Winnett Food Forest Puts Down Roots

Adam Matlock, executive director of Winnett Food Forest, a nascent nonprofit in Hamden, was giving a group of visitors a tour of the plot of land on the corner of Winnett and Putnam as part of the project’s grand opening on Sunday afternoon. ​“The general ethos is that plants are better than no plants,” he said, as he maneuvered from one garden box to another. He had already planted plenty of species, some of which were familiar vegetables such as tomatillos and greens, others of which would take years to mature. But he was just as interested in what was already growing there — including a plant called a mullein. Sometimes it’s considered a weed, but to Matlock it was a welcome addition to the project. ​“It just came up, and by the end of the season I expect it to be about seven feet tall — and that will feed the birds all winter,” Matlock said.

Matlock’s interest in the mullein was part of a larger approach to gardening that represented a turn from the past. ​“It’s a really great opportunity to learn what the weeds are,” he said. ​“We are hyper-concerned about invasive species, and in some cases that’s a good thing. But in some cases it’s a little misplaced, because many of these things are here for some reason, and usually it’s because something eats it.” 

In the long-term plans of the Winnett Food Forest, some of those herbivores will be animals. But even more of them, especially starting a few years from now, as the planned forest develops, will be us — and we won’t have to work very hard to do it.

A food forest, by Matlock’s definition, is ​“a food-producing system using perennial plants. So the idea is that you’re planting not just annual vegetables, but supportive plants, pollinators, fruit trees, and shrubs — and these things work in a system where they support each other in terms of water needs and nutrient needs. So it’s similar to the density of a natural forest, but planned. ​“So we’re thinking in terms of five to seven layers from the top down, in terms of what goes into various spaces.” Trees are planted first; as they grow, smaller things are planted beneath them, until one has five to seven vertical layers of plant life. ​“It can become very chesslike if you want it to,” Matlock said, ​“but once it is established in three to five years, it will continue to grow from there, but it takes very little water or maintenance for it to produce.”

The Winnett Food Forest has its origins in a connection Matlock made with Cormac Levenson, who owns the plot of land on the corner of Putnam and Winnett, on social media. ​“Meeting Cormac is probably the best thing that has happened to me on Facebook in 13 years of using Facebook,” Matlock said. They crossed paths in a New Haven garden exchange group. Levenson used to live next door to the plot, and ran a meditation center there in the past. He ​“was interested in this property being turned into a community garden of some kind, but he didn’t know yet what a food forest was, and that’s where I came in,” Matlock said. He had been ​“spending about a year and a half agitating in the town of Hamden to see if something like that could happen in this town,” he said. ​“So we kind of hit it off.”

They began working on the property in January, ​“feeling the urgency of this growing season,” Matlock said. ​“The fact that Cormac owned the property made it possible for us to get started this year.” On the way to being incorporated as a nonprofit, they first lined up Whitneyville Cultural Commons as a fiscal sponsor. They then applied for and got a grant from the New Haven Green Fund, ​“which enabled us to get started with most of what you see here,” Matlock said. They also got help from Hamden’s Department of Public Works, got garden boxes from Urbanminers, and just received a grant from the Regional Water Authority to continue the work. 

A key part of the equation is the simple fact that Levenson owns the plot of land and fully intends to transfer ownership of it to the food forest once it’s established as a nonprofit. 

“We would not have been able to put stuff up this season if I didn’t own the land. It has also made some of the grants a lot easier. I think honestly, though, the most important thing is more philosophical,” Levenson said. ​“The heart of this project is the reality of abundance. As a culture we try to restrict who has abundance, and the fact that this isn’t something that we have to beg, borrow, or steal to use — we don’t have to go to a landlord — it is a manifestation of the abundance that we’re trying to grow. I’m in a position to build a longer table, not a higher fence. I got to tell you, it feels really good. I’ve built higher fences in my life, and it feels terrible! This feels like I get to participate in creating the kind of world I want to see, and remove those barriers just through the simple move of having it be their land — it felt like a no-brainer.”

“It is forever dizzying to me that from January to now, we have you all here in this space that is being used and is still being transformed,” Matlock said. ​“I am very grateful to be a part of this process.”

“I love how interested everybody is in this property and in the project,” said Cormac Levenson. ​“I’m so excited that this could potentially be a model to make abundance more available to everybody. It’s possible. Food is easier than we think it is.” He noted that the goal is to be able to bring the harvest from the forest to local food pantries. ​“Part of the idea of creating abundance is that everyone deserves fresh and local food.” Winnett Food Forest also hope to do workshops for people who may be interested in developing food forests of their own.

Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett, who stopped by for the opening, applauded ​“any time that people are willing to put in some work — and are better at growing things than I am,” she said. ​“And it’s food going to people who need it, so this is a wonderful effort and I’m really looking forward to seeing the fruits of your labor.”

“Our hope of hopes is that this can serve as a proof of concept for doing this on a larger scale, especially if we can do this on low labor,” Levenson said. ​“The silver living of all this is that things are ready to change. People are ready to do something” — perhaps to create a ​“community safety net.”

“It’s been on everybody’s minds. We had the No Mow May initiative — a lot of folks took part in that. And the fact that the Regional Water Authority and other big institutions took part in that,” where in the past ​“it would have been unthinkable to let your lawn go for even a week,” Matlock said. ​“I think we’re just seeing a real sea change in this. People are interested in what you can do with your urban green space.”