- [Announcer] Funding for "Georgia Outdoors" has been made possible in part by The Imlay Foundation, and from viewers like you.

(dynamic music) - This is the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill.

Now a forest garden grows berries and nuts, and they've added the community gardens behind me for vegetables and herbs.

The whole idea is to get this community to eat healthy and show them how to do it.

(dynamic music) - We are harvesting, we are planting, and we're planning.

- [Sharon] Rosemary Griffin is the assistant garden manager for the AgLanta Grows-A-Lot area, that involves more than just growing the vegetables.

She teaches the many volunteers, like Shandria Hardiman.

- [Shandria] It's just pulling it off the stem, right?

I've never harvested the zucchini.

- [Rosemary] Okay, what you wanna do is kinda lift it up and cut that.

- Cut back here.

- Mm hm, yup.

Further back.

- Back, like that?

- Yeah, there you go.

- There.

- [Rosemary] Just put it in the bin.

And you can get the other one too if you want to.

We're gonna take that one.

- Are you sure?

- Yeah, I'm sure.

Might be better to come at that one from this way.

- From this angle?

- Uh huh.

Come this way.

- [Shandria] Oh yeah, it's clearer over here.

- [Rosemary] Yeah.

- [Sharon] Rosemary began working the garden at the request of a childhood friend.

- So he came to talk to the then project manager from Trees Atlanta, Mike McCourt, talked to him about coming in and volunteering.

And he asked me to join him.

And trust me, that was a big ask, 'cause I'm not a digging in the dirt kind of girl.

But I have learned to be.

And so in 2019, we actually adopted the garden through the AgLanta Grows-A-Lot program.

And we started volunteering, recruiting garden members and everything.

So that's really how it began.

Then 2020 hit, the year of COVID-19.

Luckily, as a place that grows food, we were considered essential.

So we were still able to come out and garden.

And the way we work is we garden communally, we don't rent the beds out, because we want it to always look well-maintained.

So we garden as a group, the group harvests and share amongst themselves first.

Then we go out into the neighborhood and distribute food to neighbors in the neighborhood.

One of the main things we are trying to do here is, obviously these 39 beds are not gonna feed the neighborhood.

So we really consider ourself a teaching garden.

We wanna encourage people to come out, and learn, and to be able to grow their own food.

And I think a lot of people learned in 2020.

That may be very important, because you would go into the grocery store and there was nothing, so.

And we really want to teach the children, start at a early age so that they can encourage their parents to eat healthier.

So that's kind of our mission here.

- We have different groups at the Food Forest who manage different areas, facilitate it.

These are all resident-led groups.

These are all largely volunteers that are receiving some support through donations, and the city, and other nonprofits.

And then they each have their own unique kind of guidelines to how to harvest food, and how to get it out to the community.

But it's definitely growing food collectively and collaboratively, and then getting out to the community in a variety of different ways.

(dynamic music) - [Sharon] J. Olu Baiyewu, better known as J. Olu, is Atlanta's director of urban agriculture.

The city goal is to have 85% of Atlanta's population within a half mile of fresh, affordable food.

The neighborhoods around here are somewhat isolated.

Many are seniors.

And if you don't have a car, it can be a problem getting groceries.

- It's three to five miles to the grocery store.

And then the bus runs every hour.

And on Saturday it runs every hour and a half.

Okay.

So if you got a job, and you miss the bus in the morning, you already late for work.

So the closest train station to us on one side is Inman Park.

Which is all the way down Moreland, if you know the area.

And then on the other side is Lakewood, all the way up Cleveland Avenue.

So we don't even have any light rails, we don't have anything.

We don't even hardly have bus stands for standing in the rain.

- [Sharon] Soisette Lumpkin is a feisty leader with Friends of the Forest.

She calls this a food desert.

- We're surrounded by trucking companies, lumberyards, all industrial type of services, UPS.

We have a lot of industrial services around us.

We have four landfills, would y'all like one of them?

- [Sharon] Friends of the Forest shows teenagers how to grow food in hopes that they'll take that knowledge to their parents and start a little garden of their own.

- I saw we're now getting ready to change.

I saw change coming.

Now, when I looked up food forests, I said, what's the difference in a food forests and a garden?

The difference in the food forest and the garden because the garden is just that, it just grows food.

But when I started researching, a forest is much more, there's no end to a forest.

A forest is whatever the community needs.

It's mind, body, and soul.

It's the whole man.

If you think about the Garden of Eden, that's what a forest is.

So it's much more than a garden.

So a lot of people come here and say, it's a garden.

No, it's education.

- [Sharon] Education, I can see the kids.

- It's education and it's life.

We exercise.

We teach people how to eat.

We teach them not only to grow food, but we teach them how to cook it right.

(dynamic music) - [Sharon] Teaching these teenagers has already had an impact.

Now, Ronnie McCoy wants to grow his own food.

What have you learned working at the Food Forest?

What has it taught you?

- It taught me that farming is not as easy as people think it is.

It's actually really hard.

And it requires a lot of hard labor.

- [Sharon] And that's what you wanna do?

- Yes.

- You wanna be a farmer?

- Yes.

You can't really trust what you buy.

You gotta, like, you can only trust it if you grow it yourself.

- Edmund Taloyal found a sense of community, which is what the Food Forest is all about.

Are you proud to be part of the Browns Mill community?

- Oh yeah, I really am proud.

'Cause they reached out to me, they help me sometime.

They even give me like, they give me advice.

They help me do a lot of stuff.

Like first, like my yard, even from watching them, I know how to keep my yard clean, and keep my yard looking good.

- I'm sure your parents like that.

- Uh huh.

- And how old are you?

- 15.

- [Sharon] All the teens volunteering for Friends of the Forest gained a new appreciation for how food is produced, including Erin Colquitt.

- Yeah, 'cause you know food, we consume food, every day, every way.

So we have to look out what we eat, where it comes from, how it comes back, and how it goes away.

And we have to take care of it because the Earth is kind of a very precious thing, and people are destroying it day by day, so we have to be careful with everything.

- [Sharon] They're learning from senior citizens like Joseph Wilson.

- First three days a week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, myself and another gentleman, James Sanford, we would come by, and we will bring four or five kids with us.

Some days maybe as many as 15.

But we would do whatever.

These raised beds that I did build.

I took time, I built them at my house.

I brought them over here to the forest.

And we set them up about four weeks ago.

And about three weeks ago, James and I, and a couple of kids went to Carmen's Landscaping, and we bought dirt, stuff.

Came out and let the kids put the dirt in them, mixed some of the dirt with cow manure and whatever to help fertilize it.

But we do organic growing.

We're not gonna put anything out here intentionally that is not organic.

- [Sharon] The interaction between teenage volunteers and farm expert, James Taswell, is a joy to see.

Seniors and teens work the Food Forest with mutual respect.

- And we're going to do the basic, same thing we've been doing.

- Shoveling mulch?

- Yeah.

And getting right to the top.

- [Sharon] They obviously have picked up gardening expertise from his knowledge.

And I learned a thing or two.

Using cardboard under mulch to keep grass from coming up is a new one on me.

- The cardboard, and we put the mulch on top of it.

And that keep the mulch that's in the grass, and keep the worms up under there.

And the cardboard would deteriorate and turn into the soil.

And that way we keep, and won't have to work so hard to keep the wild grass from growing through.

(jaunty music) - [Sharon] At the same time we were watching Friends of the Forest volunteers, a garden expert was teaching children how to plant vegetables.

- Hi guys.

My name is Heather.

I'm the CEO of Wholesome Grown, a local gardening business.

And I'm gonna teach you about gardening today.

Okay, so let's grab some of these little shovels here, and I'll show you how to plant your garden.

And we'll make sure these plants get big and strong.

All right.

So I'll do it on one side.

All right, so, we have tomatoes here.

Did you know that if something gets really tall, you should plant it on the northern side of your garden.

So that way, on the southern side of your garden, things still get sun, and they don't get shaded out.

So we're planting this, this is the north.

So we're gonna plant these.

So you guys wanna help me?

- [Child] Yeah.

- All right, so I'll take these out of the containers for you.

And then can you dig a hole right there?

- Yeah.

- Okay, dig it.

Yup, right there.

Go deep.

Good job.

Good job!

Okay, now you wanna stick this.

Maybe a little deeper actually.

'Cause you wanna know a cool thing about tomatoes?

Yeah, okay.

So this stem will turn into roots, like magic, if it's buried.

So it kind of, you see the roots down here?

This will grow roots if you bury it.

Isn't that cool?

So you can actually have a really cool plant.

So we're just gonna pick this little leaf off and then we're gonna bury it this deep in the ground.

Doesn't that kind of seem silly?

Yeah, okay.

Let's see.

Good job.

Yeah, that looks really good!

Okay, so now just push the dirt back in.

You know why you plant basil next to tomatoes?

'Cause they're friends, they're companion plants.

So that means that basil gives off a smell.

The smell you just smelled, some bugs don't like it.

And so that's why we plant it next to tomatoes because it protects the tomato.

They work together.

- Yeah.

Good job, basil!

- Good job!

Okay, you wanna dig that hole there?

That's plenty for our basil.

All right, do you guys see the roots?

It's like a little baby.

Okay, so we're gonna put it in here now.

You wanna do it?

We can take turns, we have plenty of plants.

So let's dig another hole.

Here, do you guys wanna help too?

Here's a little shovel.

You can also just use your hands.

All right, so will you dig a little bit deeper for me?

Yeah, so what do you think is the worms do in the soil?

- [Child] They make the soil.

- Yeah.

So they put, they loosen up the soil so that the roots can grow really big and strong.

Okay, I think that's good now.

You wanna put the plant in for me?

Okay.

So I'll hold this.

And then can you place it in?

Good job, okay.

Now let's fill in the dirt around it.

- And the kids go home with plants to put in their yards.

What you see here is just part of the picture.

The actual forest is maintained by Trees Atlanta.

Taryn Heidel showed me around.

What is your goal for the future?

I mean, you're planting, you're gonna plant more trees?

- Yeah, so, this is a little bit different than our other restoration projects because we're not as much trying to mimic nature in the same way.

We're kind of like filling it with useful plants.

And also using it as an educational opportunity.

So you may notice when you're walking through, that there's kind of like what we call rooms, where there are plants that are of one species highly planted in one area.

And that's kind of to increase the impact for the visitor.

- [Sharon] Here is one of the rooms, a large patch of hibiscus surrounded by river oats.

The hope is that someone will see this and want to plant it in their yard.

Trees Atlanta has spent a lot of time clearing paths with ropes on the side.

- I would say the two most common trees that you're gonna find in here are red mulberry, which produces an edible fruit that kind of looks like a blackberry, but is really, really sweet.

And pecan trees.

This used to be a pecan orchard at one time, so there are still a lot of pecan trees in here.

We also wanna try to supplement, so we've been planting American persimmon, pawpaw.

We want to plant some more nut trees.

So usually fruits and nuts are the most common that you're gonna find out here.

But we're also looking at planting a lot of different shrubs that will provide different aspects.

Like spice bush, you can use the leaves for different things, and they're really aromatic.

There's also yaupon holly that you can use the leaves as a caffeine replacement.

So they do have caffeine in them, so you can use it as a coffee or a tea replacement.

- This will open up the concept of foraging for food, picking berries and looking for nuts on the ground.

The forest is the biggest part of the Food Forest.

- It is, yeah.

With, it's 7.1 acres in total.

And definitely more than half of it is just the forested section.

- [Sharon] As we were leaving, we ran into a group exploring the forest.

And Taryn explained plans for the future.

And added, that volunteers are always welcome.

- So we've been planting a lot of like medicinal or edible shrubs.

Really cool ground covers, like we have native strawberry back there.

Yeah, so a lot of different stuff.

We always need volunteers too, if you're ever interested.

We are gonna be doing projects out here every third Saturday of the month.

If you guys wanna get nice and dirty and sweaty with us.

At least we'll be in the shade.

- [Sharon] After many visits to the food forest, it became clear that there's always something going on.

Yup, even yoga.

Every Saturday at 10 people gather here for yoga.

Sometimes the crowd is large.

Other times it may just be a handful.

(mystical music) - Inhaling the body up.

Exhaling the head back Inhaling the body back.

Slowly going into pyramid.

- [Sharon] The message is always about improving the health of this community.

The Food Forest may be a city park, but it is designed to bring people together.

- This is definitely again, going back to showing people that we have an agrarian history.

We're very much connected to agriculture in Georgia.

I believe it's actually the largest industry in Georgia.

But you can start from a small space and you can feed yourself.

You can increase your own sovereignty, and your own agency, and health.

And then you can also connect and build community that way too.

We all like to talk together and eat together.

- [Sharon] J. Olu acknowledges the city needs to address the lack of nearby grocery stores, but that is largely an economic issue.

The Food Forest is a good first step.

- It's interesting, I mean the Food Forest concept is basically agroforestry.

So it's utilizing what again happens in nature already, and then figuring out the different ways that you can grow a different variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, et cetera.

So the idea is to do it with nature.

So what's unique about the Urban Food Forest of Browns Mill is we're doing that in the back.

And the back three plus acres, I wanna say, is just like forests and woodlands.

But if you start looking at some of the signage, and you start looking at some of the things that are growing, you realize, oh, there's a persimmon tree here.

Or, oh, there's nuts here.

Or, oh, there's raspberries here.

So it's really going with what nature is doing.

What we decided to do with this food forest though is also introduce other concepts of urban agriculture.

So you've got the community gardens, you've got the herbs that are growing along the pathway.

You've got little things that you can touch that way.

So the Food Forest is going with nature.

And then we add these different elements because we know this will also draw people in to also experience the back part of the forest and nature.

(gentle music) - [Sharon] Celeste Lomax is the herbalist at Food Forest.

- My passion is not only growing the medicinal herbs, but harvesting them, distributing them for free, and making medicinal medicines like elderberry syrup.

I make a pesticide chemical free for pests.

And you can use that to spray on your body and keep the mosquitoes away.

I make that with witch hazel, distilled water, and fresh lavender that I harvest right from the garden here.

- [Sharon] We followed Celeste as she gathered food for one of the volunteers.

- So we are harvesting rosemary right now.

Rosemary is great your memory and cognitive thinking.

So if anyone's gonna take a test, you will want some of this rosemary, and just inhale it.

And you're gonna be good to go, you're gonna pass that test, baby.

(laughs) So you have the logs, then you have compost, then you have dirt, and then you have mulch.

It holds the moisture so that you don't have to water as much.

- And these are collards?

- And these are collards.

And I am so excited because this is my first time growing them.

I didn't know how they would do, and they're doing great.

Like over here we have red cabbage and Swiss chard.

- I saw that cabbage.

- Yeah.

- [Sharon] It's pretty.

- That was my first time doing that too.

So a lot of this stuff is trial and error.

See how it works.

And if it works, you keep doing what you're doing.

And these collard greens are just absolutely beautiful.

I've harvest off these collard greens five times already.

- Wow.

- Okay, so, we have here Swiss chard, rosemary, thyme, collard greens, and oregano!

- Thank you.

- Fresh organic vegetables for one of the best volunteers that we have.

- Thank you.

- Absolutely.

- I'll see you next week.

- All right, sweetheart.

- [Sharon] And that's the way it works.

Volunteers are rewarded with education and food.

None of this would work without them.

Everyone talks about the spirituality of this park.

It's about more than food.

The goal is to show people how to be healthy and build a greater sense of community.

(truck beeping) - I'm only gonna take half of the oatmeal 'cause a lot of people don't eat that.

I'd rather take half then waste it.

- No problem.

Brown rice?

- They like that cereal though.

- They do, brown rice?

- Yeah.

Brown rice is good, yes.

- Cereal, prefer cereal over the oats?

- Yeah, because there's a lot of kids.

Yeah, and they like the cereal better than the...

This right here, peppers.

- [Woman] These are harvested this morning from the garden team.

And then we got collards.

- Collard greens.

- Beans, okra.

- Cherry tomatoes.

Ooh, I love okra too.

I appreciate you all delivering to the community.

You too, brother Joe.

Couldn't do it without you 'cause you are the driver, boy.

I ain't never seen nobody drive a truck like you.

- [Sharon] Volunteers and city employees bag them up.

- Right now we're delivering, we're packing up the food.

After we bag the food, we'll be taking them door to door to the people in the community that touches this immediate area.

Next Saturday, we'll be doing movies in the park at Browns Mill Food Forest.

We have a buffet set up where everyone gets to eat.

We do everything we do here for free, but we do accept donations for those that want to give.

But we don't charge for anything.

This is us giving back to our community.

- [Sharon] Celeste goes door to door and delivers to homes that are close to the forest.

Others will be delivered by car.

- How you doing?

Good.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome, baby.

We're gonna have movie night on Saturday.

I appreciate you, God bless you.

- Thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

If you want some more bags, 'cause I know you got a couple of families in there.

(dog barking) Hey there!

How are you doing?

- Good, how are you?

- Good.

Here baby.

- Oh thank you so much.

- You're welcome.

- You have a great day.

- You too, my dear.

We'll see you in two more weeks.

- [Man] Okay, thank you.

- [Sharon] At the time we visited the forest, it was a little less than five years old.

There are plans to add a lot of extras.

John Poricornia is working to establish images that will be placed around the forest.

It's called PhotoVoice, using photos to give a voice to the people.

- If you know about, if you've been on social media, you've probably done PhotoVoice to some degree.

You took a picture about something, you said if you liked it or not, and then you posted it.

That's what PhotoVoice is.

It's getting prompts, like what do you appreciate about the Food Forest?

What will happen if someone tries to take away the Food Forest?

How has being part of the Food Forest changed how you thought about food?

And then people would use images to illustrate that.

- [Sharon] Eventually those images will be displayed throughout the forest, but it also gives people the power to have their voices heard through photography.

- PhotoVoice came out of the need, especially for communities that may have been overlooked, that might not have the biggest political draw, and PhotoVoice allows for them to go to their board commissioner's meetings, to their political elected officials.

And instead of just a write-up saying, we would like these things, you now have an image.

And as we have seen, images are really powerful.

As we have iconic images throughout time, especially over the past century.

Those are what gets people to really act.

Those are what gets people to really emotionally connect to the issue, concern, and strengths of a community.

- There are plans to add more gardens and projects throughout the Food Forest.

This is a new concept for a city park, but in a relatively short period of time it has become a family-friendly community hub.

This food forest has been deemed a success.

In fact, there are now plans to build another forest garden more than double this size.

The new development plans call for a food forest that is more than 20 acres large.

I'm Sharon Collins.

We'll see you next time.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Georgia Outdoors" has been made possible in part by The Imlay Foundation, and from viewers like you.