Food Forest

Few of us are in a position to restore the forests… But tens of millions of us have gardens, or access to open spaces such as industrial wastelands, where trees can be planted… and if full advantage can be taken of the potentialities that are available even in heavily built up areas, new ‘city forests’ can arise.

Robert A. de J.Hart
a mature forest garden in the UK illustrates the possibilities of forest gardening to ensure food security, heal the land and tackle our climate emergency

The City of Kingston has approved the idea of cultivating an edible food forest at Lakeside. After a community visioning session, a small team put together a three phase proposal for the edible forest.

Orchard planting method based on Sefan Sobkowiak’s permaculture orchard at Miracle Farms
  • Phase 1: Permaculture fruit orchard in northwest corner with apples, pears, sour cherries, plums and much more. Welcome garden on the south west corner (further detailing of the Phase 1 plan)
  • Phase 2: Edible hedgerow to shelter Lakeside from wind, provide privacy, serve as a wildlife corridor offering habitat for pollinators, birds and other wildlife
  • Phase 3: Edible Tiny Nut Forest based on the Miyawaki Method of rapid native forest regeneration in the southwest corner or alternatively expand the permaculture orchard (the City may offer us another site for a Tiny Nut Forest due to challenges of obtaining a long term lease at Lakeside)

If you have any feedback on the proposal or want to get involved, email Joyce Hostyn at lakesidefoodforest@gmail.com.

How to build a food forest

As we build our food forest, we’ll be creating a series of guides to capture the methods that we’ll be using. We’ll also be offering workshops on these topics:

Stewarding our food forest

Learning how to steward our food forest will be a learning journey. Here are our current thoughts on how we might steward our food forest. We’ll adjust based on feedback from our plants.

Supporters

Thank you to our supporters:

  • Burt’s Greenhouses for strawberries and herbs
  • Canadian Tire for 10 fruit trees and 30 berry bushes
  • City of Kingston
  • Riley’s Garden Centre for two grape vines and a gooseberry
  • Rideau 1000 Islands Master Gardeners for 11 apple trees
  • Ontario Hydro for keeping us supplied with soil healing wood chips

Please support the Lakeside Food Forest by getting involved, donating or spreading the word.