Edible landscaping destined for Palmer

PALMER — So you’re walking through downtown on a sunny summer day, admiring the flowers.

But next to the flowers you spot a head of lettuce and a sign inviting you to sample it. Later, there’s some broccoli and maybe a cabbage. When you reach the Palmer Train Depot, you spot a reader board informing you where to find local produce, meat and honey.

This, of course, isn’t something you can do quite yet, but an effort that calls itself Grow Palmer hopes that very soon you will be able to.

“It’s kind of a grassroots movement and really the aim of the project is to change the way we think about our local food system and we do that by fostering connections with our community and with the businesses and also really with the traditions of Palmer. It really is the only town in Alaska that developed out of agriculture,” said Jan Newman, who is spearheading the Grow Palmer effort.

If this sounds like the sort of thing you’d like to help out with, now would be the time. The group is meeting at 7 p.m., Monday at the depot to prep its targeted beds for planting.

The group will need more help later as well. The plan is to prep the beds now and do the planting after the annual Colony Days celebration, slated this year for June 7-9.

The beds all belong to the city and are near the depot and also across from the pavilions, also in downtown.

“We’re focusing the scope of the project this year right on downtown,” Newman said. “And then we’re hoping to do two other things this first year. One is we’ve asked many of the storefront owners to incorporate food plants into their plantings and we hope to create an edible walk for locals and visitors to walk through Palmer and sample.”

Another — they want to scatter some barrel planters with edible plants along the sidewalk.

“The goal is to really kind of change our narrative around food in Palmer and to bring local food to the forefront of everyone’s minds,” Newman said.

It’s an effort that has gotten a considerable amount of help along the way. The Mat-Su Health Foundation provided a $6,000 grant. The city of Palmer signed off on the project at its last city council meeting.

“This project would never have gotten off the ground were it not for DeLena Johnson, the mayor of the city of Palmer,” Newman said.

Johnson wrote a letter of support posted on the project’s Facebook page.

“Palmer has a history steeped in agriculture and continues to host a growing number of farms, CSAs, egg producers, meat growers, beekeepers. The addition of an edible landscape through municipal agriculture throughout our public spaces will continue this positive trend in a way that is consistent with Palmer’s unique history and character,” Johnson wrote.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.