The Simcoe Food Forest will be breaking ground on a community food forest on Saturday at Waterworks Park in Simcoe, also known as Chapel Street Park, at the corner of Nelson and Chapel Streets.
Volunteers will be gathering at 11am to start planting the more than 130 plants donated by Eising Greenhouses and Garden Centre and Schuyler Farms; as well as pawpaw trees from the Carolinian Canada Pawpaw Parade.
The community is welcome to come out and help, they advise you to bring your own shovels; but they would also love your company if you are physically unable to do any planting. They do ask that if you have any plants you would like to donate that you connect with them to be put on the list for spring.
They are hoping to get the majority of the plants into the ground Saturday but they predict they will have another volunteer planting day in the near future.
Some members of the community have expressed concerns with the park usage shifting away from being for families with children; but the Simcoe Food Forest says they do not wish to interfere with everyone’s enjoyment of the park, and they have kept the pathway for the toboggan hill clear; and that they are also not going to impede the volleyball area, as they are planting along the tree line of Chapel Street.
They hope that instead of taking away space from the children, that it can be used to engage and teach them about permaculture, wild edibles and how to grow their own food
They will be posting a schematic to their page once they have it ready so that community members can see their plans.
Follow them on Facebook to stay up to date on future dates and happenings. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081687267473
Written by Robynn Beazley