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Photo Submitted Volunteers, including 4-H members from Lyon County, plant apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees along the Marshall City Recreational Trail near the Redwood River bypass and county fairgrounds. The “Food Forest” project will help to provide community members with fresh fruit free of charge.
MARSHALL – Lyon County 4-H members recently helped plant some new trees near the Marshall trail system – but it wasn’t just a landscaping project.
The trees – including apple, pear, plum and cherry trees – will provide fresh fruit to the public.
“It was a lot of work” said Austin Coudron, one of the 4-H club members who helped plant and water the young trees.
But the organizers hope that the project will be the beginning of one “Food forest” for the Marshall Area Community.
“It is open to all community members so that they have a local source of healthy food.” said Sam Jens, 4-H Youth Development Coordinator for Lyon County.
A “Food forest” is a diverse group of sustainable plants that can provide free food to the public.
The trees were planted with the help of the Stanley Busy Beavers 4-H Club during the national 4-H week, Jens said. They are located along the portion of the urban recreation trail that runs near the Redwood River bypass channel behind the county freeway department building.
Jens said the Lyon County’s food forest project was started last year through a partnership between Lyon County 4-H, the Lyon County and Marshall City Park Departments, the Lyon County Master Gardeners, and the Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP).
“They talked about a food forest that was being built in Luverne.” said Jens.
The Prairie Ally Outdoor Center set up a food forest in Luverne in 2018. The five hectare property is planted with a mixture of perennial food crops such as fruit and nut trees and berries.
To start a food forest in Lyon County, organizers worked with Greenwood Nursery and Garvin Nursery to find varieties of fruit trees that are hardy in the Minnesota weather.
“We wanted to pick varieties from the University of Minnesota whenever possible.” said Jens. The trees selected included four varieties of apple trees developed by the U of M. They also selected pear, plum, and cherry trees so that the fruit would be ready in different seasons, he said.
On October 10th, members of the Stanley Busy Beavers helped plant the trees as a charitable project. Austin and Andrew Coudron said club members helped plant and water the trees. The group filled bags of water to make sure the trees had enough moisture as they established.
“I helped close the water bags under the trees.” said Andrew Coudron. “And I turned on the hose.”
Jens said the partnership that organized the food forest will take care of the fruit trees as they ripen. While some of the apple trees planted were already producing apples, “It will probably be another three or four years before they bear fruit in abundance.” he said.
The food forest will also be expanded to include more fruit trees and bushes in the future, says Jens. The public can follow the growth of the project through the Lyon County 4-H Facebook page.
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