Have Your Pick At An ‘Urban Orchard’
If you are a resident of cities like St. Louis, Boston or LA, and if you have an affinity towards plants and gardening, chances are that you may have overheard the term “Urban Orchard” once too often. Read on to know more about the Urban Orchard and how to have your pick at an Urban Orchard.
What is an Urban Orchard?
Urban Orchard is a community initiative for producing sustainable foods with the help of local residents. The members of the urban orchard program, work together to sow, maintain and harvest fruits and vegetable bearing trees and shrubs in urban areas. Most of the cities have abandoned or neglected patches of land around the city. The urban orchard program takes the help of local communities and residents to grow fruit bearing shrubs in these neglected patches. With the help of this program, people of different communities and background come together and work together towards an ecologically balanced environment and share the fruits of their labour. Literally!!
Picking at an urban orchard
Harvesting is a tricky process at the Urban Orchards as the Urban Orchard program organisers have to find a balance between the number of people available for picking the fruits, the quantity of fruits available for picking and the end use of the picked fruits. Too many fruit pickers and too less fruits reduces the credibility of the program and creates disappointment. On the other hand. too many fruits and too less fruit pickers may cause many fruits to go waste. Also one needs to keep in mind the different ripening time of the different varieties of fruits.
Anyone can come and pick the fruits from these open orchards as picking at an urban orchard is open for all. Barbara Snell, who is the leader of the Botanical Heights Community Garden in St. Louis said, “The idea is that the neighbourhood would take advantage of it. But if someone comes over from another neighbourhood and picks some apples, that's fine, too. We just don't want people coming and picking 30 bushels."
Many people and passersby are not aware that fruits at these urban orchards are open for picking to anyone. One website called the www.neighborhoodfruit.com, has been set up to guide people to the nearest fruit bearing trees at the urban orchards in their locality. Both private and public trees are open for registration at the website. People register their trees and anyone looking for picking at an urban orchard can go and find out the location of these trees.
However, this open harvest program has also opened new doors for opportunists. Some orchards in these urban areas have been picked clean of all fruits. In other cases, people have dug up entire trees and dragged them away leaving wide gaping holes in the orchards. There have been a few instances of such thefts but overall the response and the cooperation of the residents and communities have been positive.
So enjoy picking at an urban orchard and become a member of the urban orchard program as it is an excellent way to turn the empty spaces around your neighbourhood into thriving fruit bearing orchards. The next harvest time, have your pick at an urban orchard and be a part of a movement that is spreading like wild fire in urban reas.
Image credit: dezeen.com
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