I like this food forest idea.
Discussion
The design of my food forest uses 3 swales planted with fruit/nut crops along with perennial berries and vegetables. Each plant was selected to fill a niche but also offer some sort for food yeild as well. Once established very few other plants should have room to grow. Instead of weeding, I will be managing the perennials and harvesting. While the perennials establish, I am taking advantage of the light between the rows to grow subsistence crops like potatoes, squash and garlic. When I grow the annuals, I bring fertility into the food forest. When the canopy closes and there isn't enough light to grow the subsistence crops any more, I will have built soil to feed the fruit trees for a long time. There's more to it, but that's the high level concept of my food forest design.
We have some clay soil here. We fought it for a while until I learned to leverage species that prefer the environment to improve and utilize the soil. I believe the next step is to integrate meaningful food crops into the established flora web, a food forest. It’s brilliant. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Exactly forests grow through a process of succession so there are phases with different plants that create the proper environment for the next phase of plants and development to take place. It all depends on the specifics of the situation of course.