts for the Low Desert (AZ1269). University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, accessed 2026-11
  2. Extension Gardener Handbook, Appendix G: Permaculture Design. NC State Extension, accessed 2026-11
  3. Introduction to Permaculture: Zones. Oregon State University (Open Oregon State), accessed 2026-11
  4. Chilling-hour requirements of fruit crops. Mississippi State University Extension, accessed 2026-11
  5. About chilling hours, units and portions. University of California, Davis, Fruit and Nut Research and Information Center, accessed 2026-11

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