A Community Scale Edible Landscape, aka “Garden Node”, is a group of neighbors that decide to build an edible landscape together. It can be 3 neighbors, up to an entire block.
The idea: Neighbor #1 plants a Pear tree and has a nice sunny backyard for heat-loving crops. Neighbor #2 plants a Plum tree and had an excellent shaded area for Chard, Kale, Spinach, etc Neighbor #3 plants an apple tree and great soil for blueberries. All the neighbors plant what works best in their yards, and then they share the bounties.
There are many other benefits of gardening together: saving money by purchasing materials in bulk (i.e. seeds, tools, etc); utilizing space at a larger scale than one house increases the opportunity to grow a larger variety of crops; lastly, and possibly most importantly, working with people is fun!
Cascadian Edible Landscapes has the skills and tools to see the process go from discussion to fruit. In addition to being a licensed and bonded contractor, we are also trained in group facilitation and formation. We are enthusiastic to assist your community through visioning and into the edible landscape design, construction, education, and harvest.
The design process is very similar to what we would go through with an individual, just with a group of people: Who likes to eat what, how much maintenance are the people of the neighborhood (and their children!) willing to do, planning multiyear designs and crop rotations, and budgeting.
