![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_natureWe visited the Charleston Food Forest on Thursday, October 9. These pictures are from the front and right side. Continue with Part 2: Left Side, the Coles County Community Garden, and Seeds.
This is the entrance to the Charleston Food Forest.
This is the left front side. The fruit trees are still green, but many of the flowers have set seed and turned brown.
This is the right front side. The hardy kiwi and grape vines are still mostly green too.
The sign stands just inside the entrance.
Large lavender bushes flank the entry path. I picked some small branches for a friend. They are a bit challenging to break off; I really could've used scissors.
Hmm, maybe I should look for a small luggage bag at a thrift store, something with divided areas, and just make a pack of foraging supplies. Things to include:
* a spare trowel (I have one with a chipped point)
* spare pruning shears or scissors
* maybe gloves
* copious bags of different sizes
* pen
* paper or stick-on labels
This is probably frost aster, a weedy wildflower that attracts swarms of pollinators.
A buckeye butterfly feeds on frost aster. There were also yellow and white cabbage butterflies; I'm pretty sure I saw red admirals and painted ladies too, but I didn't get pictures of everything. They kept flying away.
A nasturtium blooms under the entrance sign. Both the flowers and the leaves are edible with a peppery flavor. The flowers are big enough to stuff, and the round flat leaves can be used as tiny edible plates for appetizers.
The weeding guides had blown onto the ground. These are heavy laminated pages with grommets so that people can carry them around the food forest. I picked them up.
The weeding guides hang on a hook attached to the entry sign. It would be more secure to use a carabiner to attach them to an eye bolt. Better still would be storing them in a handout case like the one just to the left.
This is one of the groundnut trellises. These vines are still green, but those on another trellis toward the left side of the food forest are already dried out.
A patch of marigolds are still blooming. These are almost knee-high.
I think the butterfly on the marigolds is a silvery checkerspot.
This is a big patch of black-eyed Susans. When in bloom, they attract lots of pollinators.
The seed heads are about fingertip size and I picked them whole.
This is the entrance to the Charleston Food Forest.
This is the left front side. The fruit trees are still green, but many of the flowers have set seed and turned brown.
This is the right front side. The hardy kiwi and grape vines are still mostly green too.
The sign stands just inside the entrance.
Large lavender bushes flank the entry path. I picked some small branches for a friend. They are a bit challenging to break off; I really could've used scissors.
Hmm, maybe I should look for a small luggage bag at a thrift store, something with divided areas, and just make a pack of foraging supplies. Things to include:
* a spare trowel (I have one with a chipped point)
* spare pruning shears or scissors
* maybe gloves
* copious bags of different sizes
* pen
* paper or stick-on labels
This is probably frost aster, a weedy wildflower that attracts swarms of pollinators.
A buckeye butterfly feeds on frost aster. There were also yellow and white cabbage butterflies; I'm pretty sure I saw red admirals and painted ladies too, but I didn't get pictures of everything. They kept flying away.
A nasturtium blooms under the entrance sign. Both the flowers and the leaves are edible with a peppery flavor. The flowers are big enough to stuff, and the round flat leaves can be used as tiny edible plates for appetizers.
The weeding guides had blown onto the ground. These are heavy laminated pages with grommets so that people can carry them around the food forest. I picked them up.
The weeding guides hang on a hook attached to the entry sign. It would be more secure to use a carabiner to attach them to an eye bolt. Better still would be storing them in a handout case like the one just to the left.
This is one of the groundnut trellises. These vines are still green, but those on another trellis toward the left side of the food forest are already dried out.
A patch of marigolds are still blooming. These are almost knee-high.
I think the butterfly on the marigolds is a silvery checkerspot.
This is a big patch of black-eyed Susans. When in bloom, they attract lots of pollinators.
The seed heads are about fingertip size and I picked them whole.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-11 07:36 am (UTC)And it was lovely to catch a glimpse of butterflies in October. Thank you.
Thoughts
Date: 2025-10-11 08:50 am (UTC)I'm impressed by its design (the map is on their website) and how much they crammed into such a small space.
If I were designing one, I'd go for heirloom and open-pollinated plants that propagate easily, so people could spread the bounty. Some of what they have is like that, some is modern cultivars. On the community garden side, especially, I'd go for landraces and then offer a set of assorted garden seeds to everyone new moving into town. And what if everyone did that? It would greatly cut down on hunger, and boost resilience against climate change.
What is a food forest?
Design and Plant Your Edible Forest Garden
Plant Guilds
What I do here at home is less dense and more haphazard: laissez-faire permaculture.
>>And it was lovely to catch a glimpse of butterflies in October. Thank you.<<
It has been unseasonably sweltering here through most of September, so the insects are still active and birds have barely started migrating.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-10-11 06:36 pm (UTC)Very cool idea, the food forest. I think your ideas for designing one seem very practical and would undoubtedly increase use.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-10-11 07:19 pm (UTC)I saw a few hummingbirds this summer.
There are butterflies all over, not a lot of monarchs, but a lot of other species that rarely last so late in the year. Plus the bees are still active, when they've usually hived up by now.
>> Very cool idea, the food forest. <<
I really hope it spreads. It would solve so many problems.
>> I think your ideas for designing one seem very practical and would undoubtedly increase use.<<
Maybe they'll catch on.
I gather seeds, rescue exposed roots, and dig things out of paths so they don't get stepped on. This way, I can try to grow things at home and not rely on the food forest for more than casual nibbling. So I know that some of the plants are easy to propagate.
Where I noticed the modern cultivars was mostly in the fruit trees, like they have a Gala apple. Trouble with that is those expect to be coddled with copious sprays and treatments, without which fruit tends to be iffy at best. I'd have gone for a red and a yellow dessert apple, a cooking apple, and a large-fruited crabapple from historic stock -- a Johnny apple if I could find one. The older cultivars, even though they're often grafted like modern ones, are better at producing good seedlings. I suppose you could just hold grafting workshops to propagate the modern trees, but they're still a pain in the ass to keep. Historic ones may not be as pretty but are a ton less work.
I tend to expect my plants to fend for themselves as much as possible, once established. I take more care of the container gardens with the vegetables but I can't be out watering the whole damn yard. Part of the benefit of the food forest model -- which is humanity's oldest form of agriculture -- is that the plants mostly take care of each other and themselves just like in a wild forest.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-11 08:59 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2025-10-11 07:32 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-10-11 07:42 pm (UTC)P.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2025-10-11 07:56 pm (UTC)The other backbone of fall nectaries are the native perennials such as goldenrods and asters.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-11 01:13 pm (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2025-10-11 06:27 pm (UTC)Scroll up and check my reply to