RFWellness loves that Basalt, Colorado is planning an Edible Forest!
Community gardens dole out small plots of land and encourage people with limited access to fresh produce to grow their own. Now, there’s a new twist on that model springing up across the country: edible food forests.
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| Stephanie
Syson of the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute looks at plans for a
proposed food forest in Basalt, Colo. (Luke Runyon/Harvest Public Media) |
It’s like a community garden on steroids. The concept is pretty simple: planners recreate a forest ecosystem with edible plants and trees in a public space. Then, in a deviation from most community garden models, they open it up and allow people to forage for food for free.
“It is a forest. It is a park. But it’s all edible, so the whole community can come in and sit under the apple tree and eat from the apple tree,” said Stephanie Syson, manager at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI).
There are only a few food forests already up and running in the country, with the highest profile projects in Seattle, Wash. and Western Massachusetts. Planners of a new food forest in the tiny mountain town of Basalt, Colo., are experimenting with the concept now, trying to figure out how to make a publicly-owned food project work.
Basalt’s food forest is the brainchild of Syson, a plant expert at CRMPI, and the town’s Parks Department staff. Both groups will pay for and maintain the forest, at least until it’s up and running and volunteers start lining up for shifts.
Planted on a half-acre plot on the town’s Ponderosa Park, the forest will mimic a forest ecosystem, with fruit and nut trees, mushrooms, native edibles, a compost pile and a seed-saving garden, meant to stock the public library’s seed lending program.
Basalt serves as a small bedroom community for the affluent ski resort in nearby Aspen. The town’s horticulturalist Lisa DiNardo says she hopes the food forest can serve as common ground within the community.
“This is where we need to go,” DiNardo said. “This is one way to build bridges in communities is through a food network, a healthy food network.”
That robust network plays into the food forest’s location, within walking distance to the town’s elementary, middle and high schools, and across the street from a predominantly Latino trailer park community.
DiNardo says up in the mountains, food security is a huge issue, and that has people thinking about what they eat.
A couple years ago, a blizzard, and subsequent avalanches, cut off road travel. Produce trucks couldn’t make it into the isolated mountain towns in this small valley of less than 50,000 residents.
“There was a big storm. I went into City Market and literally the shelves were empty,” DiNardo said. “And I think that was an impetus for growers to really start thinking about it, you know, ‘What can we do locally to bridge the gap?”
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