Volunteer Newsletter, August 29, 2006

HARVESTING FOR THE HUNGRY - PRUNE PLUMS 

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VILLAGE HARVEST ON KPIX NEWS - tonight!:

WHAT IS GOING ON????  Comments on a strange fruit season:

• There were nearly no cherries....  the only folks that had cherries had exceptional pollinization. 
• There were nearly no apricots....  where Village Harvest usually harvests several thousands of pounds, we got 50# this year.
• There were a smattering of plums....  and what was there ripened over a long period of time and fell to the ground quickly.
• The prunes, apples and persimmons are aborting a good part of their crop early....  the trees are protecting themselves from the record heat.
• The plums, peaches, and apples are very small....  that is what comes from late/insufficient chill.

It may take people a while to notice weather patterns, but fruit trees manifest symptoms within months when the weather is out of the ordinary.  This year the weather has been exceptional in many ways. 

1 - CHILL:  We got very few chill hours in the normal period, then we got quite a few chill hours very late.  The fruit on the trees that blossomed before the chill were set back tremendously, then the fruit trees that responded to the late chill set flowers late, resulting in small fruit at harvest time.  All summer and fall crops are coming in late due to this pattern. 

2 - RAIN:  It rained nearly continuously during the apricot, peach & nectarine blossom time which greatly impacted the crop yields.  Also, since last year was a wet spring along with this year, fungal diseases are continuing to mount and weak trees are starting to expire. 

3 - HEAT:  N. California is known for temperate weather.  Our fruit trees depend upon some heat, but not too much heat.  During the week of record breaking heat and for a few weeks later, many of the fruit trees aborted their crops in order to ensure their own survival.

4 - COMPETITION:  Because there was so little summer fruit available, and what was there was late, we've been in serious competition with the other inhabitants of our communities including the birds, squirrels and rodents.  Many homeowners have reported that their entire tree was stripped in a day by our neighborhood friends. 

Add to that the medfly quarantine and spraying for West Nile mosquitos and it's been a "challenge" to keep harvesting the hungry this year. 

The extraordinary weather does cause one to pause and consider the impact of our daily choices upon the weather and how the weather impacts our lives in return.  For instance, the average meal travels 1250 miles to your plate.  Our fruit for the hungry travels 15 miles from tree to table.  We'd rather see the dollars that would otherwise go into fuel and transportation go into healthier, fresher food from our village to those in our own village.  Village Harvest is continually working to minimize the amount of green house gases created in service of feeding the hungry and we're also investigating ways of planting more (fruit) trees to offset the carbon that we do emit.  Stay tuned for more later.

Cheers,
Joni Diserens
Village Harvest
joni@villageharvest.org
www.villageharvest.org
(888) FRUIT-411