Summer of Food Forests Tour Dates

The NYC Edible Food Forest Coalition is a burgeoning grassroots, city-wide effort to introduce our neighbors to the bounty and possibilities of an edible city. This summer, go on tour with us and meet some of the people and places that are working towards a greener and more delicious New York City.  Visit sites on select dates and hear from practitioners on how their site feeds communities while providing critical habitat to wildlife. Explore how these sites provide vital solutions to mitigate impacts from climate change by capturing stormwater, creating a healthy tree canopy, and improving our urban soils! Dive deeper by reading about each site and registering below.  For questions or concerns, feel free to contact Nathan Hunter at Foodway@bronxriver.org or by calling 718-542-4124. 

Bronx Sites:

The Bronx River Foodway at Concrete Plant Park is NYC Parks Department’s first edible food forest within a public park. Since 2017 the Foodway has explored how edible landscapes can integrate into public lands, jumpstarting the imagination helping to vision a new relationship with our public lands. Check out this dynamic site in the footprint of a formerly abandoned Concrete factory positioned along the Bronx River. Join us for a tour of this food forest as we make unfamiliar plants familiar and the familiar accessible at this hidden gem in the South Bronx. 

Tour Dates: June 28th / 1pm 

Location: Concrete Plant Park, The South Bronx

Register: HERE

James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center (JBOLC) strives for inquiry and project-based solutions at the juncture of food, environmental and social justice. In collaboration with volunteers, students and local community members, JBOLC has stewarded Meg’s Garden and Edible Forest since 2016 and has operated the seasonal JBOLC Farmers Market since 2020. Inspired by and dedicated to legendary Community Activist and Health Educator Megan Charlop, Meg’s Garden Community encourages a collective ethos of care and nurturing that respects all plants and creatures. Here the community focuses on growing culinary herbs, medicinal plants and over 35 fruit trees through a permaculture lens. Common-sense ethical design, working with nature, has helped to create an agriculturally productive sustainable system using available natural resources. Join the JBOLC team to share garden tea, saunter around this beloved edible forest, and learn more about emerging edible forest initiatives in the North Bronx

Dates:  July 19th / 12 noon

Location: Mosholu Parkway, The North Bronx

Registration Link(s): HERE

Manhattan Sites:

Swale NYC is a floating food forest built atop a barge that aims to make access to fresh food more equitable. It travels to public piers in New York City welcoming visitors to harvest herbs, fruits and vegetables for free. The Swale barge closed during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its next iteration is currently being designed in Brooklyn, and our team is fundraising to purchase a platform and make a permanent floating edible garden. The superstructure will be built in the fall of 2025, and it will launch in spring of 2026 north of New York City, making its way to the boroughs in late summer of 2026. Hear from designer Mary Mattingly as they share a updates to this beloved project. 

Dates: June 21st / 1-3pm

Location: Governors Island, Manhattan

Registration Link(s): HERE

Stuyvesant Cove Park is a Lower Manhattan greenspace and educational hub for conversations on food, climate, and social justice. Built atop a former industrial site on stolen Lenape land, this city-owned property is managed by Solar One in partnership with the NYC Economic Development Corporation. The site has been undergoing construction as a part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project and will be have some intermittent closures this summer. Managers of Stuy Cove would like to welcome community back to the site in September. Register below to stay in the loop with updates and announcements of this special waterfront park. 

Dates:  September Date to be Announced! 

Location: Lower Manhattan

Registration Link(s): TBA

Brooklyn Grange in partnership with the Javits Center is proud to offer seasonal public tours of its six-block campus. Our ambassadors provide educational tours about the convention center’s bustling operations, as well as an inside look into our innovative efforts to transform the venue into a nationwide model of sustainability. From a nearly 7-acre green roof to a new one-acre rooftop farm, our employees are pushing the boundaries of sustainability by discovering new ways to conserve energy, repurpose event materials and create a roof-to-table experience unlike any other in New York City.

Dates:  July 10th, August 6th,  and September 4th

Location: Midtown Manhattan

Registration Link(s): 

July 10: HERE

August 6th: HERE

September 4th: HERE

New York Restoration Project (NYRP) works collaboratively with residents in communities across the five boroughs to renovate gardens, restore parks, plant trees, promote urban agriculture, and build partnerships that transform the city’s landscape. Together with community members NYRP works to make NYC a greener and more resilient city.

Join the NYRP team for two separate tours highlighting two special food forests in Northern Manhattan.  First attend a special tour of the edible food forest at Swindler’s Cove in Northern Manhattan. Home to native edible forest plants including a dynamic food forest complete with mushroom logs for community harvests.

Visit the Chestnut Grove in Highbridge Park established by friends at New York Restoration Project (NYRP) in partnership with NYC Parks Dept and longtime American Chestnut Conservationist Bart Chezar. Learn how NYRP has been working to bring back the functionally extinct American Chestnut, by establishing a hybridized variety created to withstand the original Chestnut Blight that destroyed our American Chestnut population.

The Chestnut Grove in Highbridge Park

Dates:  August 1 / 5pm

Location: Northern Manhattan

Registration Link: HERE

Edible Food Forest at Swindler’s Cove in Inwood

Dates:  August 21 / 5pm

Location: Northern Manhattan

Registration Link: HERE

Queens / Long Island Sites:

Smiling Hogshead Ranch is a roughly one acre Urban Farm Collective, located on a MTA/LIRR owned property with abandoned tracks. The site has an annual row crop area with in-ground and raised beds, surrounded by a food forest with fruit, nut and berry trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers and also culinary mushroom beds.

Join members of Smiling Hogshead Ranch during GreenThumb’s Open Garden Weekend for a Father’s Day Food Forest Tour at 10am. Stick around to help apply compost and mulch to our fruit trees, shrubs and vines. Then join our 1pm tour of the proposed Dutch Kills Loop.

Dates:  June 15, 2025 / 10-1pm

Location: Long Island City, Queens

Registration Link: HERE

Moskehtu Consulting, led by Chenae Bullock, use Indigenous traditional knowledge to contribute to the scientific, technical, social, and economic advancements of our partners and clients and to our collective understanding of the natural world.

Join Moskehtu Consulting for an unforgettable experience on the East End of Long Island, where you’ll dive deep into the richness of cultural and environmental sustainability alongside the Shinnecock cultural stewards! This is a wonderful opportunity to learn about the important work being done to regenerate our forests and cultural sites.

We are excited to invite you to our warm and welcoming gathering at the Shinnecock Pow Wow Grounds, where we will kick off the day with an introduction to our mission and the amazing work ahead. Throughout the day, you will have the chance to rotate among three meaningful sites:

1.Shinnecock Pow Wow Grounds – our starting point, where traditions come alive.

2.Indigenous Tree Farm Site Prep – roll up your sleeves and help prepare our land for a brighter future.

3.De-strangle Indigenous Trees and Plants on Future Cultural Homesite – contribute to the preservation and growth of our cherished plants.

We will close the day with a joyous feast gathering at our cultural outdoor cooking site, where you can share stories and experiences with fellow volunteers and cultural stewards. Come share your energy, enthusiasm, and passion for sustainability while connecting with a vibrant community. The team can’t wait to see you there!

Dates:  Summer dates June 19, 20 / Fall Dates Oct 15, 16, 17

Location: Shinnecock Tribal Lands, South Hampton,  Long Island

Registration Link(s): 

June 19th – Register

June 20th – Register

October 15 – Register

October 16 – Register

October 17 – Register

Brooklyn Site:

Field Meridians, an artist collective rooted in Crown Heights, is planting seeds for a public food forest in central Brooklyn. In the winter of 2025, we convened a weekly collective visioning process for a food forest that would address food insecurity, climate resiliency, and environmental racism. With our neighbors, Field Meridians is braiding together art making practice, environmental justice, and collective visioning to build a resilient civic space—an edible ecosystem as classroom. Our goals:

• Model food sovereignty through public access to nutrient-dense, culturally-appropriate foods
• Expand and protect green infrastructure to build resilience to climate change
• Anchor artist-facilitated education program in a living community hub
• Form a Community Land Trust to protect Crown Heights from private development

Join Field Meridians with Friends of Brower Park for a special Juneteenth tour of Brower Park’s edible canopy and pollinator garden, and learn more about the local community’s efforts to establish a food forest in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.  

Date:  June 19th (Juneteenth), Two tour times: Noon and 2:30PM

Location: Crown Heights, Brooklyn 

Registration Link: HERE