5th Annual Perennial Plant Sale! Affordable native fruit and nut trees/bushes that support public plantings!
Growing the commons and community!
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Help Yourself!, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) for benefit organization that plants orchards and gardens in public places in Western Massachusetts, producing food free for anyone to harvest. Maintained by volunteer stewards and community members, our garden ecosystems focus on tree crops and companion herbs and flowers. We work to ignite interest and inspire excitement about perennial agriculture, food access and land use, strengthening bonds between communities and the land we are all part of.
We transform ignored, unused spaces into delicious, nutritious, and abundant forest gardens! Hardy, native fruit and nut trees and bushes replace grass and gravel. Our projects create opportunities to meaningfully connect and interact with the commons we share, our workshops empower folks with practical knowledge, and volunteering brings the community together to restore abundance to the land. |
Sponsor a public access, long lived, abundantly yielding fruit tree today!
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Public access gardens & orchards:
Our projects focus on Northampton, Holyoke and Greenfield and other communities around the Pioneer Valley. We plant at public schools, community gardens, community centers and organizations, parking lots, bike paths, businesses' and home-owners lawns, parks and conservation land.
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Getting involved:
Help Yourself is entirely volunteer and donation funded. There are many ways to support our work and to volunteer: donate funds, help during site prep and planting days, finding new places to plant, fund-raising, becoming a tree steward, starting a nursery for baby fruit trees in your yard, and leading plant walks for the community.
- Join our mailing list for monthly updates and announcements, the list-serve for discussion and visit the volunteer and donating pages
Featured projects:
The Manhan Rail Trail and Nagle Walkway, Northampton:
In 2012, we began a planting project to transform the Rail Trail bike path with fruit trees and grape vines, free for bike commuters and pedestrians to harvest from. So far, we've put in 175 Concord grapes, roses, berry bushes, and a dozen fruit trees, stretching almost a mile from Pleasant st. to Veteran's Field. In the Maplewood shops parking lot, we carved out 'Frogtown', turning a bare grass and gravel series of traffic islands into 'no-mow' areas for pollinator habitat and PYO culinary herbs, fruit trees, benches, and a mural.
In 2012, we began a planting project to transform the Rail Trail bike path with fruit trees and grape vines, free for bike commuters and pedestrians to harvest from. So far, we've put in 175 Concord grapes, roses, berry bushes, and a dozen fruit trees, stretching almost a mile from Pleasant st. to Veteran's Field. In the Maplewood shops parking lot, we carved out 'Frogtown', turning a bare grass and gravel series of traffic islands into 'no-mow' areas for pollinator habitat and PYO culinary herbs, fruit trees, benches, and a mural.
Hampshire Council of Governments - Courthouse lawn, Northampton
At the intersection of King and Main St, on Northampton's 'front yard', keep your eyes peeled for a 400 foot perimeter hedgerow of flowering native berry bushes including juneberry, black aronia and honeyberry, forest floor wildflowers and herbs sprawling beneath existing shade trees and around the building itself, and Asian pears in sunnier patches.
Mini-orchards at Public K-12 Schools:
We've planted more than 100 fruit trees180+ bushes and vines with students at 20 different public K-12 schools in 3 counties in the Valley, with herbs and flowers beneath them. These mini forest gardens offer hands-on outdoors educational opportunities for students, creating conditions where teachers and volunteers are supported in bringing permaculture to the classroom, and create connections between human communities of learning and the land.
We've planted more than 100 fruit trees180+ bushes and vines with students at 20 different public K-12 schools in 3 counties in the Valley, with herbs and flowers beneath them. These mini forest gardens offer hands-on outdoors educational opportunities for students, creating conditions where teachers and volunteers are supported in bringing permaculture to the classroom, and create connections between human communities of learning and the land.
Free food in public spaces! Imagine:
- Free to use and harvest raised vegetable beds and planters around towns
- Beans, grapes, roses and kiwis climbing along fences and railings
- Edible hedges of plums, juneberries, blueberries and hazels along sidewalks
- Fruit and nut trees that shower communities with edible wealth for generations
- Mini wildflower meadows attract pollinators, pest predators, and eliminate mowing
- Abundant herb gardens offer free and effective medicine for those in need
- Informative signage and volunteer led plant walks orient us to the land, describe what can be harvested and used, and create conversations about shared land use.
- What if whole communities got behind such effort, and began to seriously tackle issues of food accessibility and security?
- How would this transform the landscapes - our human habitat, and our relationship to it, our communities, and ourselves?
