Food Forest
Home to educational opportunities, perennial edible plants, pollinators, and undisturbed soil.
In 2015, we planted the first seeds of the Alan Day Community Garden (ADCG) Food Forest. In collaboration with the Center for an Ecology-Based Economy (CEBE) and with support from Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare and Maine Today Media, we created a perennial polyculture that today is home to bees, apples, pears, raspberries, hazelnuts, peaches, plums, blackberries, kiwi berries and more. Visitors are welcome in the Food Forest every day from sunrise to sunset.
Want to learn more? Check out our social media for upcoming workshops and volunteer opportunities in the Food Forest.
Peach harvest from a bumper year.
We are thrilled to partner with ReTreeUS to offer hands-on educational opportunities in the Food Forest. Each spring and fall, experts from ReTreeUS and other nearby orchards, apiaries, and fungi farms lead free workshops covering topics ranging from edible perennial shrubs and beekeeping, to cultivating mushrooms and fruit tree grafting and pruning. Participants build the skills necessary to plant and tend Food Forests at their own homes. Check out our Events & Workshops page for upcoming workshops in the Food Forest.
What is a food forest?
Forest Gardening in our northern temperate zone is a burgeoning field with many recent books and workshops being held throughout the region, especially in permaculture circles, but, with the exception of the ADCG Food Forest, few public examples exist in our area. Also known as edible forest gardens, or perennial polycultures, food forests contain a diverse mix of perennial plants, from edible fungi and herbaceous ground covers, to perennial vegetables and fruit and nut bearing vines, shrubs, and trees. By emulating natural ecosystems, forest gardening creates guilds of plants that ideally work together to maximize the productivity of the edible landscape, while reducing the need for annual labor and material inputs.
What is a perennial polyculture?
An agricultural ecosystem where many types of plants are grown together in undisturbed soil. This type of system benefits plants, insects, soil, humans, water, and whole-ecosystem health!