Hughes Community Food Forest
A collaboration between Hughes Memorial Church, PFFI, Don’t Shoot PDX, and Portland Placemaking Coalition
Funded by East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District’s Partners in Conservation grant and the City of Portland’s Neighborhood Watershed Stewards grant, this project will initially convert 5500 square feet of grass lawn into a thriving community food forest.
This planting’s canopy layer tree guilds include black walnut, sweet chestnuts, mulberry, medlar, shipova, cherry, cornelian cherry, peach, plum, apple, fig, pawpaw, and almonds,
The shrub layer includes blueberries, bush cherries, currants, gooseberries, jostaberry, honeyberry, columnar apple, goji, elderberry, raspberry, blackberry, and asparagus.
The groundcover consists of 5 different cultivars of strawberry with sweet potato and squash growing during the summer.
Nitrogen Fixers include perennials seaberry, autumn olive, goumi, and lupine with fava, pole and bush beans, peanuts, and snap peas during the summer.
The herbaceous Layer includes comfrey, buckwheat, phacelia, mugwort, selfheal, stridolo, purple mountain spinach, parsley, artichoke, tree collards, sea kale, herbs, medicinals, and a variety of pollinator-supporting flowers. We’re trialing sorghum sudangrass as a biomass accumulator this year.
The vine layer includes grapes and hardy kiwi.
The root and mycelial layers include garlic, daikon radish, potatoes, onions, ginger, yacon, and winecap mushrooms
