Blog

Do you know that you can grow kiwis in Nebraska? You can, if they are hardy kiwis, a similar tasting but smaller fruit than the regular kiwis. We’ll be planting vines this spring, and as an added bonus, using the shade for our digging area. See below to join us!

So much is happening at SHFF, but visitors often don’t realize what they are seeing, so we’ll be working on developing signs around the site this year of all shapes and sizes. Fill out the volunteer survey below to help!

More perennial food crops will be appearing this year. It’ll be a great way to learn about new plants for your own yard. Salsify, turkish rocket, sea kale and breadroot (aka timpsula, prairie turnip) are on our list. Let us know if there are others you think we should try.

Join us!

Spring is here, and we’re excited to get back together and build the Food Forest. We look forward to seeing you soon.

• SHFF Volunteer Work Day, Sat, 4/20, 10-1. Join us for any part you can – there’s plenty to do, and plenty of friendly faces.
• Stop by our Earth Day booth on 4/27. (volunteers needed – reply if you can help.)
• Dandelion harvest and prep – Sun, 4/28 3-5pm
• Sat, 5/11, 9am-2pm – Ambassador Training, hardy kiwi planting and more!

Tell us how you want to volunteer!

We would love to hear from you! Please fill out this short survey even if you have volunteered with SHFF before. We know many of you are just looking for the right opportunity to get involved, so let us know! We’ve got projects for everyone!

…drumroll…

We’re Official!

SHFF is now a brand new nonprofit organization! The IRS approved our 501(c)(3) application. Look for new projects as we expand our options with this new status.

We’re Legit!

We’ve told you about all the exciting plans we have for the Food Forest in 2019…more perennial vegetables, shade structures so the Food Forest is more enjoyable in the summer, and lots of signage, so that visitors anytime can understand what’s growing.

What we haven’t announced yet is that the Southern Heights Food Forest is now an official independent organization (and almost a nonprofit)! Up til now, Lincoln Community Foundation has generously supported us so we can accept tax-deductible donations, but there are many projects that require us to be a nonprofit organization.

We’ll let you know when it is official!

National Seed Swap Day

Free and open to all! You don’t need to bring seeds. Come join Community Crops, Open Harvest and the Food Forest and start planning your garden!

Saturday, January 26th, 1-3pm

Community Crops Office (11th & B)

Thank you!

Thanks to many wonderful people, we raised $3245 for our 2019 projects. We still have matching funds available, so you aren’t too late to make a donation and have it doubled. Your support will make all our new plants. tours, and fun possible. Thank you!

Free Online Permaculture Course!

The principles of permaculture guide our work at the Food Forest, and we share a lot of information about it, but it is still a big concept. There’s a free permaculture course put together by 40 expert women permaculture instructors that will give you a good grasp of the concepts. Details here.

Last, but far from least, we planted two bur oak trees this year, one of whom was planted during our memorial celebration of Amy Brt’s life, a community expression of gratitude for the impact one passionate young woman was able to have here- a vibrant life unfolding with in a fertile and supportive community. Her vision for community endures and continues to grow. It’ll be a long time before these oaks are mature, but that’s the nature of this whole project, isn’t it? Build for the future, find present joy in the vision of future children playing gratefully in the shade (and nourished by the food!) that we believed in way back now. Join us to grow the Food Forest by making your donation now! We had a banner year! Outside groups ran events, took tours, and volunteered countless hours. Resource donations soared this year too, enabling us to meet a variety of the goals set last winter for 2018, and off site presentations increased, too, ranging from Americorps volunteers and Community Learning Center leaders to farmers who grow nut trees.

Visitors to the site have included attendees to the workshops, tour groups like the Nebraska Herbal Society, and the onsite Bright Lights summer camp, which came, stayed for a week, and left us with glorious new guild name posts. We’ve also seen increasing repeat visitation from private families and members of the local home school community who are recognizing the excellence of the learning opportunities available here. The KZUM’s How’s It Growing Program presented The Hills Are Alive! featuring the Nebraska Hugelkultur Institute, the Biochar Initiative, and Nebraska Mushroom, all onsite with amazing knowledge and powerful insights. The hugelkultur mound built that day forms the lowest intervention in our watershed thus far, and is paired with the berm around the stage at the upper end of the east watershed. We’ve had 3 two inch rains this fall, all of it was caught and infiltrated into our groundwater reserves. The Nebraska Nut Growers Association donated time and improved variety scion wood to demonstrate a range of field grafting techniques, including bark cleft, bud, and the delightfully named “banana graft” techniques. 100% success on the pecans, including the one topped with a hickory tree, 50% on the king nut hickories, and 25% on the walnut. Keep an ear out- we’re likely to regraft a few of the ones that didn’t take this year, but slightly earlier in the season this time. We had a bumper peach harvest this year, more cherries than ever before, and our first wild plums arrived. Alas, we lost two cherry trees to fungus, and may be losing a peach to peach tree borer, but all affected trees have been identified and organic control methods will be in use throughout 2019. Each year, our fall festival, the Enchanted Food Forest, gains depth as the Nature Explore Classroom (“NEC”) space gently matures into the vibrant and creative space envisioned way back when we started. This will continue in the next year, too, because we have been gifted the wood for (and will build soon) the small building area’s decking. We expanded and reorganized the NEC in 2018, including solving the weed issue in messy materials. Much of what we were able to accomplish throughout the site was thanks to more volunteer groups from more organizations than ever before:

• Union College, Leadership Lincoln, Nebraska Wesleyan, and UNL all made substantial progress on a variety of projects.

• 3 students from the School of Natural Resources course, Environmental Engagement in the Community, worked with us through the spring to develop signage priorities and mock ups. We expect installing signage to be a focus in 2019.

• Menards, Community Crops, Home Depot, and Nebraska Mushroom were all incredibly helpful with supplies and time,

• and as usual, the Statewide Arboretum and Nebraska Forest Service’s Community Forestry Programs remain stalwart allies.

• Throughout it all, week in and week out, we continue to receive hope and help from our uphill neighbors and friends at the Southern Heights Presbyterian Church.

Our volunteers helped us build fencing along the top of the Crops plots and add signage clarifying the distinction of that space, built a compost sifter, and added intraguild pathways starting with the Pecan, Pawpaw, Chestnut, Children’s, and Walnut guilds. They also helped us add a stunning number of new plants: Thanks to Little Beaver nursery outside of Beatrice and a series of private donations, we added 500+ wildflower plants including pitcher sage, love grass, rigid goldenrod, rosinweed, bergamot, wild licorice, purple prairie clover, yarrow, prairie dropseed, daylilies, and false indigo. We also added quite a few sweet shrubs, a goji berry, our first blueberry, nearly a dozen grapes (thank you, Campbell’s Nursery), willow for a living tunnel (thank you, Lincoln Children’s Zoo), and will add Cornus mas in the next few weeks as a live staking experiment. We added rhubarb and wild ginger, hostas, cannas, and were gifted a locally grown variety of sweet potato dating to the 1930s that we can plant next spring. Last, but far from least, we planted two bur oak trees this year, one of whom was planted during our memorial celebration of Amy Brt’s life, a community expression of gratitude for the impact one passionate young woman was able to have here- a vibrant life unfolding with in a fertile and supportive community. Her vision for community endures and continues to grow. It’ll be a long time before these oaks are mature, but that’s the nature of this whole project, isn’t it? Build for the future, find present joy in the vision of future children playing gratefully in the shade (and nourished by the food!) that we believed in way back now. Join us to grow the Food Forest by making your donation now!

Enchanted Food Forest

Sunday, October 28, 2-5pm
Southern Heights Food Forest
40th and Old Cheney

Invite your friends!

also:  Volunteers Needed (for a fun afternoon!)

Hundreds of families will be at the Enchanted Food Forest on October 28, and we need your help to make their experience a huge success. Everyone is welcome, even if you’ve never volunteered at the Food Forest before. You just need to enjoy having fun with kids!

The event is 2-5pm. The sign up times include set up and clean up. Sign up for one shift, or the whole afternoon. Thanks for joining us.

Volunteer Sign Up

Other Upcoming Volunteer Workdays:

9-noon:
Sept 8, Sept 29 (includes all ages tree planting workshop!)

10-1:
Oct 14 (EDIT:  CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER!), Oct 21

2-4pm
Oct 27 (this is the final decoration / set up for the Enchanted Food Forest the next day)

We are surrounded by such an amazing community: our thank you’s to you all!

Thank you to each and every one of you who donated on Give to Lincoln Day. The collective impact for the city of Lincoln was outstanding. A special thanks to everyone who helped the Southern Heights Food Forest raise $14,214!!!! These funds make a tremendous difference in continuing to grow the forest.

Look!  We’re famous! 

Check out the new video intro to the Food Forest: many thanks to LNKTV Health for filming this fun episode of Shape of the City at the Food Forest. Meet Molly, our coordinator, learn some ways to make gardening easier and hear more about the progress in the Food Forest!

Thank you to Little Beaver Nursery

Located just north of Beatrice, Little Beaver Nursery donated hundreds of perennial plants to the Food Forest this spring. A wide variety of species are now in the ground and will be joining these existing pollinators in attracting insects soon.

Hugelkultur

Thanks to Ross Brockley and the Hugelkultur Institute, a new Hugelkultur bed has been established at the southwest end of the project. Temporarily covered in daikon radishes and other fast growing plants to hold the soil, it will soon have a wide variety of plants. This simple technique creates create soil and retains rain water on the property, providing years of benefits.  More information on Hugelkultur.

Community Time:

Come, Meet New Friends, Make a Difference.

“Every time I volunteer at the Food Forest, I learn something new, and have great conversations with the other volunteers who come. I always leave with a feeling of accomplishment and connection.”

 –Ingrid, Food Forest Volunteer

Volunteer Work Days, summer schedule: 8am – 11am
Sunday, July 8
Saturday, July 21
Sunday, August 12
Saturday, August 25

We’ve got plenty of tasks for any abilities, including soil moving, weeding, fence building, sign making and much more, so come on out!

Permie Breakfast Group

Join us most Tuesday mornings at 7am in July and August for an informal gathering to talk about permaculture and food forests. No prior knowledge is necessary, just bring your breakfast and stop by! It’s a great chance to check out everything that’s been happening at the Food Forest.  Event details here.

and finally, for those dedicated enough to still be reading…

Amy Brt Memorial Tree Planting

For those of you who have been part of the project from the beginning, you will remember our co-founder, Amy Brt, whose vision started off this great project. To honor Amy, we will be planting a Bur Oak in the Food Forest on Thursday, August 30, at 6:30pm. All are welcome to join us. Further Details

Thanks to your help, the Southern Heights Food Forest is rapidly growing! Trees have been planted, the outdoor classroom is active with young children playing and learning, and the community gardeners are cultivating their plots.

Now, you can continue the growing by donating as part of Give to Lincoln Day 2018: our forest garden needs ground cover plants and several new-to-you vegetables that come back year after year, including a host of popular indigenous food sources; and our outdoor classroom needs decking under certain areas, a new digging area, planter boxes, and culinary herbs for the kids to explore.  We need signs that welcome visitors to our project, label key plants, and offer community guidelines for how this space should function.

Our vision is to change the way we think about and value public space as a community. We are creating a space where entire communities and families are coming together to interact with each other and with nature. Unique in the nation, our food forest includes a space embedded within where children can play freely while learning about nature.  We are teaching each other about food and ecology, all while forming multi-generational relationships and demonstrating for homeowners and park goers the amazing abundance available right here in south east Nebraska.

Thank you for being a part of the Southern Heights Food Forest- we could not do this with out you!

Click Here to Donate

Families Guide to Outdoor Classrooms

This Sunday, May 6 at 2 PM – 4 PM
Southern Heights Food Forest

Time spent outside as a young child is strongly correlated to health and success measures later in life. But where can you take your infant? Your two year old? Your elementary aged flock of kids? And what do you do with them once you are there? Come learn about outdoor classrooms with education specialist Heather Fox. Normally offered to teachers, this special workshop is geared toward parents, caregivers, and would-be volunteers. (Please no mobile kids, although infants are welcome to join us.)

More info

The Hills Are Alive! Soil Building Workshop

Saturday, May 19, 10am-12pm

Join us for a fantastic workshop with Bob Hendrickson (Nebraska Statewide Arboretum), Ash Gordon (Nebraska Mushroom), Ross Brockley, (farmer and hugelkultur expert), Heather Norbert (Great Plains Biochar Initiative) and more!

Learn how to improve soil fertility and water retention using techniques such as hugelkultur and mushroom blocks. You’ll get hands-on experience creating raised beds by using decaying wood debris and other compostable biomass plant materials.

Learn More

Also of note:

Give to Lincoln DOUBLED! Southern Heights Food Forest is one of many organizations benefiting from Give to Lincoln Day. Give anytime in May and your donation will be doubled by our generous sponsors plus receive matching funds from Lincoln Community Foundation!

What’s a Hugelkultur? Hugelkultur beds are a great way to build your soil, but what are they?

Read here for a great explanation.

Spring is Here! How will you celebrate?  We’ve got some ideas.

Wild Adventures – This Saturday

Bring your kids and stop by our table Saturday at Pioneers Park for some Wild Adventures! Tons of fun, free, nature activities for the whole family!

Learn More!

Recycle Lincoln Celebration Or…stop by and see us at Auld, also Saturday, 11-1, and learn about local recycling options, including using cardboard in the garden. Details.

Spring Garden Fun! Now is a great time to seed crops that love the cold (radishes, beets, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, kohlrabi, carrots, arugula, peas, and much more). Get the whole family involved as even radish “haters” will have to eat the ones they grew!

Build a Birdbath Clay pot trays, an old sink, a bundt pan…all of these have been used to make bird baths. What can you recycle into a great bird watching spot for your yard?

More ideas here.  

Mark Your Calendar!

Community Nature Play Saturday, April 14, 10-2

All ages are invited to visit the Nature Explore Classroom at the Southern Heights Food Forest, 40th & Old Cheney. Explore art, music, climbing, building, and gardening, plus make a kite and play lawn games!

Sunday, May 6, 2-4pm – Families’ Guide to Using Outdoor Classrooms – come learn how you and your children of any age can explore nature in a structured way.

Saturday, May 19, 10am-12pm – The Hills Are Alive! soil building workshop with Bob Hendrickson (Nebraska Statewide Arboretum), Ash Gordon (Nebraska Mushroom), Ross Brockley, (farmer and hugelkultur expert), and much more!

2017 has been wonderful! We’ve had delicious harvests, plenty of preschoolers, and volunteers galore.  There’s much more to come next year: we’re asking for help to get 2018 launched.  Good news: we are more than 1/3 of the way to our goal!

AND: your help this month will be DOUBLED by a generous matching grant we’ve been offered.

Highlights from this year:

Several hundred preschoolers visited the Nature Explore Classroom this year, it’s first for full operations. They sang garden songs, played with natural materials, and learned along the way.

We had our first (small) harvests this year! Any kids who visited were treated to strawberries, raspberries, ground cherries, tomatoes, blackberries, and more, depending on the season.

 

Thank you! So many of you came out this year! You volunteered, brought your kids, and told others about the Southern Heights Food Forest. To be a part of the community, we need everyone’s participation, so thank you!

Help meet our match! Two generous Food Forest donors have challenged you to donate this month. They will be matching your donations, doubling your impact! You’ll be getting more children out to explore and connect with nature. Please donate today!

Your donations matter! We’ve mapped a robust 2018 season, including training for parents and other community members about working with children outdoors, an adult education series, a sequence of soil improving cover crops and ground covering perennials, improvements to our rain water capture and infiltration, and new fruiting vines and shrubs.
Every gift helps!

Please follow this link to give today.  Please share this message (and your enthusiasm) with your friends.  Thank you again: our slow, steady work together is creating a gift to the future that none of us could achieve alone.

Coming up over the next month:   Come play! There are events for kids and families coming up
Come help!  There are volunteer work days and outreach events coming up

What do you want to do?

Events for Kids and Families:  Nature Play: Story, song, and movement for 5 and under, with an accompanying adult.

9:30 am, Wednesdays (Sept 20 and 27, Oct 4, 11, 18, and 25)

Kids Plant Strawberries: We have 40+ baby strawberry plants.  We’ll give you a cheat sheet on what to do, and have prepped beds for you to plant in.

10 am to 1 pm, Saturday, October 7

Coming up: The Enchanted Forest Trunk or Treat

2 pm – 6 pm, Sunday, October 29

Had you heard?  There are homeschool kids starting to come play and learn.  If you want to connect with them or find your own rhythm, please reply to this email.

  You can help us make this work: Volunteer Workdays:  Come, at whatever speed works for you.  We have apple trees to move, compost bin lids to build, paths to smooth, microswales to dig, cover crops to seed, fresh sheet mulch to install, and more.

9 am – noon, Sept 23 and 24, Oct 21

Outreach Events:  We’ll have a booth at the Fall for Pride festival in Antelope Park.  Can you help us staff it?

1 pm – 5 pm, Sunday, October 8

We’ll need a few hands on deck for the strawberry planting and a few more for Trunk or Treat as well.  Reply to this email to volunteer for those.

  Keep an eye out for other Upcoming Events: There will be a fall “get a good sleep” clean up day after hard frosts hit.

There will be tours of the Food Forest coming up soon and more in the spring.

There will be pruning and grafting workshops this winter and spring.