City Fruit Harvest

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City Fruit Harvest - Year 2 is starting!

The blossom is barely out on the trees, but it’s time to start thinking about the abundance of Exeter’s micro-orchards again. Last year City Fruit Harvest collected around 700 kilos of fruit donated from Exeter’s gardens, that would otherwise have gone to waste, and distributed it to 18 local organisations who work with disadvantaged people.

Fruit that was not fit for distribution was made into jams chutneys and juice which were sold, raising about £600, ensuring that we can run the project again this year.

We are looking for people to get involved in all sorts of different ways:

• Think you might have more fruit than you can manage? Give us a call and we’ll pick it for you.
• Enjoy being outside picking fruit, or making preserves and juice?
• Volunteer with us.
• Do you know of an organisation that would like to receive the fruit?

Get in touch with us.

City Fruit Harvest - Year 1 Review

City Fruit Harvest has now completed its first season and been really successful, not to mention great fun.

In early 2011 we launched the project with a presentation by Suzy Russell of Leeds Urban Harvest. Urban Harvest has been doing something similar to what we were planning for Exeter. At the meeting enough support was expressed for us to go ahead.

By the time the first plums started to ripen in early August we had recruited a team of around 20 volunteers, and lined up 15 local organisations that were willing to receive the fruit and distribute it amongst their service users. We had also been contacted by 15 people with trees bearing an abundance of surplus fruit.

Since then we have picked nearly 700kg of plums, apples and pears, all of which would otherwise have gone to waste. Most of this was delivered to a range of local organisations, including homeless people’s charities, children’s centres, supported housing projects, older people’s charities and other groups working with disadvantaged people.

Some of the fruit was a bit damaged or otherwise unsuitable for distribution, and this was turned into a range of jams and chutneys, and we also spent two lovely days in Belmont Park pressing and pasteurising apple juice. This produce is available for sale, and we are hoping that the funds we raise will enable the project to run again in 2012.

Our thanks go to Newtown Community Residents Association, who allowed us to use the community hut and have been massively supportive to our project, and to Greg Towning who not only lent us his apple pressing gear, but also shared his expertise and trained the team in how to make really good juice.

We hope to run the project again in 2012 – so please get in touch if:

• you’d like to volunteer
• you have more fruit in your garden than you can manage
• you represent an organisation who would like to receive fruit.

Here’s what some 2011 participants said:

“We’re grateful for the contribution. In the present financial climate many families are struggling & this was appreciated by many” – Homestart Exeter

“I enjoyed the sense of belonging and community the project created – and I got an ‘ology!’ “ – Sue, Volunteer (Sue completed an accredited food hygiene training course)

“Thank you so much to the Harvest team – I had already filled my freezer and given loads of apples away before you came. I hate to see the beautiful fruit going to waste – so glad that it was used and appreciated”  - Tree Owner.

What is City Fruit Harvest?

Exeter is full of fruit trees, some of which provide their owners their own delicious fruit through the autumn and winter. However, lots of people are unable to pick and use their fruit – it all comes at once and is often hard to get at.

Not everyone has room to store it, or the time or equipment to turn it into juice or preserves, so lots of it ends up going to waste. At the same time, we import 93% of the fruit we eat nationally despite having an ideal climate for growing our own. Fruit is also often expensive, so not everyone can afford to eat as much of it as they might like for a healthy diet.

City Fruit Harvest aims to address all these issues. We are inviting tree owners who can’t manage all their own fruit to let us know, and our teams of volunteers will come along and pick the surplus fruit, take it to where it is needed, and turn some into juice, jam and chutney.

How will it work?

• City Fruit Harvest will invite tree owners to donate surplus fruit to the project
• Scouts will ascertain when the fruit will be ripe, and arrange dates for harvesting
• A group of harvesters will go and pick the fruit
• The tree owner gets first pick of the harvest
• Good quality fruit will be distributed to where it is needed, eg homeless charities, children’s centres, refugee support group etc etc.
• Any damaged fruit gets turned into juice, jam, chutney etc.

There will be loads of opportunities to get involved. We’ll need people to: contact tree owners…  scout for trees… harvest… pickle and juice… deliver fruit… run stalls… take photos… and much more!

The Harvest team would love to hear from you if:

• You have a tree you can’t harvest
• You’d like to volunteer to help with planning or picking or preserving
• You represent an organisation that works with people who would benefit from receiving some fruit
• You have equipment we can borrow (we’ll be needing all sorts of things from ladders to apple presses to large pans and a lot more)
• You have storage space that we could use
• You have any ideas about how to make City Fruit Harvest a roaring success.

Most of the harvesting will take place between mid August and Mid October, but there will be lots to do in the meantime, so now is the time to sign up and get in the picture. Contact Harvest for more details on how you can help.

For news of our first City Fruit Harvest outing, see the Harvest News page.