They put out an e-mail call for folks to put in a community orchard in Town, sweetening the deal with a talk on permiculture.
I went, it was fun. I have a new, and huge, respect for folks who try to plant in Town though.
The site was a small park where the lift station for the sewer was, too low for developement.
It had had a lot of shale placed to raise the grade and make it easier to service the lift station.
2 inches of soil was spread over that, and grass and white dutch clover seeded in. It made a nice little park area.
They got a grant to plant apples, cherries, hascaps, rhubarb, etc, for local folks to tend and freely eat.
What a great idea. 
After the talk by the presenter, we all went to strip and flip sod. It was not possible to just remove the sods and pile them for future use as compost, as that 2 inches of soil in the sods’ roots was all the soil there was. So dig down 8 inches in compacted shale, bare root the potted trees, spread the roots, cover with whatever media was in the pots, and put the shale and upside down sods back. Mulch heavily, and hope it rains…it poured.
After an hour of stripping sods, I was greatfull to be rained out, grin.
I hope their little orchard takes off and does well. The trees will eventually dig down to native sil, not so sure about the rhubarb and other shallow rooted stuff, but they did seem to have lots of mulch available.
it was a fun morning.