Residents of the city of Geneva will be able to spend the day picking their fancy at a brand-new "edible garden", which opened on September 14. The new site in Vernier, the first of its kind in western Switzerland, will allow families and individuals to pick anything from apples to hazelnuts, entirely for free.
Called Jenny Park (Le parc Jenny), the new facility on the Route d'Aïre in Vernier opened to the public on Saturday. The 5-square-kilometre site is filled to the brim with 28 different fruit and nut trees, including hazelnuts, sea buckthorns, dogwoods, berries, apples and pears.
Speaking to 20 Minuten, Christian Bavarel, the head of the project, confirmed that the site will be completely free to enter. Visitors can stroll through the garden and pick berries “like we used to do in the countryside”.
Bavarel added that the main goal of the new edible garden is to provide residents of the city with a green space. The idea of it being edible “is part of the identity of Vernier, a nourishing city, which has many urban vegetable gardens and 80 percent of the canton's family gardens. It is a reminder that we can eat in other ways than by going to the supermarket."
Jenny Park is the first edible garden in French-speaking Switzerland and will be open year-round. However, Bavarel advised against people ditching Migros and Coop and taking a huge palette of free fruit from the garden: "The aim is not to harvest enough to make jams but to eat some fruit and leave some for others."