Planting Cherry Trees

Organizers hope to plant change in KC with urban orchards

Eighteen-year-old Kalie Bowman had never planted before. But on Friday, she and 200 other vocational students from across the U.S. helped give Kansas City one of the largest urban orchards in the country.</p><p>&#x201C;I&#x2019;m not a get-your-hands-dirty type,&#x201D; said Bowman, taking off her red work gloves to reveal perfectly manicured pink nails. &#x201C;But this was something really different to do.&#x201D; </p><p>The cosmetology student from Ohio is attending the annual Skills- USA national conference in Kansas City. She dug holes for several of the orchard&#x2019;s 40 blueberry bushes, filling them with fertilized mulch and peat moss.</p><p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s something really good for a community,&#x201D; she said.</p><p>Other students shoveled earth and cleared brush for 136 apple, pear, peach, plum, nectarine and cherry trees in the West Side neighborhood. The steep terraced grounds surround the Tony Aguirre Community Center at 20th Street and West Pennway and offer a panoramic view of the Bartle Hall pylons and the shimmering silver roof of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.</p><p>Beyond Kansas City, there&#x2019;s a clear movement toward urban orchards. Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, San Francisco and Austin, Texas, are all in on the fruit-planting and picking action. The Philadelphia Orchard Project, for example, has 302 trees in 27 locations. Kansas City has 214 trees in one spot.</p><p>Kansas City orchard planner Eddie Tapper, director of real estate and construction for the Westside Housing Organization, sees orchards as a neighborhood revitalization tool. In other cities, neglected areas and vacant lots have been transformed into well-maintained landscapes, boosting spirits and property values.</p><p>Some orchard enthusiasts are trying to bring back old varieties of locally based apples. Tapper said that once the Kansas City orchard program is more established, original Missouri varieties might be grown. Grape vineyards are a possibility, too.</p><p> Last year&#x2019;s SkillsUSA students planted 78 trees in the same area, many that already sprouted little green apples.</p><p> &#x201C;But they&#x2019;re not ready for eating just yet,&#x201D; Tapper said.</p><p> Most of the immature apples were plucked a week ago from the year-old trees to help establish their root systems. It takes three years before apple trees bear edible fruit. So in 2013, 15 varieties of apples will be available for free for anyone who wants them, especially kids.</p><p>&#x201C;Better fruit than candy bars,&#x201D; Tapper said. &#x201C;I think people my age can all remember stealing an apple off a next-door neighbor&#x2019;s tree. That notion&#x2019;s been lost.&#x201D;</p><p> More urban orchards are planned next year for Kansas City. Tapper envisions a 60-tree orchard for the center city area, bordered by East Armour to Linwood boulevards and the Paseo to Troost Avenue. And there&#x2019;s an orchard in the works for the old Northeast area. As with other urban orchards, the neighborhoods are chosen because they often lack nearby access to fresh, healthy food.</p><p>Compared with community gardens, &#x201C;urban orchards take less maintenance and provide longer-term yields,&#x201D; said Cem Akin, executive director of the nonprofit California-based Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, which helps establish fruit trees at parks and schools around the globe. </p><p>&#x201C;Fruit trees are good for air, water and soil. They build community and the next generation of environmental stewards.&#x201D;</p><p> The West Side orchard alone will produce fruit valued at about $60,000 annually. Tapper said he will work with the Society of St. Andrew food ministry to glean the apples and donate them to food pantries.</p><p>Even before fruit is ready for consumption, the orchard needs yearly pruning and weekly attention. Volunteers from Westside Community Action Network Center, Westside Housing Organization, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Young Latino Professionals water the trees two or three times a week (less if it rains). SkillsUSA students installed a watering system next to the trees: buckets with holes. Volunteers will fill them with water as needed. </p><p>&#x201C;Water from a hose needs to be low pressure to water fruit trees,&#x201D; Tapper said. &#x201C;So this way, a high-pressure hose can be used to save time but work as a slow drip, getting deep into the roots.&#x201D;</p><p>Kansas City parks, water and forestry departments are helping. Lala Kumar, horticultural specialist with University of Missouri Extension in Jackson County, gives technical support.</p><p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s really ideal to plant in the spring,&#x201D; Kumar said. &#x201C;But this is when student volunteers can do it. There will be some challenges because of the area&#x2019;s hot, humid climate. But these fruit trees will be a great benefit.&#x201D;</p><p>Tapper wants to avoid toxic pesticides, so workers will apply natural solutions such as tobacco-based sprays.</p><p>&#x201C;No matter the situation with a fruit tree, there&#x2019;s an organic remedy,&#x201D; Akin said.</p><p>The Timberland clothing company bought trees and bushes for Kansas City&#x2019;s orchard because employees wanted a legacy volunteer project coinciding with the SkillsUSA conference. Lowe&#x2019;s provided tools and buckets.</p><p> Students with sweaty brows mounded mulch in wheelbarrows to arrange around the trees and they hauled away brush. Seventeen-year-old Ashley Walker of Rowlett, Texas, a psychology and political science student, leaned against a shovel during a break with her classmates.</p><p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s pretty hard to get into a groove,&#x201D; she said. &#x201C;There&#x2019;s a lot of limestone in the ground here.&#x201D;</p><p>Despite Kansas City&#x2019;s rocky terrain, the group wrapped up the project Friday in a matter of hours.</p><p>In 2015, the national conference is scheduled to move to Louisville, Ky.</p><p>&#x201C;I know we&#x2019;ll find volunteers to keep this going,&#x201D; Tapper said. &#x201C;We&#x2019;re looking for companies that are interested.&#x201D;</p><p>Tapper also wants trees to be mapped so people can use a smartphone to find, for example, a Granny Smith apple for a pie recipe. Currently, people can go to <a href="http://www.neighborhoodfruit.com">www.neighborhoodfruit.com</a>, a site that maps the locations of fruit trees on private and public land open for picking &#x2014; more than 10,000 trees in 25 U.S. cities. It offers a phone application, too, to locate free fruit.</p><p>In Kansas City, Tapper intends for trees to be marked with plastic rings that list the variety and other information. Another idea is to create memorial and adopt-a-tree programs for purchasing new trees and maintaining them.</p><p>&#x201C;That way, urban orchards can sustain themselves,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;And we could continue planting apples trees in every neighborhood of Kansas City.&#x201D;</p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> @ Go to <strong>KansasCity.com</strong> for a photo gallery.

Cherry Trees: Pretty and Productive | Northwest Food News

The rising interest in eating locally grown food for better nutrition, better taste and a lower monthly food bill has inspired many homeowners to convert their once merely decorative yards into small-scale agricultural spaces. In other words, pretty is out, productivity is in.

But there are options for combining beauty and bounty. One of the best ways to do that is with edible cherry trees — and since June is National Fruit Month and the starts today, let’s take a look at growing cherries in Idaho.  After all, edible cherry tree varieties fit the bill in every way, offering beautiful blossoms in the spring, followed by nutritious, delectable summer fruit (high in antioxidants, potassium and vitamin C) and then wrap up the fall season by turning rich tones of orange, red and yellow.  Better yet, southwestern Idaho is an ideal place to grow great tasting cherries.

I learned a lot about growing cherries when talking with , an expert fruit researcher (his colleagues have even deemed him a ‘rockstar’ of fruit production) at the University of Idaho, research and extension center in Parma.

“Idaho cherries can be some of the best in the world because of the flavor and firmness,” says Dr. Fallahi.  “In 1996 Idaho cherries were sent to the Olympics together with cherries from Oregon and Washington as the USA’s most premier, outstanding Northwest sweet cherries.”

There are a number of reasons souwthwest Idaho is in an excellent location to grow great cherries.  “We have outstanding climate conditions during the ripening time, usually late June,” says Dr. Fallahi.  “The days are warm and nights cool and these conditions create the best tasting cherries because trees are synthesizing (creating sugar for food) during the day but during the cool nights, trees respiration (breaking down and consuming the sugars) goes down and the extra sugars go into the fruit to provide extra flavor.”

Dr. Fallahi also pointed out another benefit to growing cherries here.  “We don’t get rain during the ripening time like our Northwest neighbors, therefore our cherries are much less susceptible to absorbing water causing the fruit to crack,” says Dr. Fallahi.  “Of course, even in Idaho you do have to protect the fruit from birds so be prepared to use a mesh net or come up with a creative way to keep birds from harvesting the fruit before you can get to it.

In the Cherry Tree

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