Budding With Possibilities

By Andrew Mangold

In June 2016, the town of Newtown, Conn., welcomed a groundbreaking project, the Newtown Fruit Trail—a one-mile, paved walking loop lined with 100-percent edible fruit trees, nut trees, berry bushes, and healing native plants.

The trail is a demonstration of best-practice land-use techniques, drawing on a huge variety of native plants, fruit plants, and wildflowers to create a self-sufficient ecosystem that provides for the health and well-being of the land, the wildlife, and the community.

The trail was created by Greentek, a local organization that performs edible, ecological restoration. From start to finish, this was a revolutionary process, using uniquely conceived design and installation techniques that included the community, while drawing on ingenious food-forest models to create a living legacy that will benefit the town and the planet for generations to come.

It is becoming a common theme for towns and cities to welcome community gardens, or even small stands of fruit trees, onto public land. However, the Newtown Fruit Trail is one of the largest free, edible, public, perennial landscapes of its kind. Greentek—alongside Newtown’s own parks and recreation department—was determined to carry this project through with maximum care and efficacy. Three months later, the installation is a glowing success. Already beautiful to behold, the trail is drawing together members of the community and improving the health of the actual site.

Answers To Questions
There seems to be a surplus of questions about changing climate, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and inequality:

• Can we repair our environment? Yes.
• Can we revitalize ecology? Yes.
• Can we bring back natural resources? Yes.
• Can we bring a town together? Yes.
• Can we provide free food and medicine to all? Yes.
• Does this project need to be difficult? No.

In fact, it can be fun.

The only question left is, What are people going to do about it?

The Fruit Trail is a broad solution to each of these concerns. Edible, ecological plantings help the land, heal biodiversity, and begin to wean society off of exploitative models, while establishing safe, peaceful, collaborative spaces for a more healthy, fair, and vibrant world.

Jumping Through Hoops
Ultimately, the installation took less than one week to complete, with the entire design conceived through a studio that set up shop for one month in the public library to collect the town’s visions, inspiration, and talent. The final design was then brought forth for approval to town boards such as the Land Use Department, the Board of Selectmen, and an authoritative council for Fairfield Hills, the public park on which the Fruit Trail is planted.

With permission from each of these boards, it was time to collect funds, assemble plants, and arrange teams of inspired volunteers.

The most common concern during the approval process was who was to be responsible for caring for the trees. The answer to this question rests in good design. This is not a trail of common fruit plants. If the town planted all one variety of apple, for example, there would be a ton of maintenance, indeed; however, the Fruit Trail follows a food-forest design in which many mixed species work as one to create a living system that allows every plant to play a mutually beneficial role in support of the whole.

In a food forest, plants of all shapes and sizes exist in balance, growing year after year with decreasing levels of human support. The trail emphasizes this mixed selection of hardy fruit and nut trees that are perfectly suited for New England’s climate. The trees are supported by a host of native herbs and wildflowers that create a beneficial ”understory” of plants that attract pollinators, retain moisture, build soil, and suppress weeds in order to bring productivity back to public landscapes.

The range of trees selected includes persimmon, Asian pear, serviceberry, hawthorn, medlar, elderberry, and pawpaw, all of which thrive with minimal care or pruning. The design is filled with supportive plants that confuse pests and build fertility, eliminating the need for spraying, chemical fertilizers, or pest control. Ultimately, these are low-maintenance gardens that require thorough installation, and are followed by years of ever-increasing abundance. Applying this model, Greentek and Newtown Parks and Recreation ensure that the Fruit Trail is set up for long-term success.

Building Together
On the morning of June 11, more than 50 volunteers arrived at Fairfield Hills to install the long-anticipated Fruit Trail. Together, they worked as one team—a true community—bringing the trail to life not only with ease, but with pleasure.

Volunteers were assigned to individual crews, everyone collected plants and tools, and then every team planted a first ceremonial tree together. People completed planting, layout, mulching, watering, and tagging. The music went on, and through rain and sun, everyone eased into his or her own perfect niche, planting, dancing, and digging the new trail into life.

Each team leader was equipped with an oversized, printed schematic of a particular section. Every symbol on the boards correlated to bins of respective plants under a shade tent. In this way, a person did not need to know anything about plants in order to be of help, but merely matched the images on the design with those of the bins—making the planting as easy and successful as possible.

As a community, Newtown enjoyed doing something at last to heal the town, to honor the earth, and to work in harmony for a truly better world.

Finally, with shovels in hand, glasses of water, fresh fruit, and friends side by side, the work party relaxed, gazing at the finished trail, a thriving image of what a community can do together.

Make A Move
It’s time that we human beings have serious conversations about sustainability. It’s time to reconsider public space and restore our landscapes that encourage a healthy, vibrant community.

The Fruit Trail works with the land to provide tangible resources and enriching experiences in a manner that benefits the environment. The plantings sequester carbon, build the soil, clean the air, and support biodiversity.

In Newtown, there is a new measure of wealth that combines the health of the land and the community as one inseparable unit.

A Labor Of Love
One month after the plantings, early sketches of the Fruit Trail are coming to life. Alpine strawberries are creeping into the walking trail. Insects are already visiting flowers, and children are carefully identifying the first swelling blueberry plants.

The plantings are rich with full-sized, grafted persimmon, mulberry, and pawpaw trees. Inside the main trail are 75 semi-dwarf fruit trees, from apples to peaches, medlars, plum, hawthorn, and Asian pear. Mixed among the trees are rows of berry bushes: currants, aronia, gooseberry, and blueberry. Between all of the plants strawberries are draped over a thick bed of mulch and minerals, checkered with thyme, phlox, and bugle, packed with herbs like lavender, oregano, sage, hyssop, self-seeding dill, tulsi, and a host of native wildflowers, from echinacea, bush honeysuckle, black cohosh, bergamot, foamflower to chives and ferns.

Growing With The Trees
The Newtown Fruit Trail grows directly across the road from the local intermediate school. Fifth and sixth graders have direct access to the plantings, with safe passage from a crossing guard each day after school. Some of the very children who were present at Sandy Hook Elementary will enter the intermediate school in a few years, exactly when the trees are starting to bear fruit. These children will have a safe place of peace in nature, growing along with the trees at the magical, flowering Fruit Trail.

This is just the beginning.  Greentek started here, in Newtown, and left a legacy. The company will take these plantings wherever the land and the people will benefit. It will host entire restoration festivals for weekends on damaged land. Greentek is here to build a better world, to welcome a future that is free and fair and full of abundance for all life. The model works. The Fruit Trail planting was a success. With good preparation and plants suited to the site, edible ecological restoration will work anywhere. It is time to take care of our planet.

For more information on the Fruit Trail, visit www.newfruittrail.com.

Andrew Mangold is the founder of Greentek. Reach him at ajm09@hampshire.edu, or visit www.greenteknetwork.com.