Urban Food Forest

Seattle's First Urban Food Forest Will Be Open To Foragers

by KRISTOFOR HUSTED

Designers of a food forest in Seattle want to make blueberry picking a neighborly activity.

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If you're a regular reader of The Salt, you've probably noticed our interest in foraging. From San Francisco to Maryland, we've met wild food experts, nature guides and chefs passionate about picking foods growing in their backyards.

Now, Washington state has jumped on the foraging bandwagon with plans to develop a 7-acre public plot into a food forest. The kicker? The lot sits smack in the middle of Seattle.

The idea is to give members of the working-class neighborhood of Beacon Hill the chance to pick plants scattered throughout the park – dubbed the Beacon Food Forest. It will feature fruit-bearing perennials — apples, pears, plums, grapes, blueberries, raspberries and more.

Herlihy and a team first assembled their vision of a food forest in 2009 as a final project for apermaculture design class.

If all goes well in the food forest's 2-acre trial plot, the whole 7-acre park will look something like this.

Courtesy of Glenn HerlihyClick to read the article
Thanks to Leigh Ann Masen for telling us about this interesting project.