Seattle’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.
YES OMG PERMACULTURE ROCKS
This is way past due. Glad someone finally did it.
“Honey can you go for a walk in the forest later? We’re out of mint again!” Seriously though I would love this in my home city.
seriously seattle is the right place to do this. the invasive weed is blackberries. i could pick six different species of edible mushrooms (and one hallucinogenic) within a hundred yards of my lab.
For a while I was guerrilla gardening with edibles. That included two pear trees. One is still there.
