A forest close to a big city where you would be free to go and pick fruit, vegetables, and herbs? Where there are no club fees or special initiation procedures?Sounds like an imaginary place, or at least not a place that you would find in Seattle city limits, right? Seattle will be the first to partake in the innovative concept of a "food forest."
"A seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood will be planted with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into the city’s first food forest." -Take Part
By extreme community outreach, Friends of the Food Forest will be able to make this dream soon become a reality. They have been able to reach out to the community, to get people involved in the planning, and make sure that things go as planned.
But what exactly is a food forest?
"A food forest is a gardening technique or land management system that mimics a woodland ecosystem but substitutes in edible trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. Fruit and nut trees are the upper level, while below are berry shrubs, edible perennials and annuals. Companions or beneficial plants are included to attract insects for natural pest management while some plants are soil amenders providing nitrogen and mulch. Together they create relationships to form a forest ecosystem able to produce high yields of food with less maintenance."- Beacon Food Forest
For anyone interested in learning more or finding out ways that they can be involved in the first Food Forest of it's kind, click here to visit their website.
Alica Ryan, NTP
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