Help City Fruit locate and identify the remnants of historic Seattle orchards. This non-profit organization has educated volunteers who have been working to piece together the puzzle and stories of Seattle’s orchard history.
Seattle is one of the few major urban cities that still has an extensive network of orchards that include precious heirloom fruit trees. Some were planted over a century ago, in an effort to have a reliable food source to feed the community.
It has become harder to see the remains of orchards in our ‘densifying’ city. City Fruit has Lori Brakken, a fruit tree and apple identification expert, and Barb Burrill, a tree care advisor and former City Fruit public orchard manager, who can help identify individual trees as potential orchard remnants.
Visit the City Fruit blog post (click here) to learn what details about a tree make it potentially part of a larger, historic orchard – and how to get help from City Fruit to officially identify it. This could help find heirloom fruit varieties growing in Seattle, and older versions of common varieties, both of which could, through grafting, help grow new trees that preserve these more sustainable fruits.
For those looking for another way to work with City Fruit, you can join Orchard Work Parties (with plenty of safety precautions observed.) Have fun and get work done providing free fruit for our community. Visit the City Fruit Orchard Work Parties to learn more about COVID-19 protection precautions, and how to volunteer (click here.)