Plant Food For Life

Attention Food For Life Planters!

Since every region has a unique climate and soil conditions, it is best to check with local experts for advice on what varieties and methods are best utilized at your planting site. Your first step might be to obtain a sense of what hardiness zone you are located in order to compare that with the growing recommendations listed on the tree you are purchasing. If you are just learning the basics of Food For Life planting, there are many published guides available online, including this one, which was tailored for northern climates but contains valuable general concepts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, your local state extension agent should have excellent advice on local conditions, based on years of collected data and experience. A good resource to find your local agent can be found here.

Eventually, FFLPF plans to build its on-line resources to include a library of planting tips and a “Food-of-the-Month” feature—so please check back! Until then, in order to achieve the most benefit for communities, we are focusing our resources on critical program areas.

Attention Experienced Food For Life Planters!

If you’ve already planted trees or edible food as a Food For Life Planting Foundation volunteer, please email the details of your plantings to info@FFLPF.org, including number of trees or plants, species, date, and exact location so we can add your wonderful efforts to our database. If you send us digital photos of trees you’ve planted, we may feature them on our website in the future. Also, if you are an experienced planter and would like to share your knowledge or volunteer to help, please contact us!

What the Zone Map Can Tell You

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map can tell you the "average" minimum temperatures in your zone. This date has been acquired from years of weather records and is particularly useful for planting trees, shrubs and perennial plants. When a plant has been labeled for zone 5, for example, it means it has adapted well to withstand the minimum average temperature (-20°F) in zone 5. This does not necessarily mean that if you live in warmer zone 9, that you are automatically safe to grow to grow this same plant. There is no doubt that the same plant will survive zone 9's lowest average annual temperature, but mere survival does not guarantee good performance. Instead, the warm temperatures and humidity of zone 9 that prove fatal.

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Guide