Hazelwood Food Forest in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA is the first community food forest I’m selecting to highlight because sadly it is about to be no more. At least not in physical presence.
Hazelwood is an awesome example of a food forest design, but the lease for the land it was planted on ended and it will be removed this year (2015). The Heinz Foundation is revitalizing Hazelwood and has bought the lots to be passed on to a local nursery business.
The food forest was in its 5th year and producing wonderful pears, peaches, apples, hazelnuts, asparagus, cucumbers, tomatoes, sunflowers, shiitake mushrooms (due to a wonderfully shady area where the designers kept already existing trees), milkweed, rose of sharon, oregano, mint, raspberries, comfrey, sage, elderberries, yarrow, thyme, lovage and so much more! It was a resource for many bees, insects and butterflies, particularly monarchs that use the milkweed.
Pittsburgh Permaculture is responsible for the site and they are going about the move positively, knowing all along that moving the food forest was always a possibility. For more information on Hazelwood Food Forest visit their blog or Facebook page.