United States' first food forest to be built in Seattle

Started by merithyn, April 04, 2013, 09:50:22 AM

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merithyn

I would love to do this here in Champaign/Urbana. I think it's a brilliant plan.

Article

QuoteSeattle's vision of an urban food oasis is going forward. 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.

"This is totally innovative, and has never been done before in a public park," Margarett Harrison, lead landscape architect for the Beacon Food Forest project, tells TakePart. Harrison is working on construction and permit drawings now and expects to break ground this summer.

The concept of a food forest certainly pushes the envelope on urban agriculture and is grounded in the concept of permaculture, which means it will be perennial and self-sustaining, like a forest is in the wild. Not only is this forest Seattle's first large-scale permaculture project, but it's also believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

"The concept means we consider the soils, companion plants, insects, bugs—everything will be mutually beneficial to each other," says Harrison.

That the plan came together at all is remarkable on its own. What started as a group project for a permaculture design course ended up as a textbook example of community outreach gone right.

"Friends of the Food Forest undertook heroic outreach efforts to secure neighborhood support. The team mailed over 6,000 postcards in five different languages, tabled at events and fairs, and posted fliers," writes Robert Mellinger for Crosscut.

Neighborhood input was so valued by the organizers, they even used translators to help Chinese residents have a voice in the planning.

So just who gets to harvest all that low-hanging fruit when the time comes?

"Anyone and everyone," says Harrison. "There was major discussion about it. People worried, 'What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?' That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we're successful."
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

Admiral Yi

A Seattle buddy of mine told me you can tell it's spring when all the long hairs crawl on their hand and knees in the public parks looking for magic mushrooms.

Sheilbh

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 04, 2013, 09:57:09 AM
A Seattle buddy of mine told me you can tell it's spring when all the long hairs crawl on their hand and knees in the public parks looking for magic mushrooms.
Sometimes I swear you're posting from the late 80s :P
Let's bomb Russia!

derspiess

I read recently where a lot of urban gardens produce food not safe to eat due to industrial waste still in the soil decades after nearby factories were torn down.

But if this thing works and they can justify the expense, great.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Malthus

I have my doubts as to its actual implementation. Caring for a wide variety of species in an urban environment takes a lot of ongoing work, which is very expensive in terms of labour, and I imagine an urban food source is going to be vulnerable to vandalism.

However, very interesting concept.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

crazy canuck

Quote from: Malthus on April 04, 2013, 11:11:26 AM
I have my doubts as to its actual implementation. Caring for a wide variety of species in an urban environment takes a lot of ongoing work, which is very expensive in terms of labour, and I imagine an urban food source is going to be vulnerable to vandalism.

However, very interesting concept.

Urban gardening on vacant lots or any spare space has a pretty long tradition here in Vancouver.  The evolution here is the size of the space.  I assume they will develop it organically....

Viking

Now we just need to wipe out all third world people and replace their countries with low yield food forests and we can feed all the (few remaining) members of humanity.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

11B4V

Well that will turn out be the new home to Nickelsville.
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

merithyn

Quote from: Malthus on April 04, 2013, 11:11:26 AM
I have my doubts as to its actual implementation. Caring for a wide variety of species in an urban environment takes a lot of ongoing work, which is very expensive in terms of labour, and I imagine an urban food source is going to be vulnerable to vandalism.

However, very interesting concept.

It's meant to be a permaculture forest, which means that it should require very little ongoing work compared to a typical field of veggies and fruits.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

DGuller

Quote from: merithyn on April 04, 2013, 09:50:22 AM
Quote
"Anyone and everyone," says Harrison. "There was major discussion about it. People worried, 'What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?' That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we're successful."
:rolleyes:

lustindarkness

Won't work, the hippies don't understand that my fellow spics will go and pick all the fruit and sell it. All of it.
Grand Duke of Lurkdom

garbon

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 04, 2013, 11:29:53 AM
Quote from: Malthus on April 04, 2013, 11:11:26 AM
I have my doubts as to its actual implementation. Caring for a wide variety of species in an urban environment takes a lot of ongoing work, which is very expensive in terms of labour, and I imagine an urban food source is going to be vulnerable to vandalism.

However, very interesting concept.

Urban gardening on vacant lots or any spare space has a pretty long tradition here in Vancouver.  The evolution here is the size of the space.  I assume they will develop it organically....

I don't know if these same as what you're talking about - but here in many cities there are urban community gardens - but I don't think the public can generally just come and take whatever produce there is growing. So that's what strikes me about the Seattle proposal which is very different from one city I know of down in the Desert that gets angry if people take the orange off their trees (even though they just let those oranges fall and rot).
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

DGuller

Quote from: lustindarkness on April 04, 2013, 12:24:12 PM
Won't work, the hippies don't understand that my fellow spics will go and pick all the fruit and sell it. All of it.
Yeah, this has tragedy of the commons written all over it.

merithyn

Quote from: garbon on April 04, 2013, 12:26:23 PM

I don't know if these same as what you're talking about - but here in many cities there are urban community gardens - but I don't think the public can generally just come and take whatever produce there is growing. So that's what strikes me about the Seattle proposal which is very different from one city I know of down in the Desert that gets angry if people take the orange off their trees (even though they just let those oranges fall and rot).

:yes:

I think that's the biggest difference. That and the fact that it's a permaculture, so it won't require the continual upkeep that most urban community gardens require. And there's no fee, again, something that happens with the urban community gardens that I'm aware of.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

crazy canuck

Quote from: merithyn on April 04, 2013, 12:30:52 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 04, 2013, 12:26:23 PM

I don't know if these same as what you're talking about - but here in many cities there are urban community gardens - but I don't think the public can generally just come and take whatever produce there is growing. So that's what strikes me about the Seattle proposal which is very different from one city I know of down in the Desert that gets angry if people take the orange off their trees (even though they just let those oranges fall and rot).

:yes:

I think that's the biggest difference. That and the fact that it's a permaculture, so it won't require the continual upkeep that most urban community gardens require. And there's no fee, again, something that happens with the urban community gardens that I'm aware of.

I am not sure what urban community gardens are where you live but here there is no fee and people pretty much do as they please.  The only difference between what they are going to do in Seattle and what already occurs here is the size of the space that is going to be provided.

It is, as Malthus said, an interesting concept.  I hope it works.

For it to work (and to avoid the tragedy of the commons) people will create and enforce their own norms about things like harvesting.  It works on a small scale here.  We will see how it works on a bigger scale.