The guild layout · 5 m × 5 m, Philippines
No guesswork and no wasted seedlings: exact distances from the centre trunk to the outer border, layer by layer, in three affordable phases. Working with less space or more? The sizing matrix rescales the same guild to any footprint, from a patio of pots to a barangay lot.
The master layout
Think of the plot as a grid built outward from one trunk. Everything else is measured from that single point.
The rule
A 5 m × 5 m plot supports exactly one tree. Everything else is shrub, vine, ground cover or root. Moringa still belongs in the plot, but as a coppiced leaf shrub topped at 2 m — not as a second tree. If you want jackfruit and noni and calamansi, plant separate plots rather than crowding one.
Outer border: Lemongrass · Chilis · Basils · Culantro · Mint · Oregano
Your one tree
Center · 0 m
Black Pepper
0.3 m · on trunk
Winged Bean
0.3 m · on trunk
Moringa
1.5 m · coppiced 2 m
Gotu Kola
2.5 m · south shade
Pigeon Pea
2.0 m · east
Pigeon Pea
2.0 m · west
Ginger · Turmeric
2.5 m · shade
Galangal
2.5 m · shade
Winter Melon
Open floor · west
Purple Kamote
Open floor · east/south
Exactly one tree on a raised mound — jackfruit, moringa, noni, papaya, calamansi or guava — with Black Pepper and Winged Bean climbing it.
Moringa north as a coppiced 2 m leaf shrub, with Pigeon Peas spaced evenly around the ring.
Ginger, Turmeric, Galangal and Gotu Kola in the dappled shade.
Lemongrass, Chilis, Basils, Culantro, Mint and Oregano as a living pest barrier.
Winter Melon crawls west; Purple Sweet Potato carpets east and south.
Measurements
Measure with a string tied to the trunk — swing it around like a compass to mark each ring.
Plot variations
The skeleton never changes: one tree, one nitrogen fixer, roots in the shade, a herb border and a carpeted floor. What changes is the tree in the center and what the plot is for. Run three to five of these plots, one or two trees each, and you have variety without crowding a single square.
One tree: Jackfruit · Avocado · Papaya · Banana
Household calories and fresh fruit — the plot that fills the plate first.
One tree: Noni · Guyabano
Teas, juices and poultices — the plot the neighbourhood comes to when someone is sick.
One tree: Calamansi · Dwarf Cacao · Coffee
The kitchen staples you would otherwise buy every week.
One tree in the center. At least one nitrogen fixer in the mid-ring. Moringa as a coppiced 2 m leaf shrub. Ginger, turmeric and galangal in the shade. A herb and lemongrass border. A carpeted floor of kamote or winter melon so soil is never bare.
Why more plots beats more trees
When neighbours run different variations instead of all planting the same thing, the barangay ends up with fruit, medicine and kitchen staples between them — and plenty to swap. Whatever you cannot eat fresh gets dried, fermented or jarred.
See how the harvest is usedStep by step
Each phase waits for the last one to establish, so young plants always get the light or shade they need.
Pull up weeds and grasses across the whole 5 m × 5 m square.
Dig a hole in the exact center, 50 cm wide and 50 cm deep — this is the home of your one tree. Mix the dug-out soil 50/50 with compost or aged carabao/chicken manure and form a slight hill. The mound stops water from pooling around the main trunk during typhoons.
Where the Purple Sweet Potato (Imo) will crawl, pile loose soil into long raised ridges about 30 cm high. Sweet potatoes need loose, fluffy soil to expand their purple tubers.
These plants need full sun and start building shade and nitrogen immediately.
Gently remove the chosen sapling from its plastic pot and plant it in the center mound. Match the soil line to the pot line, then water deeply. In the worked example this was a grafted jackfruit; a papaya, calamansi, guava or noni goes in exactly the same way.
Plant 3 seeds together about 2 cm deep. Once they reach hand height, keep only the strongest seedling — then top it at 2 m and keep it cut back so it stays a leaf shrub, not a second tree. Skip this step if moringa is already your one tree in the center.
Plant seeds 3 cm deep, spaced every 1 meter around the mid-ring.
Soak the seeds overnight, then plant 4 around the base of your tree. They will sprout and find the trunk to climb on their own.
Start these in seed trays with potting mix. Keep them moist in partial shade for 2 weeks, until they have 4 true leaves.
Plant once your Phase 1 anchors are established.
Use 20–30 cm vine cuttings. Strip the leaves off the bottom half and bury the bare stem horizontally in the raised mounds, leaving the top 3–4 leaves above the soil. Space cuttings 40 cm apart and water daily until they stand upright.
Transplant the seed-tray saplings to the open floor with room for the vines to spread outward.
Plant clumps every 1 meter along the sunny outer edge to form a pest barrier.
Wait until your tree and the moringa shrub have leafed out and created dappled shade.
Noni is a small tree, so it belongs in the center of its own plot rather than squeezed into a plot that already has a tree. In the medicine plot variation, plant the noni sapling on the center mound in Phase 1 instead.
Dig shallow trenches 10 cm deep in the shaded zones. Lay fresh market root pieces flat with the green eyes or buds pointing up, then cover with soil and a thick layer of dried-leaf mulch.
Plant Holy Basil, Thai Basil, Oregano and Mint along the semi-shaded borders. Mint prefers the wettest corner of the plot.
Plant the rooted cutting 30 cm from the trunk, opposite the Winged Bean. Tie the vine gently to the bark with soft string until it grips on its own.
Soil building
Heavy clay, hard sun and hammering rain are the real obstacles — not the plants. Build the soil first and the guild looks after itself.
Why it works: It traps maximum moisture underneath, cools the earth, and rots down into rich black topsoil within 2 to 3 months.
Why it works: Regular compost burns up in months under the Philippine sun. Biochar behaves like a permanent coral reef underground — its microscopic pores stay for centuries, housing microbes and holding nutrients so heavy rains cannot wash them away.
Why it works: The dropped leaves blanket and cool the soil while earthworms and microbes break them into rich humus right at the root zone.
Why it works: CRH acts like tiny volcanic rocks: it shatters heavy clay, creates permanent air pockets so roots can breathe, raises soil pH, and adds vital silica that makes crops more pest-resistant.
Why it works: The living carpet is a natural sunshield. It drops soil temperature several degrees, stops the ground baking into hard brick, and keeps raindrops from hammering and compacting the structure.
Mix this once when you build a mound and the plot starts ahead instead of behind.
Your existing backyard dirt.
For immediate microbial life.
For structural drainage and moisture retention.
For a permanent nutrient anchor.
Cheat sheet
Three habits keep the whole system feeding itself.
Water everything daily through the dry season (tag-araw). In the rainy season (tag-ulan) let nature do the work — just make sure water drains away and never puddles.
When the Pigeon Peas grow tall and bushy, chop off half their green branches with an itak and drop the leaves onto the soil around the Turmeric and Ginger. They rot down into free, automatic nitrogen fertilizer.
Once the Moringa reaches 2 m, pinch or cut off the main top branch, and keep doing it. This is what keeps it a shrub instead of a second tree: it grows wide and bushy, the superfood leaves stay within arm's reach, and your one canopy tree keeps its light.
Scaling up
One guild is the unit. Everything larger is the same circle repeated, so nothing new has to be learned to grow more.
4–9 sqm
Moringa or dwarf papaya over chilli, lemongrass, ginger and turmeric — a supplement to the table.
25 sqm
The worked example on this page: one tree, five layers, enough variety to cook from every week.
50–100 sqm
Most of a four-person household's vegetables, herbs and fruit, plus a weekly surplus.
1 acre
The full build plan: circles, walkways, water, trees, garden and product volume for the two lines.
Three rules never change at any size: at least one canopy plant, at least one nitrogen fixer, and ground never left bare.
See the one-acre build plan