City Fruit | Harvest: Handbook

Interested in starting a fruit harvest in your neighborhood? Not sure where to even start?

We can help.

We've partnered with Solid Ground to create a handbook to help people get started. Written by Gail Savina, Founding Executive Director of City Fruit who has years of experience organizing neighborhood harvests, the handbook will walk you through the steps to get your very own neighborhood fruit tree harvest up and running.

You'll learn to:

Plan for your upcoming harvest, including outline the scope, set up the core committee.

Lay the groundwork by identifying tree owners, volunteers, and places that can use the fruit.

Develop and plan for each harvest and delivery of the fruit.

Download the handbook (PDF)

Harvest Fruit

Overview
Harvest Your Fruit
Get Harvest Help
Share Extra
Volunteer to Harvest
Fruit Harvest Handbook

Picking Fruit

The following tips apply to picking fruit:

For apples and pears, lift and twist. Plums will give easily.

Keep stems attached to fruit, if possible. (Fruit lasts longer if there isn’t a hole for bacteria to enter.)

Don’t overfill boxes and bags, especially with soft fruit.

If you pick up fruit off the ground, be sure to wash it. It can pose a risk of E coli.

Try to pick all the fruit, if possible, since fruit left on the tree (or under the tree) attracts fruit pests.