Look up "food forest" while you're at it. A successful food forest is balanced and requires no maintenance, but you get fresh edible food just for the effort of walking in and picking it.

Thanks. I did come across the term "food forest" a few years ago, had read some articles and saw some pictures of them. Very interesting. It definitely works. Also there is precedent for it.

In some articles, Wikipedia or other, about the term, I saw that traditional gardens in places such as Kerala (India), North-Eastern states of India (like Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, etc. - which have climate partly like Kerala, in the sense of getting a lot of rain), and probably places in other countries, like maybe Thailand, Philippines, etc, are basically like food forests, or rather, food forests are like them (since they came earlier). For example, in home gardens, as they are called in Kerala, common plants grown in the same area (polyculture), often just part of and outside some person's home, include species like banana, coconut, jackfruit (all three are medium to big trees, although banana is more like a herb) (also all three being wonder trees in the sense of having many uses), spices like cardamom, pepper, clove, various edible greens, herbs and spices like turmeric, coriander, cumin, onion, garlic, etc. All growing together in natural symbiosis and helping each other.

>requires no maintenance,

A bit of a nitpick, but they do require maintenance. It is not a closed loop. Since we keep harvesting stuff, nutrients decrease, so we have to add inputs too, like organic manure, compost, etc. Can't keep taking without giving back.