We are in Virginia, Minnesota, at the first community food forest that was planted here.

food forests are perennial gardens And so for years they look like nothing because all the trees start very, very small And eventually in 30 years, a food forest is a forest But it's self-sustaining.

Everything's perennial.

We have a few annuals but we try to plant perennials.

So there's berries and fruit and nut trees, all kinds of things that come back year after year.

That doesn't mean they take any less maintenance but they come back year after year So an investment that you make in a forest is a permanent investment the children come out and play they know me and they when they me, they come on, they follow me And they've helped pick weeds ha put the wood chips down.

They like to climb the pil and help me with the wheelbarrow And they like when I have the hose out -they come and help water So it's been really exciting to that one on one in that hands on the kids can even see what it means and what its like to have seeds go to a plant and they can pick it and try foods that they might not have tried otherwise So I now like to educate them.

That's the other point of this food forest was to help educate people about this kind of a lifestyle this kind of a self-sufficiency understandin more where our foods come from.