Eat Near: Community orchard educates neighbors on backyard fruit

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Volunteers and staff install the Colonial Oaks Park community orchard in 2013 / COURTESY AUBREY PHILLIPS

Volunteers and staff install the Colonial Oaks Park community orchard in 2013 / COURTESY AUBREY PHILLIPS

When Sarasota County's Parks and Recreation department asked University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension Agent Robert Kluson to help put in a community garden at Colonial Oaks Park, there was just one problem: not enough space. So rather than a community garden, tended by locals and managed by neighborhood volunteers, Kluson instead proposed an orchard.

The community orchard concept began in England in the early '90s, when neighbors came together to preserve green space in the form of trees with edible fruit. According to a fact sheet issued by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, England is now home to hundreds of such orchards. Rather than the annual gardening cycle, the spaces are home to perennial varieties, which means planters must plan long into the future, choosing the most fruitful trees and ensuring land ownership agreements are locked up.

An info card on one of the community orchard's tree / COOPER LEVEY-BAKER

An info card on one of the community orchard's tree / COOPER LEVEY-BAKER

Last spring, Kluson, county staffers and volunteers and supporters from The Home Depot — which donated fence pieces and trees — planted trees in a small section of Colonial Oaks Park behind the park's lime green activities building. A year later, the dozen or so trees stand about gut-high, with leaves drooping in the wilting summer sun. Cards with basic species info and QR codes dangle from the trees' trunks. The variety impresses: peach, lime, persimmon, pink lemon, mandarin, carambola and more.

In many places, gleaning is an important part of community orchards, with neighbors organizing teams to pick public fruit that might otherwise go to waste. Kluson says the Colonial Oaks plot is more of an education tool, a way to teach neighbors about trees that might thrive in their own backyards and how best to prune and control insects organically.

Last month, Sarasota County hosted a festival in the orchard, inviting families to come build birdhouses to make the orchards more attractive and to learn about backyard fruit. Kluson wants to encourage neighbors to join in gleaning efforts that benefit All Faiths Food Bank, too, perhaps by registering their backyards with gleaning volunteers who would then be free to snag ripe fruit from their property.

"We're really trying to get the immediate neighborhood around the park coming together around fruit trees," Kluson says. Just like Sarasota residents are jumping on the bandwagon to raise chickens, perhaps they might also be interested in planting rare or heritage fruits. "They could be saving these old varieties right in their backyard," Kluson says.

Parks and Rec chose Colonial Oaks to start the program because locals use the park heavily. Other small orchards have already taken off, and Kluson would like to see the program spread to other parks, community gardens, school gardens and more. Even if not everyone is invested in seeing local agriculture succeed, the orchards should be fun places to spend time outside. They've got "fruits to eat, birdhouses to build," but "kids still get bored," Kluson says. But like at Colonial Oaks, there's usually a playground right around the corner. "It's a park, you know!"

Colonial Oaks Park is located at 5300 Colonial Oaks Blvd., Sarasota. For more information, visit scgov.net or call 941-861-5000.

This is the 52nd entry in Eat Near, a regular column dedicated to all the lovely food that folks on the Suncoast grow, raise, kill or craft. If you have an idea for someone/thing to feature, email me at eatnearsrq@gmail.com or hit me up on Twitter: @LeveyBaker.

Last modified: July 21, 2014
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