Last weekend, Beacon Food Forest supporters came out in force for the project’s “Ground Making Day.” Project organizer Glenn Herlihy sent out this letter to neighbors and supporters:

The Beacon Food Forest’s Ground Making day was an absolute blast. We’d like to thank the 100 plus community volunteers who came out and converted 3750 square feet of grass into the first Beacon Food Forest planting bed. It was an impressive sight to see so many people farming, smiling, eating and learning together.

We planted the first plum trees and a few shrubs that arrived on bicycle trailers powered by the good people of Beacon Bikes, we shared a delicious meal supplied by Tom Douglas, Essential Bakery, Central Coop and La Panzanella, and made a lot of friends. Thank you nutrient donors! Thanks also to City Fruit and ACTrees, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle P-Patch, Seattle Parks and Recreation and SPU for being apart of a successful collaboration.

Thank you Food Foresters for making the time to become responsible stewards of your public land. Nice work people!

The next day (Sunday 30th) we turned around and held a tree planting workshop and trained 16 neighbors to plant trees. Thank you Jana Dilley of SPU Seattle ReLeaf Program for a very informative class.

Its been a great start in the field, you should be proud Seattle!

Next work party is October 27th and 28th from 10a.m. – 2 p.m. on site. We will again practice our no-till method of sheet mulching and build the Apple and Pear guild beds. We would love some help to organize this event, please contact us if you can.

This coming Monday the 8th we are organizing a trenching work party. We will have Rick Valley a very well known permaculture designer helping us with keyline principles and trenching for the movement of water over our site. This is a great opportunity to work alongside an expert permaculturist. 1pm.

For more pictures of the Ground Making event go here.

Some special needs of the Beacon Food Forest family:

Cardboard – we need people to collect and bring clean sheets of brown cardboard, check in with your local bike store furniture store and ask them to set aside their cardboard. We have a storage area, contact glennherlihy@speakeasy for pick up.

A few more people on the Site Development Committee – You’ll make design decisions, plan aesthetics, organize work parties and help build structures. The group of volunteers doing this now is highly active, organized and meeting regularly. Next meeting is Oct 9th, 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. at the Neighborhood meeting space, Beacon Merchants’ office in the front door of the Beacon Hill Library. RSVP or just show up.

You can see even more photos of the Ground Making Day here.