We’ve taken stewardship of another abandoned lot in the neighborhood. No, not because we don’t have enough to do already (LOL), but because we want to be active participants in making our community better and stronger.

Like many of the lots in the area, this one was full of grass and trash. We started by cutting back the landscape so that we could see where we were walking and evaluate the terrain. We also cleared the trash and collected found tires for future use.

When I decided to take on this lot, initially, my main objective was for it to look more maintained and cared for. However, in the process of our lot clean-up, we discovered an abundance of wild garlic, bramble berries, and Bradford pear trees growing amid the mess.

The land had spoken. She’s telling us that food should be growing here. Nature always wins.

The next day, I ordered a grafting tool and supplies along with ten Kieffer pear and ten Orient pear scion wood cuttings. The goal is to turn the invasive “trash trees” on the lot into edible and productive fruit trees. Our “frankenpear” grafts have been completed on the Bradford pear trees and we’ll be watching with bated breath to see signs of graft acceptance. We don’t, necessarily, need all twenty grafts to take, but I hope we get at least ten delicious pear trees to grow.

Over the next few months, we’re going to continue to maintain the lot and clear more land to put into production with the edible plants I’m working to source and propagate. In the meantime, the cleared area on (what I’ve determined to be) the side of the food forest, is primed for production. We scraped the top layer of grass off of our defined growing space and layered loads of cardboard (sourced from our neighborhood Chick-fil-A “recycle” bin) for weed suppression. Then, we added soil amendments and sowed some of the millions* of melon seeds I saved from last year’s harvest (*only a slight exaggeration as melons produce a TON of seeds). We’ll use the old trees that one of our neighbors had cut down a few months ago to define the edges of the new melon patch and walking paths. Hopefully, we’ll manage to get a truckload of arborist wood chips dropped this season for heavy mulching. Also, I’m designing signs to post on-site letting our neighbors know to come help themselves to food.

I’m excited to create a space that feeds our ecosystem and our people! As of right now, I expect our developing community food forest will provide cantaloupe, watermelon, and sunflowers for our neighborhood this summer. It’s not much yet, but it’s surely the start of something special – a demonstration of what’s possible. Stay tuned!