I’ve seen a few different things going around the web recently about how you can get your hands on a free fruit tree so I thought I’d help share them here with some additional info about caring for trees. Keep in mind that there are strings attached to getting one of these free fruit trees — but in both cases below, it’s that the trees are used for the good of the community. Can hardly argue with that.

The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation

One of my favorite organizations out there is The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. I’ve written about them previously but as a reminder they are, in their own words:

“… a nonprofit charity dedicated to planting edible, fruitful trees and plants to benefit the environment and all its inhabitants. Our primary mission is to plant and help others plant a collective total of 18 billion fruit trees across the world (approximately 3 for every person alive) and encourage their growth under organic standards.”

In order to help them achieve their 3 fruit trees per person, they’re giving away a ton of fruit trees. They have a couple different ways in which you can get them:

• Fill out this application (Word Doc) for creating an orchard in your community.
• Submit a project idea to their Communities Take Root contest(in partnership with Dreyer’s Fruit Bars). Then the community gets to vote on which projects receive free fruit trees.

Seattle Department of Neighborhoods

Sorry non-Seattle folks, this one is strictly for the Seattle residents — but it’s worth checking to see if your city offers a similar program.

The Tree Fund provides trees to neighborhoods to “enhance Seattle’s urban forest”. If you & your neighbors get together you can receive 10-40 trees for your community, as well as one fruit tree for yourself (one per household). Your project must be able to demonstrate the capacity to build a stronger, healthier community.

It’s a great way to get to know your neighbors better and improve your community at the same time. Plus think of all the great fruit you’ll get! Check out all the places that received free trees last year. Seattle is serious about improving our city’s urban tree canopy.

When, Where, and How to Plant?

Seattle’s Tree Fund doesn’t do the planting of trees until the fall, which is the perfect time to plant new trees — the temperature is cooler, they’ll get plenty of water. I’m not sure when you’d get the trees from the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, but I’d recommend waiting until the summer has passed.

It’s not always easy to know where a fruit tree will do well in a yard — that’s why we’ve put some very useful info up on our website. And don’t forget caring for the fruit tree. It’s not hard, but it does require some know-how and effort. But City Fruit is here to help.

And because I’m a visual learner, I really get the most out of watching someone do something rather than reading about it. For those of you like that out there, here’s a handy video on how to plant a fruit tree.

Now go get yourself & your community some fruit trees and start helping build your city’s urban orchard with a great local food source.

I just can’t get enough of rhubarb….which is a good thing, as my rhubarb patch is in full production. My three plants each produce about 20 stalks at a time.

Here in an old and a new version of a favourite recipe from a recent New York Times.

1989: Rhubarb-Strawberry Mousse

1 1/4 pounds rhubarb, finely diced

1 cup sliced strawberries

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons kirsch

1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin

2 cups heavy cream.

1. Combine the rhubarb, strawberries and sugar in a heavy 2-quart saucepan and simmer for 20 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft.

2. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into a blender with the kirsch; purée and set aside.

3. Pour 4 tablespoons cold water into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Allow to soften for 10 minutes. Heat gently until the gelatin has completely dissolved. Stir into the rhubarb purée.

4. Combine the purée with the remaining cooked rhubarb mixture.

5. Whip the heavy cream until stiff and fold into the rhubarb mixture. Chill for several hours. Serves 8 to 10.

2010: Honey-and-Ricotta Mousse With Strawberry-Rhubarb Broth

1 pound strawberries (small and sweet), washed, trimmed and sliced

6 ounces rhubarb, washed, trimmed and sliced

3 ounces lavender honey

½ tablespoon red-wine vinegar (can also substitute lemon juice).

1. Place all of the ingredients in a small stainless-steel bowl that will fit appropriately over a double boiler. Add enough cold water to just cover the fruit (approximately 1½ cups), then cover the bowl with two tight layers of plastic wrap. Place the bowl over the double boiler and cook over low heat for at least 1 hour, making sure that the plastic wrap does not break. If it does, remove and replace it. (Alternatively, steep the ingredients directly in a nonreactive pot, covered, over very low heat.)

2. Once the broth has a nice ruby color and the fruit has sufficiently infused the liquid, gently strain through a fine sieve. Discard the remaining fruit. Sweeten with additional honey if you wish. Chill.

For the honey-ricotta mousse:

8 ounces whole-milk ricotta

1½ ounces lavender honey (or any honey you like) Grated zest from ½ lemon

1½ teaspoons powdered gelatin

1 cup heavy cream.

1. Place the ricotta, honey and zest in a food processor and blend until creamy. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and chill.

2. Pour 2 tablespoons cold water into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Allow to soften for 10 minutes. Add ¼ cup of the cream and warm over medium-low heat to dissolve. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, but do not chill.

3. Whip the remaining cream to soft peaks and fold it into the gelatin mixture. Fold the whipped-cream mixture into the ricotta mixture in thirds until fully incorporated. Chill for 2 to 3 hours.

For the garnish:

1½ cups thinly sliced rhubarb

½ cup sugar

1½ cups sliced strawberries

A few basil leaves

Shortbread cookies (like Walkers), crumbled.

1. Toss the sliced rhubarb with the sugar and allow to rest for 20 minutes. (If the sugar isn’t fully dissolved, stir and let sit another 10 minutes.) Add the strawberries and toss. Tear the basil leaves into small pieces and toss with the fruit.

2. To serve, you can use a bowl or a cup. Use a spoonful of the fruit mixture as the base and spoon or pipe the mousse on top. Add a few ounces of the strawberry-rhubarb broth and sprinkle a few pinches of crumbled cookies over the mousse.
Serves 6.

A New Grant

City Fruit has just been awarded a grant from the Department of Natural Resources to develop a community stewardship program to care for fruit trees on community-owned properties, such as parks, community gardens, schools, and other community areas.

Fruit Trees on Public Land

There are a ton of fruit trees on public property – more than 30 Seattle parks have fruit trees. Parks like Carkeek, Othello, and Martha Washington have extensive orchards with some good specimens. And there are other parks that have planted several fruit trees (mini-orchards) as part of other edible landscaping projects – such as the Linden Orchard P-Patch and Bradner Gardens.

While these trees are of value to the community, their maintenance and care are often times more labor-intensive than non-edible trees. And typically the civic landscaping budgets cannot cover the costs of the pruning, managing pests, harvesting fruit, etc. So we’ve been talking with the Seattle Parks Department to figure out how to better care and nurture these trees, harvest and use the fruit, and not negatively impact the bottom line. This project is our attempt to create a model by which we can make that a reality.

About the Project

The project has three main objectives:

• Create and pilot test a curriculum and training program on fruit tree care for lay gardeners
• Develop a sustainable, volunteer-based model for the care of fruit trees on public properties
• Recruit and train 12 – 15 volunteers interested in fruit tree management, using them to evaluate the training curriculum and the stewardship model

We’re really using Seattle’s successful Forest Steward program (a project of the Green Seattle Partnership) as a blueprint – that project builds on volunteers’ desires to work with others to improve the urban landscape. Fruit tree stewards will be responsible for winter and summer pruning, thinning of fruit, recruiting community volunteers to harvest fruit, picking up dropped fruit, summer watering, and basic pest management. The goal is to place at least two stewards per park, with each making a two-year commitment to their orchard. (In the future, stewards can be rotated so that experienced orchard stewards are paired with new ones.)

By the end of this project, volunteers will ‘adopt’ the fruit trees in 4 – 5 public parks. Through collaboration between public agencies, private nonprofit organizations, and the volunteers themselves, the project will create a mechanism through which a fruit tree stewardship program can be sustained over the long-term. Such a model could easily be adapted by other communities interested in preserving this resource but lacking public monies to do so.

To Participate & More Info

If you’re interested in becoming one of the fruit tree stweards or have questions about our new project, e-mail info@cityfruit.org.

Interesting interview on American Public Media’s Marketplace show with Adam Nicholson on restoring the family farm at England’s famous Sissinghurst Castle (home of Vita Sackville-West)

Great story on KUOW on a set of neighbours who found friendship and community over tomatoes.

In today’s Dining & Wine section of the New York Times are two great articles. One is about the number of corporations who are providing gardens to their employees to grow vegetables, either to donate to food banks, have for lunch/snacks at the office, or to take home. The second article is about the White House pastry chef whose mission is to reduce dessert portion size and to create desserts with as little white sugar as possible. Check out his recipes for granola bars and cheese cake…yum!

The Seattle Times’ Pacific section this last Sunday had a good review of books to enhance your urban gardening and cooking experience. Of particular interest: “In “The Urban Pantry,” by gardener/writer Amy Pennington, co-founder of Urban Garden Share in Seattle and producer of KIRO Radio’s “In the Kitchen with Tom and Thierry” with chefs Tom Douglas and Thierry Rautureau, writes about everything from stocking the pantry to cooking with what you grow.”

Two radio shows caught my ears today and got the urbanist in me all excited! The first one describes taking urban agriculture and city orchards to a new level, there is a group in London that has created The Urban Wine Company. Just as City Fruit is creating an urban orchard, they are creating an urban vineyard. As cities like London are getting to be warmer and warmer, there are better chances of successfully growing decent for wine making. This March was the debut of Chateau Tooting! Here in Seattle, we have a lot of wonderful winemakers, but the majority of them get their grapes from Washington State’s fabulous grape growing regions.

The second story was on PRI’s The World and talked about Ottawa’s urban farmers..

Check out both these stories: they are energizing.

One of our board members attended a workshop by the Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation and was just blown away by their “seriousness” and the depth of their knowledge!

To educate yourself more about your fruit trees, to find information on problems you may be having, be sure to check them out. Let us know is you need further help…we love your trees

Neighborhood Fruit, a group down in San Francisco, is doing some great stuff and getting some warranted attention. Like us, they’re also mapping fruit — but they’re focus is on fruit in public land that folks can gleen freely.

I recently found their Fruit Guide. A really cool, easily navigable guide of all kinds of different fruit (& nuts). Browse via their photos but click through to get some additional details.

Check out the video to learn more about them: