Solution for Messy Fruit Trees

If I get hungry in the summer, I don't have to go further than my yard to find something tasty to eat. When my husband and I bought our house seven years ago, it came equipped with an acre lot full of mature fruit trees, grapevines and a garden plot for growing vegetables. Over the years, we've added strawberries, raspberries and blueberries, and thanks to the rich soil of central Illinois we always have an abundance of fresh, nutritious food to share with family and friends.

But even our fresh food paradise has its drawbacks. Every August the branches of our pear tree become laden with fruit, and much of it rots before we can enjoy it. The pears fall to the ground in messy piles that have to be scooped up and tossed in the compost. It always makes me sad to see the fruit go to waste, but with the help of Eastern Illinois Foodbank, I think I finally found a solution.

Last year my Rotary Club (C-U Sunrise) recruited volunteers for a food repack at the foodbank, and I spent an evening sorting canned goods. That night I learned about the demand for food in our local community and how it has risen dramatically due to the poor economy. Stories about first-time pantry users really troubled me and made me aware that my family could be next.

Since that night, I have become more familiar with the foodbank and the work they do to distribute food to pantries in 14 counties in the eastern part of our state. During a recent conversation with one of their staff I learned that while the demand for food has gone up, the nutritional quality of corporate food donations has gone down. Eastern Illinios Foodbank would like to provide more fresh fruits and vegetables for their clients, but they don't receive enough donations to accomodate the need.

After that conversation I began to wonder if my messy pear tree could serve a new purpose. I asked Cheryl Precious, director of marketing and development at the foodbank, if they could distribute my pears to a local pantry. The next thing I knew, one of their staff was helping me load empty cardboard boxes into the back of my van.

The following Saturday, with the help of my three daughters, we picked our pear tree clean.

Three of us picked while one sorted, cleaned and inspected the harvest. In a couple of hours, three large cases of fruit were sitting on my kitchen table ready to go to the foodbank.

Now I know my three cases of pears won't make a dent in the overall hunger needs of my community, but it's a start. If you have messy fruit trees in your yard, I encourage you to call Eastern Illinois Foodbank to see how you can help. In the meantime, I'll be waiting for my apples to turn red.

Molly Delaney (the author of this post) is a concerned parent as well as educational outreach director for Illinois Public Media and a member of C-U Fit Families and C-U Sunrise Rotary.

For more information on Eastern Illinois Foodbank, call 217-328-3663.

Fruitful Conversation

I once read that students in a major city could easily identify commercial brands when the brand name was removed from the product, but they couldn't identify the flowers that grew in their neighborhoods and around their school. I would have flunked the test, too.

Enter community organizer and graduate student, JP Goguen, and the Champaign-Urbana Fruit Map. Using Google maps, he and some friends have created a public, interactive map that aggregates edible fruit trees on the campus of the University of Illinois, and on public and private land in the twin cities.

"The idea is to get information about what is available to grow and what is growing in terms of edible fruit trees and nut trees and berries," JP says, "and get that information out there for people to inspire them to plant trees themselves, to inspire them to eat food straight off the tree and to talk to their neighbors and talk to their kids about the infrastructure that grows around us and the ways we can use it."

The public can also add fruit trees to the existing map -- a smaller version is shown below.


View Champaign-Urbana Fruit Map in a larger map

When we met today for coffee, he showed me some links he has compiled of resources that help people who want to grow their own fruit tress, such as the U of I Extension's Small Fruit Crops for the Backyard. For those who want to organize community projects, there's City Fruit , an organization in Seattle that, according to its website, "works neighborhood by neighborhood to help residential tree owners grow healthy fruit, to harvest and use what they can, and to share what they don’t need. City Fruit collaborates with others involved in local food production, climate protection, horticulture, food security and community-building to protect and optimize urban fruit trees."

Response to the fruit tree project is growing. People JP has never heard of are starting to add fruit trees to the map. And he'd like to have planting ceremonies for those who want fruit trees. As we talked about my yard, he identified paw-paw trees and blueberries as a good match for the acid soil in my yard.

The project isn't without controversy, JP told me. Some people don't want others to know where the public fruit trees are so the fruit doesn't get eaten up. Others don't like the messy fruit that drops on sidewalks and stains them. Still others are concerned about adding private homes to a public map.

JP says he has talked to some of the people in private homes whose fruit trees have been mapped, but not all of them. He reports that fruit trees on private homes are generally located in the right-of-way or a few feet from the sidewalk on the person's lawn.

I am inspired by our fruitful conversation. If you'd like to connect with JP, his email address is: jpgoguen@gmail.com

Kimberlie Kranich is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois.edu