About

The Cards...

Each deck contains 66 cards, some of which appear more than once in the deck. Each card represents a plant, insect, structure or natural disaster that might occur in your food forest. Below is a sampling of the cards you will find in each deck. Click here to see some examples from the Food Forest deck. 

Beyond linear gardening…
Food Forest card games move you beyond the garden row, into the web of relationships connecting plants, insects, animals and people. With these cards you will play fun, challenging games based on these relationships, matching the inputs on one card to outputs from another. One card produces nitrogen, while another is a high nitrogen consumer; one card needs a trellis while another card can act as one. By matching these relationships, players discover how to use the complex web of nature to their advantage, both in the game and in the garden. Get yours right here!

Fun games, infinite outcomes…
The Food Forest cards have been described as a “combinatorial explosion”. While many of the games you can play with the cards are fairly simple to learn, the possible combinations of cards are so complex that even the fastest computers would require an intolerable amount of time to examine them all. We are always designing new games for the cards, and each one teaches the limitless possibilities of regenerative gardening.

Imagine food everywhere!
If you are planning your food forest, these cards can help you to brainstorm locations, sun requirements, and possible guilds that you can create in real life. In addition to inputs and outputs, each card shows suggested Permaculture zones, sun requirements, forest layer information and a helpful description of the item represented. From roots and fungus to the forest canopy, you’ll be playing with real information that can translate into better food forests.

Responsibly made, locally manufactured…
The Food Forest card game is printed at Omnicolor Printing in Rhode Island, USA, a small, environmentally sensitive printer. Our materials are responsibly sourced and every deck sold from this website pays for planting trees through the Eden Projects – not just offsetting our impact, but honestly improving the environment and rebuilding communities. Funds raised from the sale of these cards also help to support environmental education programs with resources developed, and shared, by Food Forest Card Game creator, Karl Treen. As a volunteer environmental educator, and the founder of Permaculture Providence, Karl works with school children and adults in Southern New England, teaching them the principles of urban Permaculture, regenerative backyard gardening, and reforestation.