Beacon Food Forest is a 7-acre food forest in development adjacent to Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

in the vicinity of 15th Avenue South and South Dakota Street. As the area sits on land owned by Seattle Public Utilities, it is believed to be the largest food forest on

public land In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land (Australia, and Canada). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countrie ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The distinction of largest edible park on public land in the US may belong to Incredible Edible Park in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 197 ...

. The project also has more traditional private allotments, similar to those in other local

P-Patch A P-Patch is a parcel of property used for gardening; the term is specific to Seattle, Washington. The "P" originally stood for "Picardo", after the family who owned Picardo Farm in Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood, part of which became the ori ...

gardens.

Background

In 2009, an early version of the project, then known as Jefferson Park Food Forest, was presented at OmCulture in

Wallingford, Seattle Wallingford (also known as North Lake Union by Seattle OGs in the know) is a neighborhood in north central Seattle, lying on a hill above the north shore of Lake Union about four miles from the downtown core. The neighborhood developed quickly d ...

by a design team of four students as a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) final project. The initiative was led by Jacqueline Cramer, a Seattle landscape designer and activist, and Glenn Herlihy, a member of the Jefferson Park Alliance, who was already involved in the community design and outreach process involved with the $8 million Pro-Parks Levy for the reconstruction of Jefferson Park. That course was primarily taught by Marisha Auerbach, Kelda Miller and Jenny Pell with several prominent guest speakers from the local permaculture and raw vegan community. Classes were held at the Raw Vegan Source/New Earth Permaculture Farm in Redmond, at Seattle Tilth at the Home of the Good Shepherd as well as other workshop locations in 2009. Shortly thereafter, the project gained support by the Jefferson Park Alliance and moved toward its planning and development phase. Heidi Cramer, and Daniel Lorenz Johnson, were also members of the original PDC class design team,The fourth member of that PDC class final project, who, among other things, focused her attention on designing interactive, recreational and educational elements for children, no longer participated in the project beyond the class presentation and wished to remain anonymous. A new group, named Friends of Beacon Food Forest,The group changed its name most likely because the Food Forest was not technically on Jefferson Park property. emerged in 2011 during the public outreach phase of the project.

Government process

In 2010, a $20,000

City of Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of N ...

Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF) grant was provided to hire a design team to come up with a design based on input from three public design workshops. In December 2011 the project received $100,000 from the Department of Neighborhoods to begin phase one of the food forest plan.That money was provided to Department of Neighborhoods by

Seattle Parks and Recreation Seattle Parks and Recreation (officially the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)) is the government department responsible for maintaining the parks, open spaces, and community centers of the city of Seattle, Washington. The department mainta ...

Parks and Green Spaces Levy to be used towards community gardens in Seattle.

Outreach

The group began an extensive outreach campaign to garner support from the community and the City of Seattle. The effort was relatively successful, garnering significant responses from local permaculturalists as well as others involved in community gardener and ecologically conscious groups.

Publicity

The project was covered by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

and had a significant place in the monologue of ''

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Scottish actor and comedian Craig Ferguson. This was the third iteration of the ''Late Late Show'' franchise, airing from January 3, 2005, to December 19, 2 ...

'', who joked that "in downtown LA they are talking about building a forest like this one in Seattle but instead of looking for

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, rasp ...

its kinda like a

petting zoo A petting zoo (also called a children's zoo, children's farm, or petting farm) features a combination of domesticated animals and some wild species that are docile enough to touch and feed. In addition to independent petting zoos, many genera ...

, you get to hand feed Kardashians".

Notes

References

External links

Beacon Food Forest

Beacon Food Forest site

** ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120727120016/http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/ppatch/locations/documents/fullsiteplanFINAL_000.pdf Beacon Food Forest Schematic Site Planbr>Seattle Parks and Recreation: Beacon Food Forest Project InformationFacebook: Beacon Food Forest PageBeacon Food Forest on Vimeo

Neighborhood

Jefferson Park

Jefferson Park Alliance
- neighborhood advocates for the park

Collaborative partners

Margarett Harrison
(see he
Beacon Food Forest project page
an
Jenny PellSeattle Department of NeighborhoodsSeattle Permaculture Guild
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