The Swale Floating Food Forest is back in New York City to provide free healthy food for the public, letting everyone to come aboard and pick herbs and vegetables like oregano, kale, asparagus and lemon basil. But this time, the company has partnered with cider company Strongbow to recreate and expanded the dock with eight more apple trees and 400 perennial edible plants.
Moreover, immersive activities that can be experienced by visitors are the seed exchange programs and publicly sourced cookbooks available to everyone for free. Three locations will benefit the floating program when it reached the piers of New York, Bronx or Verplanck.
Swale was founded last June by artist Mary Mattingly to provide access to farm-fresh food to New York. According to Conde Nast Traveler, the project was nearly in trouble due to lack of funds. "The future of Swale was uncertain as the barge headed upstate to over-winter last November. But thanks to Strongbow and the Swale team, we have been able to fully realize the vision of creating a floating food forest and showing New Yorkers a new and surprising way to connect to nature to revive and thrive."
The vessel used for gardening reaches 130-foot by 40-foot to cater to the vegetables and fruit trees. The barge would be redesigned and unveil to the public this spring up to October.
While self-foraging projects aren't new to many people, hotels and resorts have adapted the activity as part of their programs for tourists and local guests. All over the world, from Boston to Ireland, visitors hunt from mushrooms to berries and oysters to marine animals reports Conde Nast.
Meanwhile, Swale believes that by creating a floating food forest, it will add to the "regenerating, resilient, and effective agro-ecosystems" of New York. The city's public lands have been off limits to foragers because it might damage the ecosystem. With a floating food forest, they create "different set of rules."
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