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Stonehill Community Gardens have planted a selection of heritage fruit trees in their project space near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Once grown, this will form the upper canopy of their “forest garden” which will provide food and learning opportunities for local people.
The overall goal of the project is to create a forest garden with our garden users, many of whom are young people at risk, people with learning difficulties, people with mental and/or physical disabilities, ex-offenders, retired residents and local families. As with all our projects, part of our goal is to build community cohesion among diverse groups, whilst at the same time teaching skills related to sustainable living and food production and ecological conservation.
A forest garden is an agroforestry system modelled after a healthy woodland, with tree, shrub and herbaceous layers, and which uses species that are edible and/or useful to people. This ‘carefully designed ecosystem of useful plants’ has a number of benefits including lower maintenance once established, efficient nutrient-cycling, increased biodiversity and resilience to climate change, carbon sequestration, and improved soil health.
This project aims to contribute to:
1. A more sustainable food production system, incorporating agroforestry techniques to maximize the amount of food grown on a patch of land while enhancing soil fertility and maintaining biodiversity.
2. Sustainability education, addressing topics such as organic horticulture, permaculture, the importance of biodiversity, renewable resources, rainwater harvesting and soil health.
3. Conservation and promotion of the biocultural diversity of edible cultivars – heritage fruit trees that have been lost over the decades of industrial fruit production.