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"We are harvesting, we are planting, we are planning!" - Rosemary Griffin
"The Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill is the largest food forest in the nation. Forest gardens have fruit and nut trees and in this case, a lot of volunteers who grow vegetables, vines and herbs. It's all an effort to get this community to eat healthy. Originally aired 10/21/2021"
https://friendsofbrownsmillfoodforestpark.org/
Transcript:
Funding for Georgia Outdoors has been made possible in part by the Imlay foundation and from viewers like you. This is the urban Food Forest at Browns Mill now a forest garden grows berries and nuts and they've added the Community Gardens behind me for vegetables and herbs the whole idea is to get this community to eat healthy and show them how to do it we are harvesting we are planting and we are planting Rosemary Griffin is the assistant Garden manager for the Atlanta grows a lot area that involves more than just growing the vegetables she teaches the many volunteers like chandrea Hardman it's just cutting it off the stem right I've never harvested the Zu okay what you want to do is kind of lift it up and cut back cut back here M further back back yeah there you go there are they going just put and you can get the other one too if you want to we're going to take that one are you sure I'm not all yeah I'm sure uh might be better to come at that one from this way from this uh-huh come this way oh yeah it's clearer over here up yeah Rosemary began working the garden at the request of a childhood friend friend so he came to talk to the then uh project manager from trees Atlanta Mike mccor talked to him about coming in and volunteering and he asked me to join him and trust me that was a big ask I'm not a digging in dirt kind of girl but I have learned to be and so in 2019 we actually adopted the garden through the Atlanta grow a lot program and we started volunteering recruiting guard members and everything so uh that's really how it began then 2020 hit the year of coid 19 uh luckily as um place that grows food we were considered essential so we were still able to come out and garden and the way we work is we Garden communally we don't rent the beds out because we wanted to always look well-maintained so we Garden as a group group the group harvests and share you know amongst themselves first then we go out into the neighborhood and distribute food uh to uh Neighbors in the neighborhood one of the main things we are trying to do here is obviously these 39 beds are not going to feed the neighborhood so we really consider ourself a teaching Garden we want to encourage people to come out and learn and uh to be able to grow their own food and I think a lot of people learned in 2020 that may be very important because you would go into the grocery store and there was nothing so and we really want to teach the children you know start at an early age so that they can encourage their parents to eat healthier um so that's kind of our mission here we have different groups at the food Forest who manage different areas and facilitate it these are all Resident Le groups
these are all largely volunteers uh that are receiving some support through donations in the city and other like nonprofits um and then they each have their own unique kind of guidelines to how to harvest food and how to get it out to the community but it's definitely growing food collectively and collaboratively and then getting out to the community in a variety of different ways J aluu better known as J Alo is Atlanta's director of urban agriculture the city goal is to have 85% of Atlanta's population within a half mile of fresh affordable food the neighborhoods around here are somewhat isolated many are seniors and if you don't have a car it can be a problem getting groceries if 3 to 5 miles to the grocery store and then the bus runs every hour and on Saturdays it runs every hour and a half okay so if you got a job and you missed the bus in the the morning you already late for work so the closest train station to us on one side is Inman Park okay which is all the way down Morland you know if if you know the area and then on the other side is Lakewood all the way up Cleveland Avenue so we don't we don't even have any software we don't have anything okay we don't even hardly have bus stands for standing in the rain soet lumpin is a feisty leader With Friends of the forest she calls this a food desert we're surrounded by U trucking companies um lumber yards all industrial type of services uh UPS uh we have a lot of Industrial Services around us we have four landfills would y'all like one of them Friends of the forest shows teenagers how to grow food in hopes that they'll take that knowledge to their parents and start a little garden of their own I saw we're now getting ready to change okay I saw change coming now when I looked up food fibes I said now what's the difference in a food firest and a garden the difference in the food firest and a garden is a garden is just that it just grows food but when I started researching a fireus is much more there's no end to a fireus a is whatever the community needs it's mind body and soul it's the whole man if you think about the gardener eting that's what a fireus is so it's much more than a God so a lot of people come here and say it's a God no it's education education I can see the kids it's education and it's life we exercise we teach people how to eat we teach them not only to grow food but we teach them how to cook it right
Teaching these teenagers has already had an impact now Ronnie McCoy wants to grow his own food what have you learned working at the food Forest what has it taught you uh it taught me that farming it's not as easy as people think it is it's actually really hard and it requires a lot of hard labor and that's what you want to do yes you want to be you want to be a farmer yes you can't really trust what you buy you got to like you can only trust if you grow at yourself Edmund loyal found a sense of community which is what the Food Forest is all about are you proud to be part of the Browns Mill Community oh yeah I'm really am proud like cuz like they they reach out to me that they help me sometime they even give me like they give me advice they they help me they me did a lot of stuff like first like my yard like even from watching them I know how to uh keep my yard clean and keep my yard looking looking good I'm sure your parents like that m and how old are you 15 all the teens volunteering for friends of the forest gained a new appreciation for how food is produced including Aaron coquit yeah cuz you know food we consume food you know every day every way so we have to you know look out what we eat where it comes from how it comes back and how it goes away and we have to take care of it because the Earth is kind of a very precious thing and people are destroying day by day so we have to be careful with everything they're learning from senior citizens like Joseph Wilson first three days of the week Monday Tuesday Wednesday myself and another gentleman James sford we come by we would bring four or five kids with us some days may be as many as 15 but we would do whatever these raised beds that I did build I took time I built them at my house I brought them over here to the forest and we set them up about 4 weeks ago and uh about 3 weeks ago James and I and a couple of the kids went to comms uh landscaping and we bought dirt stuff came out and let the kids put the dirt in them uh mixed some of the dirt with Calon and whatever to help fertilize it but we do organic growing we're not going to put any out here intentionally that is not organic the interaction between teenage volunteers and farm expert James tazwell is a joy to see seniors and teens work the food forest with mutual respect and we're going to do the basic same thing we've been doing shov much yeah and getting B to the top all right they obviously have picked up gardening expertise from his knowledge and I learned a thing or two using cardboard under mulch to keep grass from coming up is a new one on me the cardboard and we put the M on top of it and they keep the The Mists in the grass and keep the worms up under there and and the cartboard will deteriorate and turn into theur and that way we keep and we have to work so hard to keep the wild grass from going through
At the same time we were watching Friends of the forest volunteers a garden expert was teaching children how to plant vegetables hi guys my name is Heather I'm the CEO of wholesome grown a local a local gardening business and I'm going to teach you about gardening today okay so let's grab some of these little shovels here and I'll show you how to plant your garden and we'll make sure these plants get big and strong all right so I'll do it on one side all right so we have tomatoes here did you know that if something gets really tall you should plant it on the Northern side of your garden so that way on the southern side of your garden things still get sun and they don't get shaded out so we're planting this this is the north hey so we're going to plant these so you guys want to help me yeah all right so I'll take these out of the containers for you and then can you dig a hole right there yeah okay dig it yep right there go deep good job good job okay now you want to stick this maybe a little deeper actually cuz you want to know a cool thing about tomatoes so my yeah okay so this stem will turn into Roots like magic if it's buried okay so it kind of you see the roots down here this will grow roots if you bury It Isn't that cool so you can actually have a really cool Plant so we're just going to pick this little leaf off and then we're going to bury it this deep in the ground doesn't that kind of seem silly yeah okay let's see good job yeah that looks really good okay so now just push the dirt back in you know why you plant basil next to tomatoes no cuz they're friends they're companion plants so that means that basil gives off a smell the smell you just smelled so bugs don't like it and so that's why we plant it next to tomatoes because it protects the Tomato yeah they work together good job okay you want to dig that hole there that's plenty deep for our basil all right do you guys see the roots it's like a little baby okay so we're going to put it in here now you want to do it we can take turns we have plenty of plant so let's dig another hole here do you guys want to help too here's a little shovel you can also just use your hands all right so will you dig a little bit deeper for me yeah so what do you think the worms do in the soil they yeah so they put they loosen up the soil so that the roots can grow really big and strong okay I think that's good now you want to put the plant in for me okay so I'll hold this you did the sh I'm going to do and then can you place it in good job okay like now let's fill in the dirt around it.
.. and the kids go home with plants to put in their yards, what you see here is just part of the picture the actual Forest is maintained by trees Atlanta Taryn Heidel. Heidel showed me around around what what is your goal um for the future I mean um you're you're planting you're going to plant more trees yeah so um this this is a little bit different than our other restoration projects because we're not as much trying to mimic nature in the same way we're kind of like filling it with useful plants and also using it as an educational opportunity so um you may notice when you're walking through that there's kind of like what we call rooms um where there are plants that are of one species highly planted in one area and that's kind of to increase the impact for the visitor here is one of the rooms a large patch of hibiscus surrounded by river oats the hope is that someone will see this and want to plant it in their yard trees Atlanta has spent a lot of time clearing paths with ropes on the side I would say the two most common trees that you're going to find in here are red Mulberry which produces an edible fruit that kind of looks like a Blackberry but is really really sweet um and pecan trees this used to be a pecan Orchard at one time so there are still a lot of pecan trees in here we also want to try to supplement so we've been planting American pmen paaw we want to plant some more nut trees so usually fruits and nuts are the most common that you're going to find out here but we're also looking at planting a lot of different shrubs that will provide different aspects you know like spice bush you can use the leaves um for different things and they're really aromatic there's also Yao Pon Holly that you can use the leaves as a caffeine replacement so they do have caffeine in them so you can use it as a coffee or a tea replacement this will open up the concept of foraging for food picking berries and looking for nuts on the ground the forest is the biggest part of the Food Forest it is yeah um with it's 7.1 acres in total and definitely more than half of it is just the forested section.
As we were leaving we ran into a group exploring the forest and Taryn explained plans for the future and added that volunteers are always welcome so we've been planting a lot of like medicinal or edible shrubs um really cool Ground Covers like we have native strawbery back there um yeah so a lot of different stuff um we always need volunteers too so if you're ever interested we are going to be doing projects out here every third Saturday of the month if you guys want to get nice and dirty and sweaty with us um at least we'll be in the shade after many visits to the Food Forest it became clear that there's always something going on yep even yoga every Saturday at 10:00 people gather here for yoga sometimes the the crowd is large other times it may just be a handful inhaling the body up exhaling the head back inhaling the body back slowly going into [Music] pyramid the message is always about improving the health of this community the Food Forest may be a city park but it is designed to bring people together this is definitely again going back to showing people that we have an agrarian history we're very much connected to agriculture in Georgia believe it's actually the largest industry in Georgia um but you can start from a small space and you can feed yourself you can uh increase your own like sovereignty and your own agency and health and then you can also connect and build community that way too we all like to talk together and eat together Jou acknowledges the city needs to address the lack of nearby grocer stores but that is largely an economic issue the Food Forest is a good first step it's interesting I mean the Food Forest concept is basically Agro forestry so it's utilizing uh what again happens in nature already and then figuring out the different ways that you can grow for different variety of fruits vegetables nuts berries Etc so the idea is to do it with nature so what's unique about the urban Food Forest of Browns Mill is we're doing that in the back and the black three plus acres I want to say is just like four in Woodlands but if you start looking at some of the signage and you start looking at some of the things that are growing you realize oh there's a Pimon tree here or oh there's nuts here oh there's raspberries here so it's really going with what nature is doing what we decided to do with this food Forest though is also introduce other concepts of urban agriculture so You' got the Community Gardens you've got the uh herbs that are growing along the pathway you've got little things that you can touch that way so the food force is going with nature and then we add these different elements because we know this will also draw people in to also experience the back part of the forest in nature Celeste Lomax is the herbalist at Food Forest my passion is not only growing the medicinal herbs but harvesting them Distributing them for free and making medicinal medicines like Elderberry syrup I make a a pesticide chemical free for Pest and you can use that to spray on your body and keep the mosquitoes away I make that with which Hazel distilled water and fresh lavender that I harvest right from the garden here we followed Celeste as she gathered food for one of the volunteers so we are harvesting Rosemary right now uh Rosemary is great for your memory and cognitive thinking so if anyone's going to take a test you will want some of this Rosemary and just inhale it and um you going to be good to go you going to pass that test baby so you have the logs then you have compost then you have dirt and then you have mulch it holds the moisture so that you don't have to water as much and these are collards and these are collards and I am so excited because this is my first time growing them I didn't know how they would do and um they're doing great like over here we have red cabbage and swiss chard I saw that cabbage yeah and that was my first time doing that too so um um a lot of this stuff is you know trial and error see how it works and if it works keep doing what you're doing and these collet greens are just absolutely beautiful I've Harvest off these collet greens five times already.
okay so we have here twiss chard Rosemary time got this for me cic greens and oregano thank you fresh organic oranic vegetables for one of the best volunteers that we have thank you absolutely a I'll see you next week all right swe and that's the way it works volunteers are rewarded with education and food none of this would work without them everyone talks about the spirituality of this park it's about more than food the goal is to show people how to be healthy and build a greater sense of [Music] community um I'm going only take half of the oatmeal cuz a lot of people don't eat I rather I rather take half than waste it no problem brown rice they like that cereal though they do brown rice brown rice is good yes okay okay cereal you prefer cereal over the O um yeah because there's a lot of kids yeah and they like the cereal better than the okay this right here the peppers these are harvested this morning from the garden team and then we got Collard collard greens okra cherry tomatoes o I love okra too I appreciate you all deliver it to the community you too brother Joe couldn't do it without you cuz you the driver boy I ain't never seen nobody drive a truck like you volunteers and city employees bag them up right now we're delivering we're bagging up the food after we bag the food we'll be taking them door too to the people in the community that touches this immediate area next Saturday we'll be doing movies in the park at Browns Mill Food Forest we have a buffet set up where everyone gets to eat um we do everything we do here for free but we do accept donations for those that want to give uh but we don't charge for anything this is us giving back to our community Celeste goes door too and delivers to homes that are close to the forest others will be delivered by car how you doing good than you you're welcome baby we going to have movie night on Saturday I appreciate you God bless you thank you so much you're welcome you're welcome to it if you want some more um bags cuz I know you got a couple of families in there hey there budy how you doing good how are you good take to get back oh thank you so much you're welcome you have a great day you too my dear we'll see you in two more weeks okay thank you at the time we visited the forest it was a little less than 5 years old there are plans to add a lot of extras ja Cory Cormier is working to establish images that will be placed around the forest it's called photo Voice using photos to give a voice to the people if you know about if you've been on social media you've probably done photo voice to some degree you took a picture about something you said if you liked it or not and then you posted it that's what photo voice is it's getting prompts like what do you appreciate about the food Food Forest uh what will happen if someone tries to take away the Food Forest how is being part of the Food Forest changed how you thought about food and then people would use images to illustrate that eventually those images will be displayed throughout the forest but it also gives people the power to have their voices heard through photography photo voice came out of the need especially for communities that may have been overlooked that of might not have the biggest political draw and photo voice allows for them to go to their board Commissioners meetings to their political uh uh elected officials and instead of just a write up saying we would like these things you now have an image and as we have seen images are really powerful as we have iconic images throughout time uh especially over the past Century those are what gets people to really Act those are what gets people to really emotionally connect to the issue concern and strengths of a community there are plans to add more Gardens and projects throughout the Food Forest This Is A New Concept for a city park but in a relatively short period of time it has become a familyfriendly community Hub this food Forest has been deemed a success in fact there are now plans to build another forest garden more than double this size the new development plans call for a food Forest that is more than 20 acres large I'm Sharon Collins we'll see you next time.
funding for Georgia Outdoors has been made possible in part by the Imlay foundation and from viewers like you
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