This is one of the coolest ideas I have heard of in a long, long time;
According to Project Food Forest’s website, “A food forest, also called a forest garden, is a diverse planting of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions – up, down, and outâ€. Furthermore, “Food forests are a new farming concept in our area, but they have been used for thousands of years in other parts of the world. They are complex, just like nature.
Food Forests are unique and different from the traditional community gardens in key ways. Food Forests are made up of trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and roots. All layers of the ecosystem are incorporated.
Food Forests are also meant to be free and open to the public. Community gardens typically have leased land, requiring several hours of volunteer work or tending by the owner. Food Forests are perennial gardens, which when well-designed, are increasingly productive and abundant with time. Minimal upkeep is necessary, apart from gleaning food from the forest’s production.
The irony is that the city’s parks and forestry department spends millions each year maintaining our parks which are mostly non vegetable trees and flowers, why not maintain something we can eat? In fact I have seen several immigrants harvesting different plants and berries along our bike trail. Let’s get the whole community involved!
This is new to me and something I will research.
One thing I can point out is that the Sioux Falls Parks Dept. does not embrace is green space simply for its’ natural beauty. Their main focus is provision for sports. That translates into leveling the beauty of the rolling hills, cutting down mature trees, and cementing huge portions of our parks. Green space beauty is at the bottom of their priority list.
Please reference this letter to the editor: http://www.argusleader.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/05/08/letter-loss-green-spaces-city-sickening/84116612/
The parks department spends enormous amounts of tax payer money and is responsible to no one in the public. This needs to be changed as well as audited.
The soccer nuts and parks department have tried to kill Jazzfest at Yankton Trail for years. This is why you don’t see many other festivals there.
Dangerous. It’s a way to expand Project TRIM. By now we know policy and vote becomes city attorney double talk. You’ll not only have to pay for tree trimming in public right-of-way in front of your house, you’ll pay for landscaping in parks and on city property. Fees you’ve already paid with Parks Department budget. In fact, you might pay 3 times to the city, Parks, and for frontage in front of your property. Parks is a separate entity with with a separate structure and logo.
It’s a great concept… However, maintaining this sort of vegetation would take a lot of work! I wouldn’t want to take my kids to a park that had a bunch of rough-tin fruit on the ground. But that’s just me. However, community gardens are a great sort as well. More concerning, is the fact that we’re losing tree’s here left and right! All my tree’s around my neighbor hood are looking real rough. I know the ice storm we had a few years back did them no favors ‘as well as the Golden Ash Boar” It’s quiet concerning. No tree’s, no clean air!!
There is this gigantic cottonwood branch at Yankton Trail that got twisted in the last wind storm and now it’s hanging down over the bike trail, wilting. I only mention this here because I don’t think it would do any good to try to contact the Parks Department, and also most city government employees read this blog. Thank You.
Anonymous, the branch will fall on someone. Then, there’s a liability insurance claim. The city will use city attorney double talk and lay blame on Parks. City insurance will go up, the tree must still be cleared, but the big expense will be intergovernmental litigation. City will be plaintiff versus Parks Dept.. Parks is an independent entity with its own offices and logo. Major preventable citizen funded overhead. End of story.
Here’s a better joke:
Appoint a $100k parking director. Spend a fortune on sophisticated digital parking meters. Raise rates but not enough for justification. Hire special parking meter ticket people who hide and sleep in alleys. Reassign, promote, and raise pay for parking director to make a bigger mistakes at Washington Pavillion. Citizens ignore the meters because city cases dismissed as unconstitutional. More budget, less revenue, more employees, frequent manager moves with higher pay grade. City accounting cooks the books. Mayor brags and lies about revenue from parking. True, you can’t make this stuff up.
It probably will wait to fall on the marathon or whatever.