Foraging for Feelings at Festival Beach Food Forest; Austin’s Urban Farm

Song leader Josh Blaine plays guitar, singing along with community members at the Festival Beach Food Forest.

With a strum of a guitar and the vibration of vocal cords, a circle of strangers and friends becomes a living, breathing space of their own. Song leader Josh Blaine invites everyone to join in the community singing circle at Festival Beach Food Forest. While some people rest on blankets on the grass, others let their limbs connect and flow with the music. 

“No pressure to sing. You’re welcome to just listen and receive all of these plants around here,” he said, tambourine in hand ready to start the next song. “[The plants] are all just receiving. They're listening. They're hearing us feel welcome.”

Forest-goers taking in the greenery of Festival Beach.

The community singing circle is a common occurrence at the Festival Beach Food Forest. Sitting on 2/3rds of an acre by Lady Bird Lake and Chicano Park, Festival Beach strives to serve as an educational and communal space for Austin through monthly events such as tours of the forest, garden workdays and tea-making demonstrations. These events allow people to find a community while learning more about plants and their benefits.  

Festival Beach was established in 2012 after community organizers advocated for the creation of a community forest. They received a grant from Austin City Council to create the community forest and began planting trees in 2015.

A park bench sits to the right of a poster detailing different types of plants at Festival Beach’s main entrance.

Lead Volunteer Aly Tharp said that one of the main goals of the Food Forest is to increase accessibility to agricultural education, community spaces and the medicinal benefits of plants. 

“The mission of the Festival Beach Food Forest is to create edible and medicinal landscapes on public parklands,” Tharp said. “It's open to everyone with a goal of nourishing education and inspiration.”

People gather in the grass, waiting to join Josh Blaine in song.

Festival Beach is home to plants like elderberry and yarrow. Elderberry medicines and teas can help decrease the severity and length of colds. Yarrow is also commonly used to help reduce cold symptoms and heal wound infections, but more studies need to be conducted to confirm its medicinal benefits, according to the National Institute of Health.

Festival Beach utilizes a permaculture system as an alternative to traditional community gardening. Permaculture sites differ from community gardens by growing plants that can survive many seasons. This agricultural method focuses on connecting people to their surrounding environment. While Festival Beach has a few seasonal vegetables such as kale and lettuce, most plants can survive long term. 

Amada Estrada sits on a wooden log, sipping on warm hibiscus tea made by a lead volunteer as she connects with other people at Festival Beach. She says that visiting Festival Beach for the first time allows her to reflect on society’s relationship with nature. 

“I think it's important because as much as it doesn't seem like it in the way that we operate in our society now, we are just part of nature. We are just yet another extension of nature,” Estrada said. “Healthy Earth, healthy us.”

Lead Volunteer Karen Luzius describes the medicinal benefits of the plants around her on a tour of Festival Beach.

Lead Volunteer Aly Tharp says that because volunteers manage Festival Beach, operating the entire forest with varying numbers of volunteers can be difficult. High traffic in a busy urban area also creates a challenge for the team because of discarded trash.

Still, Core Volunteer Bernard Kauffman, said that the Festival Beach team is currently planting Mountain Laurel trees to act as a barrier against the high traffic. “We’re going to plant a lot of evergreen screening plants to hopefully limit some of the visibility and noise coming in from the highway,” he said. “We are in an urban area and that can be a challenge, but it’s just a labor of love.”

Festival Beach recently received a grant from the City of Austin to expand the forest, Kauffman said. He hopes that with this grant, they can grow more plants and increase their accessibility to food. “I would like to have this whole Bermuda grass field budding with fruit trees and perennial vegetables,” he said. “ I want it to be easy for somebody to walk here and if they're hungry they can grab a quick, healthy meal.”

Photos by Dacia Garcia