Seattle to Build Nation's First Food Forest :-)

http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/02/21/its-not-fairytale-seattle-build-nations-first-food-forest
Thought I would share!

It is a good location for such a project. There are a lot of 'working poor', and housing projects in the area. It should benefit those who need it the most.

For such a yuppified city, Seattle will occasionally surprise you with a project such as this.

I love this idea.

That is just really awesome! I'll be watching the progress.

Actually Beacon Hill is just the biggest and most publicized. A bunch of smaller neighborhood groups have sprung up to take care of existing abandoned fruit trees within the city, or create new orchards in parks and under-utilized public spaces.

although they were destroyed when we had our housefire and stuff had to be bulldozed down for two houses..we had food forests here back in the 1990's ..that were full grown and bearing..so I doubt that Seattle has the FIRST in the Nation food forest..

ours are starting over..but they are beginning to produce again..in the new place we planted them..but they are here and growing..and I never would claim first in the nation here..but we have food forests here..small yet..but nevertheless..sorry Seattle..don't mean to burst your bubble

OK, so clearly this is not the First in the Nation. So let's talk about what Seattleites can learn from the previous projects. There were some good questions regarding vandalism (intentional or because of ignorance), people taking more than their fair share, conducting education and outreach, etc.
What's worked well? What hasn't? I would love to learn and avoid some of the pitfalls.

The claim to be first was qualified in the article: It was the first/largest to be done with city money, on city park land.
Hopefully, there will be many more.

Paul and Kelda review chapter 2 of Sepp Holzer's Permaculture in this podcast.

They talk about the prospective food forest in Seattle.

here's one in a city in California already built
pretty nice looking one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YHLmByKpts&feature=player_embedded

I think this is great. However, the big question for me is how this will work come harvest time. People are inherently selfish, and when the word 'free' appears they translate to mean its all mine and have no repsect for it and abuse the condition.

I know many 'poor' people and this is definitely their attitude. They will not, I mean not, pay for anything on the internet and in the real world steal things without any guilt. There is no generosity in attitude. I am poor myself and am not prejudice okay, just observant.

I predict once harvest time comes people will get in there, rape the plants and run off with the produce before others can get it. Some would even then try and sell it.

However, having said that, I once lived in Darwin northern Australia where mango trees liberally lined the streets and their was no such behaviour at all. Reasons possibly were there were so many it was impossible to do it. Also, the mangoes were stringy and low on flesh, not your steroid juicy variety you see in the shops, and thus not highly desirable. I also grew up where Macadamia trees grew kind of liberally and no such behaviour was encountered.

Philip Hyndman wrote:I think this is great. However, the big question for me is how this will work come harvest time. People are inherently selfish, and when the word 'free' appears they translate to mean its all mine and have no repsect for it and abuse the condition.

I know many 'poor' people and this is definitely their attitude. They will not, I mean not, pay for anything on the internet and in the real world steal things without any guilt. There is no generosity in attitude. I am poor myself and am not prejudice okay, just observant.

I predict once harvest time comes people will get in there, rape the plants and run off with the produce before others can get it. Some would even then try and sell it.

There's possibly nobody more deserving of this than the poor, many of whom live off of ramen noodles and mac&cheese mix to get by in a processed food world -- REAL food for free sounds like a double win!

I think it's a nice challenge to match greed with abundance, while winning the food battle!

Why I totally agree Eric. Still I think that challenge is real and shoudlnt be avoided in planning. I think abundance is the key. When there's so much available, greed tends to be naturally limited. If its the other way around, poeples behaviour gets a little odd.

Hope they can do it without spraying and poisoning people