Narrowing Down Fruit Tree Varieties

There are so many considerations for what trees to plant where, soil type, pollination, disease resistance,  the list goes on and on. This week, Faith, our tree specialist is putting in countless hours narrowing down our list of citrus varieties to 5 or 6 cultivars (sub-species tree types) that are the best fit for schools across the state. Mandarins, grapefruits, navel oranges, lemons, and limes can all make great additions to an orchard and a school cafeteria system, so we're gonna make sure to bring the best varieties out with us this planting season!

Biggs Orchard to Rain Fruit

First planted in 2009, Biggs Elementary's orchard just finished its third summer in the ground.  In September 2011, Common Vision came to support with tree care, training for the caretakers, planting some new varieties, and collecting the stories of a school that has really grown the inspiration planted with the Fruti Tree Tour program.

Loving up the big trees!

"Hey Johnny Appleseed"

This one apple tree now has 6 varieties of apples on it. Interestingly enough Johnny appleseed was not know for his grafting of good eating varieties of apples, but rather his seedling crab apples used for hard cider. To see more ways that Fruit Tree Tour is both different than and similar to ole Johnny Appleseed check this old post.

Exotic Fruit for So Cal Schools

Our office has a citrus forest

Before and After

As photo editor for Fruit Tree Tour for the past two years I've seen thousands of photos, some better than others and a few outstanding examples. One of the trickiest things to document in a busy day of school programing has been a classic before and after shot which shows the impact installing an orchard can have on a regular school yard. At the campus that Mariposa Charter and Sumac Elementary share in Agoura Hills, just northeast of Los Angeles we were finally able to get a good picture of what planting 24 trees in one day looks like.

Continuing Burbank's Legacy with White Fig Cuttings

Trouble viewing? Click Here. We are just now finishing up our time here at Isis Oasis, the second stop on Fruit Tree Tour Orientation. On this property there are a number of fruit trees, some of which were originally planted by Luther Burbank, an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science who developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55 year career beginning in 1872. Richard Channing, a resident at Isis Oasis offered to help us harvest cuttings from an old white fig tree that Luther Burbank planted on the property nearly 100 years ago. We climbed up in the fig to simultaneously prune the tree and take what was cut for further propagation of white fig trees across California at schools and communities. We will take these cuttings with us to plant at our Roots to Fruits Nursery at the Alpha Center in Santa Barbara where they will be cared for as they root and grow ready to be transplanted next year. We are super grateful for the opportunity to share these amazing strains of Figs with other fruit lovers. Thank you Isis Oasis!

Koral and

CV Crew Supports GreenFriends

In Castro Valley, just southeast of Oakland, an international humanitarian and spiritual leader Amritananda Mayi has a center on several hundred acres of grassy hillsides. As part of her Green Friends initiative (which plants 100,000 saplings along the coast India each year) she has begun a campaign to plant trees in the United States starting with the center’s grounds. Just after Fruit Tree Tour ended, 5 Common Vision crew members brought the fruit tree grafting skill that they developed on tour to propagate 108 apple and pear trees to support the project. The grafted trees will be used as part of a fund raiser to support the reforestation effort in the Castro Valley hills.

1000th Tree Planted Celebration

With the most packed schedule in Fruit Tree Tour history including more schools and community collaborations then ever before, the Common Vision crew successfully planted over 1000 fruit trees on the 2008 tour. In this short video, Professor Dingledorf, (a character in this year’s performance) leads the celebration of the 1000th tree going in to the ground at Hillside Elementary in the East bay. Students from Hillside support the celebration by writing and performing an eco-beats rhyme for the occasion. Video by Annapurna.

Fruit Tree Sale Varieties

To make an order contact Faith ~ 530.277.1408 ~ faith[at]CommonVision.org

Tree Sales Location:

Thurs. April 8th @ Ukiah Natural Foods COOP, Ukiah
Fri. April 9th @ Mariposa, Willits

Sun. April 11th in Bay Area Location TBA

Wed. April 14th @ Briar Patch, Grass Valley
Thurs. April 15th @ Mother Truckers, North San Juan
Fri April 16th @ Willow Springs, North San Juan

Sat. April 17th @ Earth Day Event, Healdsberg
Sun. April 18th @ Ukiah Natural Foods COOP, Ukiah

1000-Tree Fruit Forest in a Box

2008 is the year for variety in Fruit Tree Tour's veggie oil powered refrigerator truck! Because of local nurseries like Rolling River in Orleans, wholesale nurseries such as Dave Wilson Nurseries and Sierra Gold who support planting fruit trees in school yards and community centers, our tree stewards have worked with over 65 different varieties of fruit trees. It's a tight squeeze getting all those bare-roots to fit in their winterized box-truck home! Luckily they move out quickly as we plant on average 20 trees per school. Trees of Antiquity surprised us with heirlooms like Tydeman's Late Orange Apple while SolMan Nursery in Encinitas donated our first 6 bananas in Fruit Tree Tour history! Through a large donation of fruiting vines, chain link fences surrounding many city schools will soon be dripping with Ruby Red and Monukka Grapes and Heyward kiwis. Having such a wide variety of trees allows for each school yard to experience fruit harvests throughout the school year. A school might have Loquats in April, Earlitreat Peach in May, Dapple Dandy Pluots in August; Emerald Beaut and Elephant Heart Plums in September, Fuji, Pink Lady and Granny Smith Apples in October, Fuyu Persimmons in November, Satsuma Tangerines in December, White Sapotes in January, Cherimoyas in February.. well, you get the picture.

The making of a Schoolyard Orchard

What does it take to transform a schoolyard? This video created by tour veteran Annapurna takes us on the journey of planting an urban orchard at Jonas Salk Tech High from the perspective of the Fruit Tree Tour behind the scenes team--from the soil donation yard to planting site. Common Vision had the honor to work with a dynamic urban agriculture educational project, Soil Born Farms, on this planting. Catch a glimpse of how Common Vision joins forces with local organizations to meaningfully connect with students, schools, and communities.

Compton Planting Celebration Video

Compton Unified School District brought Fruit Tree Tour to 4 schools in Compton this year to work with 1850 students and plant 75 trees. In this video made by return crew member and MC, Jah Sun Williams, school board member Marjorie Shipp explains why the program is important to her and to the City of Compton. George Washington Carver Elementary Principal Dr Jacqueline Sanderlin shares how Common Vision has inspired a whole new direction the landscape and integrated learning of the school. The video highlights the one of the most celebratory after-school drumming-dancing-tree planting school-yard transformations in tour history! Special Thanks to UrbanFarming.Org for sponsoring scholarships for Compton area schools for the second year in a row.

Grafting at the Schools with Brian

I think I should start my first Common Vision blog by being completely honest: I've had my doubts about grafting at the schools. And it's not because I don't think grafting is cool. Grafting is way cool. I mean, we take a little stick from one tree, slice into another tree, insert our little stick into the slice, wrap it with tape, slap some goop on it, and BAM! if it heals properly we got ourselves a brand new yummy fruit tree. But I've still had my doubts as I've wondered whether or not a group of 4th or 5th graders would really find this little miracle as interesting as me, the over-enthusiastic somewhat quirky long-haired tree-planting stranger.

Well, we've including grafting in the tree planting groups at two schools so far on FTT '08: Vista del Valle Elementary in Claremont and Birney Elementary in San Diego. At both schools I had the opportunity to facilitate three grafting workshops during which we would plant a rootstock tree and then graft the scion of a desired variety onto the rootstock. And I gotta admit I was a bit surprised when the students were really into it! I told them that the green layer inside the bark contains the new cell factory (cambium) and has the tubes (xylem and phloem) that work like the veins in our bodies, moving around all the stuff the tree needs to live. And our goal is to get the thin green layer of the rootstock to link up with the thin green layer of the yummy fruit branch. Even though we don't give the students knifes to slice the scion, they were intent on watching me closely making sure I was doing a good job preparing the graft. Since the students still have a tree planting experience when we plant the rootstock, the grafting is like a fun magic trick that we add on.

So, there's a video at the top of this blog if you haven't noticed it yet. It was taken by crew member Annapurna this past week at Birney Elementary in San Diego. I think it gives a good snapshot of a grafting group, in case any of you out there were wanting a small taste of what a day of Fruit Tree Tour might look like. I'm hoping to get more video uploaded soon with more tree planting, scenes from our green theater performance, drum workshops, creative expression session footage, and, hopefully, some behind the scenes footage of "Life on Tour." So make sure you keep checking back here, ok?

Tomorrow we begin the LA chapter of Fruit Tree Tour '08!

Lots of love from the road,

Rolling to our First San Diego School

At this moment the 3 buses are rolling to the first San Diego school of the year. Having so far planted 75 trees in Joshua Tree, Claremont, and Orange County, the crew is ready to transform another schoolyard. Due to the generosity of our southern California nursery supporters, today's school will receive Banana, Sapote, Loquat, Lemon, Tangerine, Cherimoya, Guava, Nectarine, and Pear trees. The Cherimoya and citrus trees are riding in "Bu," the office bus, to school.

Creating a fruit salad on one tree...

In the course of an afternoon, the Fruit Tree Tour crew learned how to graft loads of varieties onto one tree from Common Vision's newest super friend Joe Sabol. This video is a load of fun, don't miss it!



This video was created by Brian Flynn, a 3rd year returning volunteer and a crucial part of the project.

Orientation in Joshua Tree

The Common Vision crew braved the high desert of Joshua Tree to train in the art of fruit tree planting, green theater, and inspiring the youth of California to care for the Earth. As part of a work trade with the Joshua Tree Retreat Center the crew planted 65 fig, olive, nectarine, pistachio, and pomegranate trees to the beat of ancient planting rhythms.

Where do fruit trees come from?

For the last 20+ years members of the California Rare Fruit Growers take great care to keep the DNA of many fruit trees alive and growing through their annual Scion Exchanges. Scions are pieces of trees cut to begrafted onto a rootstock, creating a new tree and passing on the DNA.
The Heritage Orchard in Santa Clara contains over 350 varieties of fruit trees used for scion wood. Michael, Blair, Koral and I all attended our first scion cutting party to learn all we could from the devoted fruit tree lovers.

How it works: (what's grafting?) Little sticks of trees are cut in order to be grafted onto rootstock or a compatible older tree and produce the desirable fruit. Common Vision’s Roots to Fruits program offers the students a hands- on opportunity to learn by participating in the propagation of and care for newly grafted fruit trees (Roots2Fruits).

At the first of a dozen CRFG scion exchanges throughout the state, I collected heirloom varieties that fruit during the school year for propagation on FTT 08, including Tydemans Late Orange & Ashmead’s Kernal apples. Common Vision is honored to help preserve DNA and pass on delicious fruit to students and communities across the state.

Schoolyard Orchard Culture

In late December I had the pleasure of meeting with master gardeners John Berchielli and Caroline, caretaker of the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center near Sacramento. Here, master gardeners have been experimenting with strategies for growing fruit in small urban plots. These are the true scientists of what Common Vision refers to as Schoolyard Orchard Culture—the art of planting many trees close together to maximize number of fruit varieties and number of months that fruit is available in the limited space of the schoolyard. Schoolyard Orchard Culture uses maintenance strategies that keep the trees low to the ground for ladder-free student harvesting and easier caretaking.

The good folks at Dave Wilson Nurseries (donors to the Fruit Tree Tour) have pioneered these techniques and here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center they have been testing them for the past decade. I came to talk to the experts on what will work best at schools across California. Here are some of the strategies that Fruit Tree Tour will be employing on this year’s tour:

Multiple Plantings (3-in-a-Hole): By planting three or four trees only feet from each other, we can, in the space of one full-sized tree, can have a peace, a nectarine, a plum, and an apricot. Or we can have three varieties of peach that ripen in May, August, and September, which means more months of students eating peaches for snacks instead of Doritos.

Espalier: Many schools have narrow patches of earth next to fence lines. In fact, for many schools this is the only pieces of dirt on the campus. Espalier is a technique that encourages lengthwise growth with little width. The effect is a fence or wall of fruit.

Cocktail Trees: Another strategy to maximize the schoolyard fruit varieties is the creation of cocktail trees. By grafting (> what is grafting) several varieties on one tree students can feast on apples from July until December on the same tree! One of the trees at Fair Oaks had over 50 varieties on one tree!

Caroline and the other caretakers of the center were excited to see their years of science going out to serve the public school children of California. They graciously invited me to cut scion wood from the trees in their orchard in order to graft cocktail trees at the each of the schools! Some May Apricots and September Pluots will certainly help to inspire the youth to choose nature’s sweetest candy, available every recess, free of charge!