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Opportunity: Duplex with edible landscape in Holyoke

Hello friends and customers!

We hope your spring is growing and fruitful. For those folks in the Massachusetts area, or for folks you know who might be interested in this announcement, after 17 years, we are looking for a new owner of Paradise Lot.

Paradise Lot is a duplex with an edible landscape in Holyoke, MA. After residing there since 2004, Eric and his son are preparing to move on to apply their learnings to larger pieces of land. Jonathan, Megan, and Jesse of Food Forest Farm have already made their move to NY several years ago. Paradise Lot will likely be for sale in 2021 or 2022 (Food Forest Farm is still a thriving business in NY, and will have plants for sale again in 2022).

The 1/10 acre site features a mature edible landscape with 191 species of useful perennial and self-sowing plants, of which 166 are edible. This includes 44 species with edible fruit, with large mature specimens of American persimmon, peach, mulberry, pawpaw, Asian pear, grapes, hardy kiwifruit, and many species of berries, as well as younger specimens of jujube, chestnut, and more. There are 78 species of perennial vegetables including trees with edible leaves, and many other food plants. Almost half of the species are native to the eastern US. It includes nitrogen fixing species, flowering plants for pollinators and beneficial insects, mulch plants and groundcovers.

Infrastructure includes several raised beds for annual gardening, a small pond, and two sheds, one of which also serves as a chicken house. The 20’ x 20’ greenhouse features fruiting tangerine, lemon, and calamondin trees along with raised beds for winter vegetable production. It is insulated and unheated and uses no electricity but requires a fair amount of care (you could upgrade it to be easier to care for).

The owners are willing to provide some ongoing training to learn to care for the landscape, its plants, and the greenhouse. We wrote a garden memoir about our story, and were featured in the New York Times.

Each side of the house has two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. The house was built in 2003 and had a new 20-year roof put on in 2018. Parking for 2 cars for each side of the house is available. Rents in the neighborhood are around $1,200 per month.

Our exact timeline is still uncertain. If you are interested please contact Eric Toensmeier at (413) 695-6115 or toensmeier@gmail.com.

We’d very much like to pass on this unique opportunity to someone who is excited to make it their own!

Jonathan, Eric, Megan, Daniel and Jesse

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