Food Forest

Weekly Schedule

Harvesting - Fridays starting at 4PM. Veggies and fruit harvested on Fridays go to needy families as coordinated by Tanya Pereira and Vince McCaffrey from The Church of the Resurrection located in Sunnyvale.

Work day - Saturdays 9AM to Noon

For more information, contact Art Gianfermo @ (408)747-1735

Food Forest Woodland Garden

Our Food Forest bed and guilds are based on forest gardening, as pioneered by Robert Hart, using Permaculture Principles to grow fruits and vegetables. Our produce supplies agencies that Sunnyvale Cares supports, thus offering hungry people access to fresh food.

Why are the crops not in rows?

Forest gardening, also known as 3-Dimensional Gardening, is a food production and land management system based on replicating woodland edge ecosystems, substituting fruit or nut trees, bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables, which have yields directly useful to humankind. By exploiting the premise of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow on multiple levels in the same area, as do the plants on a forest.

The total area of Charles Street Gardens is 1.8 acres (including the new Native Garden outside the fence). The Food Forest includes a large 1100 sq. ft. Woodland Garden and two smaller beds designated as Guilds, which are groups of trees/plants which work particularly well together. The Citrus Guild and Plum Guild each comprise 320 sq. ft., making the total area of the Food Forest 1,740 sq. ft.

Food Forest Contacts

Pat Plant, Hunger Action Enabler and Sunnyvale Cares Coordinator - (408) 737-7370
Art Gianfermo, Food Forest Team Leader and Master Gardener - (408)747-1735

Pictures in this section provided by Barbara Gianfermo.