Tucked behind the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School is a quiet revolution in how we cultivate food: a growing food forest, which Oak Leaf Landscape designer Roxanne Kapitan calls the “garden of the future, a curated museum of plants that are grown in a climate-friendly way.” Unlike traditional gardens, this space is a multi-layered, self-sustaining system planted with edible perennials like sea kale and native hazelnuts. Built on compost-rich mounds with no need for tilling, the garden mimics the resilience of natural ecosystems, while feeding both people and pollinators for most of the year.
Beyond producing food, this food forest also deeply educational. Students get hands-on experience in climate-friendly agriculture and learn how diverse, perennial food systems can be part of the solution to our changing climate. This project is part of a larger Island-wide goal: to establish public food forests in every town, a priority outlined in The Vineyard Way Climate Action Plan. Thanks to a state grant, landscape designer Mary Sage Napolitan is helping bring that vision to life, starting in Aquinnah and growing from there!
