9 New species planted in Yoker’s Community Forest Garden! On this chilly, but also beautiful, morning we got several shrubs, perennial flowers and herbs in the ground. The space is really filling in already. Hopefully this spring will see a lot of our ground cover plants begin to gain ground against the grass. We planted trailing bellflower (campanula poscharskyana) which will hopefully fill in some wide spaces with edible leaves and flowers. Sweet violet(viola odorata) should do much of the same, if a little less vigorously. Alpine strawberries will be circling some of our trees, with tasty purslane filling the shadier bits.
Hopefully by the time summer rolls in there will be so much new life the site will be unrecognizable. Our Gaultheria shallon bushes (edible blueberry like berries) are already flowering! Next week we will plant the last shrubs, blueberry and raspberry, more of our herbs, and spread some seed that needs a cold period to germinate. That will be the bulk of all our planting done. All that’s left is in the spring when the last couple plants and seed will be put in the ground and then the forest garden is complete!