Location is at Lawcon Park to scope out possible site
The next meeting of those interested in pursing a Lawcon Park Food Forest will be this Thursday, July 17, beginning at 7 p.m., at the Lawcon Park Shelterhouse. The meeting location will held at the park in order to scope out a possible site. Any interested persons are invited to attend. In addition, invitations will be extended to members of the Mountain Lake City Council, Tree Commission and possible the Lake Commission. By the time of this meeting, Harder proposes to have results from soil tests.
Also on the docket will be a discussion on “place” and “space” and what to plant, as far as specific species of plants. Research will be done via the permacultue plant database and the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s plant identification information. What will be looked at are plant communities that work well together; that can cohabitate in the Minnesota climate.
Aerial photos of Mountain Lake, note Lawcon Park at the body of water’s southeast corner, as well as the possible forest garden site at the northwest corner of the park.
“The plan,” relayed Harder, “is to start small and work up. The site being looked at has a lot of good things going for it, including that it is easily accessible.”
In addition to collecting and assessing soil samples from the area under consideration, a check on any buried utilities in the area and water run-off considerations into a drainage ditch to the west of the site will be discussed.
Food forest gardens are new to the United States. A food forest is based on an ecological model of an actual forest and features many plant layers as well.
* The upper layer is composed of canopy trees. Trees are planted that will grow large and provide fruit or nut produce, or something else for human use. These could apple or pear fruit trees or walnut trees. Perhaps even hybrid chestnut or hazelnut trees.
* The next layer is a variety of fruit trees; apple, plum, etc.
* Then there are the vines – like grapes – that would climb the trunks of the medium trees.
*Below the fruit trees would be edible shrubs, most notably berry shrubs, such as red and black currants, raspberries, gooseberries, chokecherries, seaberries, cranberries, strawberries. Selections would be made on the hardiness, the ruggedness of the variety, in order to weather Minnesota climate patterns.
* These are followed by grasses, or even flowering plants that could be herbal in nature or provide sources for pollinators, such as honey bees or maybe wild asparagus.
* The lowest level would be fungi. This is where you find edible mushrooms, such as shiitake mushrooms.
