Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Hello, my name is Timothee Bordenave, from France. I wanted to share an idea with you that is inspired from my life experience as a tree sower, and this idea can be called : the Fruits Forest.
If you very simply collect the seeds from the fruits that you eat, then time after time you can sow these seeds. The best moment in the year to sow a seed would be generally the same as when you have just eaten the fruit from which it was taken off, because of natural cycles. But, I have tested this, many other moments in the year from late winter to early fall, can be appropriate too, as long as the weather conditions and the soil where to sow are good.
You would, very likely, by coming back to the place where a seed was sown, find a young plant of a tree at birth, a few months later. You would likewise, a few years afterwards, find very often a tree in itself, bearing fruits after merely only a year or two…
Then, if you realize this action often enough, several fruit trees, many fruit trees eventually, would be born and would bear good fruits, as in the orchard gardens this is what was always done, initially. And if you reproduce your sowing on a large enough scale, then not long after your beginning, an orchard that would be about the size of a small wood, or even of a small forest, can be implanted into your land – and this for an undefined, but likely to be very long time for the future.
The same proceeding can be undertaken as starting in a wood or a forest at first, where if you take advantage of the original disposition and distribution of the existing trees, you will be able to sow fruit seeds and also if you know how to do so to graft on fruit-bearing branches, locally at first and after a time, with a patient and constant work, on a very large forest surface, easily.
This principle can be applied to any lands were the soils would be good and clean enough, I presume. I presume also this applies to any type or species of fruit trees. Then, it can be done at any level of implementation : from one tree in your backyard to a forest of fruits…
When I was young, I was very impressed by a story from a French writer, M. Jean Giono, entitled : The man who planted trees. Where is described the life of a postman who declined despairing about his region being arid and a close-desert, and who then planted oak trees he had collected seeds of at first, to thereafter gradually be giving birth to an oak forest covering acres, and acres, and acres, of the hills around his village.
Believe me : inspired by this narration, I then tried with my humble own manner to do the same. And even if I did not maybe yet achieve the quest for planting a whole fruit forest… Well, I can say I have been at the origin of thousands of trees bearing fruits, and I notably planted a few big orchards already, along with many seeds that I sew in the wild, of which I saw many trees growing, which I could eat the fruits of.
I chose from the beginning to sow seeds of fruits, because I foresee here a great utility, both for the food they bring obviously to my fellow humans, second for the food they bring to various animal species, facilitating their ability to live near and to enhance the « biodiversity », and improve the ecological system or environment in these areas concerned by a new food supply from the fruits of these trees.
Now, would we hopefully one day, realize a whole fruits forest in France, for example, where a majority of our vast wooden lands would host a lot of fruit trees, we would then be close to our old, European medieval idea of a Forest of Abundance, which was closely related to our ancestors’ views of an Earthly Paradise !
Call me a dreamer if you wish to, still, this idea starts with the simple, calm and peasant work of anyone who would like to take a seedling of a fruit, and sow it in the good soil, in Nature, to enjoy it being grown soon after in a tree, where fruits can be picked off… Indefinitely, in time, afterwards.
Timothee Bordenave
Pyrenees Mounts, France 2026.VI.16.
Born in 1984 in Paris, France, Timothee Bordenave is a French author of fiction and essays, and a poet. He has published many books, about 25 to date, and his literary works have been translated in large parts to about 20 languages… He is also a visual artist, whose photographs and paintings have been shown in France and in various international locations.
He used to work directing libraries in Paris, and nowadays he is a full time creative.
