Projects Overview:
From parks to schoolyards, parking lots to backyards, there is potential to grow our patchwork community orchard almost everywhere! Over the past decade years we've planted in more than 80 locations in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin Counties.
Bike paths & Rail Trails:
Nagle Walkway - Edible Corridor along the Manhan Rail Trail, Northampton
The Manhan Rail Trail connects Southampton, Easthampton, Hadley, Amherst, Northampton, Florence and Williamsburg. Imagine an edible corridor, connecting communities in the valley while inspiring creative, productive use of the commons.Our work centers on the Nagle Walkway, connecting the Round House parking lot, Conz st and Pleasant St: planting over 80 grape vines, 6 vegetable beds and a dozen fruit trees along this high-traffic pathway. Future work can extend the plantings and possible remediation to Union Station and beyond!
Norwottuck Rail Trail - Edible Corridor, Hadley
The Norwottuck Rail Trail connects Amherst and Hadley to the larger regional bike path system of Northampton and beyond. Imagine endless miles of fruit trees and community gardens, accessible by bike, linking a patchwork of biodiverse, resilient and vibrant communities! Our work along this section of the trail begins in Hadley at a number of business whose backyards abut the trail as a series of 'edible exits' - signs along the trail inviting bikers to stop at small forest gardens along the way. We're aiming to plant this summer at Tran's World Food Market and the Chinese Immersion Charter School, and would like to connect with Longhollow Bison Farm, Hadley Garden Ctr., and more. Does your backyard abut the bath? Get in touch!
Public Schools, Universities & Educational Programs:
Fruit trees & forest gardens at public schools throughout the valley
HYS donated and planted with students over 50 fruit trees to public K-12 schools across the valley this spring. Over time, we'll expand the understory plantings of herbs and flowers beneath them to form small forest gardens, offering hands on opportunities to teach permaculture, and of course, eating fruit! We're looking for volunteers from the permaculture community in these towns to connect with the schools to offer activities for students and teachers using these gardens as a platform.
Parks, Recreation Areas, Conservation and APR Land:
'Brookie' Gateway Park Project, Greenfield
Greenfield mayor Bill Martin is moving forward a plan to create four small parks in town, 'gateways' to downtown along major roads coming into town from the four directions. Greening Greenfield, a volunteer group, is working with local artists to cast a bronze animal sculpture for each park. The first park, featuring a large brook trout sculpture, is at the site of the old Food and Fuel gas station on 5&10 (Deerfield st.), where we've put in a pollinator habitat and native shrub hedgerow.
Home Lawns and Private Property:
Community Organizations & Non-profit Offices or Areas
Community Action:
Community Action!, a regional non-profit providing affordable educational programs, resources and nutritional assistance, operates a number of pre-schools and playgrounds in Franklin and Hampshire Counties. We'll be planting and doing designs for a number of locations this growing season, including the Vernon St. School in Northampton, the Washington St. nursery school in Greenfield, the PCDCs in Amherst and Turner's Falls. Next year, these plantings can be expanded into larger forest gardens, and we can begin plantings.
Public and City Institutions
Forbes Library, Northampton
The Forbes now boasts an edible shade garden in its back lawn - wild ginger, fiddleheads, juneberries, sweet woodruff, and shade tolerant veggies like lettuce, nasturtiums and chives. More to come!
Hampshire Council of Governments - Courthouse lawn, downtown Northampton
With encouragement and support from Todd Ford of the HCG, and local landscaping gurus, we're polishing our design this winter for the prominent, "front lawn of Northampton" - the Hamp. Cty Council of Governments 'Courthouse Lawn', with the goal of planting in Spring '14. We're envisioning a perimeter hedgerow of native berry bushes, forest floor wildflowers and herbs sprawling beneath existing shade trees and around the building itself, and a few fruit trees staking out the sunnier parts of the lawn for good measure.
Community Gardens, Farms, and Urban Ag Organizations:
Gardening the Community, Springfield
Partnering with local gardening and community organizations in the area helps us find more planting locations. Gardening the Community is a Springfield based organization that trains youth to grow fruits and veggies on a half dozen urban lots around the city, offering the produce at area farmer's markets. Help Yourself planted a number of fruit tree polycultures with the youth - apples, plums and currents - at the Hancock St. Garden. A plum nursery planted there will offer American plum trees to nearby community gardens as they mature. Overhang city sidewalks, the fruit will be available for the community to pick, and will support the capacity of the program to educate their staff about perennials, and supply fruit.
Fruit Trees & Pick-Your-Own Public Medicinal Herb Garden at the Florence Organic Community Garden
In September 2012, HYS donated a few dozen shrubs and trees sourced from nearby Tripple Brook Farm to the new 800' edible hedgerow at Florence Organic Community Garden. We planted native fruits like serviceberry and nannyberry (a native, banana-tasting fruit with medicinal bark) goji berry, and medicinals and wildlife food and habitat like witch hazel and pagoda dogwood.
In April, HYS donated and helped to plant six fruit trees in the small community picnic spaces around the garden. We put in a 'Green Gage', 'Stanley' and a native American plum, a 'Szukis' persimmon grafted at Tripple Brook, a 'Sunhaven' peach, and a 'Lapin' sweet cherry.
We also put in a 20x40' pick-your-own-medicine garden, where folks can harvest herbs, berries and plant divisions from along its spiraling path. We'll be working on expanding the plantings and informative signs over this growing season.Come harvest solomons seal, nettles, wetlands and rugosa rose, yarrow, black and 'John's' elderberry, comfrey, lemon balm, peppermint, grapefruit mint, oregano, walking onion, chives, bee balm, violet, horehound, catnip, sage, thyme, motherwort, boneset, pokeweed, mullein, milkweed, and more!
In April, HYS donated and helped to plant six fruit trees in the small community picnic spaces around the garden. We put in a 'Green Gage', 'Stanley' and a native American plum, a 'Szukis' persimmon grafted at Tripple Brook, a 'Sunhaven' peach, and a 'Lapin' sweet cherry.
We also put in a 20x40' pick-your-own-medicine garden, where folks can harvest herbs, berries and plant divisions from along its spiraling path. We'll be working on expanding the plantings and informative signs over this growing season.Come harvest solomons seal, nettles, wetlands and rugosa rose, yarrow, black and 'John's' elderberry, comfrey, lemon balm, peppermint, grapefruit mint, oregano, walking onion, chives, bee balm, violet, horehound, catnip, sage, thyme, motherwort, boneset, pokeweed, mullein, milkweed, and more!
Fruit trees at Just Root's Greenfield Community Farm
HYS donated a number of fruit and nut trees to the Greenfield Community Farm, a project of the Just Roots organization, home to summer programs, educational walks and workshops, demonstration gardens, community medicine gardens, farm festivals and more.
City / Town Managed Land - Parking lots, traffic islands
Mini forest gardens and raised beds in Ward 3, Northampton
We've identified more than 100 areas around town that are either eroded or planted with grass and mowed at the expense of the city government or local businesses. Help us plant them all with fruit trees, bushes, raised beds, herb gardens and wildflower / covercrop patches which eliminate the burden of mowing. "Cookie-cutter" polycultures and guilds demonstrate plantings that would do well in a city setting, and would be replicable elsewhere. Cooperating business include Community Enterprises, the World War II Club, the Law Offices of Walter Bak, and the Northampton Mini Mart.
Public Housing Authority / Affordable Housing Areas
Northampton Housing Authority - Fruit Trees at Cahill Apts.
With support from John Hite, director of the Northampton Housing Authority, we began planting a number of fruit trees at Cahill Apts on Fruit St, Northampton, to be expanded over time into larger forest gardens. We'll be working with tenants and volunteers already involved in plantings there to create a thoughtful, beautiful and productive forest garden design. There are around a dozen affordable housing developments in Northampton alone!