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Harvest Against Hunger AmeriCorps VISTA member Annie Eberhardt, who serves with the Spokane Edible Tree Project, partnered with Friends of Polly Judd Food Forest to coordinate a food forest planting event.

Spokane Edible Tree Project envisions a thriving community that is educated on how to take proper care of their fruit and nut trees, and a community that harvests their fruit for the greater good of the community as a whole. In the past 2 years, Spokane Edible Tree Project has held multiple classes educating the public on how to care for their fruit trees in an effort to see this vision into a reality. In addition, SETP has gleaned over 70,000 pounds of produce in the past two years that would have otherwise gone to waste in an effort to address hunger and food insecurity in Spokane County.   

April and early May is the time for Spokane Gives Month in the beautiful city of Spokane. Spokane Gives Month presents an opportunity for community members to give back by participating in volunteer projects throughout the city. Ordinarily, with gleaning season starting in June, there is not a lot of opportunity for Spokane Edible Tree Project to host volunteer events to participate in the initiative.

Harvest Against Hunger VISTA member Annie Eberhardt saw an opportunity to get involved this year with Spokane Gives. For the past 5 years, Friends of Polly Judd has been slowly making an effort to work at building up Spokane’s first low income centered food forest, located in the heart of the lower south hill neighborhood at Polly Judd Park. This neighborhood has the highest population density in Spokane, along with the highest low income population in the city. The building of a Food Forest in a low income area at a public, well-loved park will provide an opportunity to help remedy food insecurity in an area that it is  greatly needed, as well as building gleaning capacity for Spokane Edible Tree Project in the future.

With the help of native shrub donations from the Spokane Conservation District, a Spokane Gives Initiative Grant from United Way, and the hard work of a volunteer crew, 14 edible trees and shrubs were added to the Polly Judd Food Forest. Two filbert, two apricot, five native elderberries and five native saskatoon serviceberries were planted.

HAH VISTA alum Nicki Thompson along with a young volunteer

The sod was cut from the ground as the first step, followed by the digging of holes at proper depth. This was not always easy. Rocks had to be broken, which were removed from the soil and repurposed as rock mulch for the Polly Judd native pollinator garden. The rocks were also used to begin creating a rock wall around the garden. When the holes were finally dug, the trees were placed in the earth, and wood chips were placed around the trees to act as a mulch.