Look No Further Than Boulder’s Backyards for Your Fall Apple Picking
Photo credit: Community Fruit Rescue
Fall apple season is upon us! The leaves are changing and cooler temps are finally coming through the Front Range. This time of year you’ll find countless families heading out to local farms for do-it-yourself apple picking and stocking up on produce at the grocery stores for making their favorite fall recipes. But what happens when the farm reservations are booked up for the season, and the cost of fresh fruit is soaring? Well, I have great news: Boulder is basically one big urban apple orchard with an abundance of fresh, healthy, affordable fruit for all.
I previously wrote about Boulder’s agricultural history and how many of those heirloom trees still exist and bear fruit today, largely in private residential properties. Perhaps you’ve seen these trees - they’re often found growing over neighborhood sidewalks, in back alleys, hanging over fences, and even in our parks and along bike paths. Unfortunately, so much of that fruit goes unnoticed and falls to the ground, where it rots, goes to waste, and attracts sensitive wildlife like black bears into our urban areas. This is a very sad and preventable ending to the life of these edible pieces of fruit. But there’s a solution, and that’s where Community Fruit Rescue comes in.
Community Fruit Rescue is a Boulder-based nonprofit organization that was created in 2014 by a coalition of organizations with the goal of reducing the amount of fruit waste that occurs in Boulder each year. Our team organizes community harvests and distributes the surplus urban fruit growing throughout Boulder, Colorado to reduce food waste, minimize greenhouse gas emissions, better coexist with local wildlife, build resilient communities, and increase equitable access to healthy, local food.
This year alone we’ve already rescued over 19,000 lbs of fruit, with more to come!
Photo credit: Community Fruit Rescue
We work with local tree owners (homeowners, renters, HOAs, private associations, and more) to harvest the abundance of fruit growing on their trees. The tree owners reach out to us for assistance and we work with them to schedule a community harvest that is then added to our public calendar. One of our trained harvest leader volunteers is assigned to the harvest and we open it up for volunteers - to YOU! The vast majority of our harvests are family-friendly events that take place on a residential property over the course of two hours. Anyone can sign up, all the volunteers have to do is show up for two hours, harvest the tree(s) and they can take a portion of the bounty home with them at the end of the event at no cost. Our donation model is: ⅓ of the harvest goes to the homeowner if they want it, ⅓ is split between our volunteer pickers, and ⅓ is donated to people in need of healthy food.
Photo credit © Caroline Colvin, Community Food Share
Community Fruit Rescue’s recipient sites vary from year to year, but this year we’ve donated the majority of our fruit to Community Food Share. Once CFS receives our fruit, they process it and donate it locally to individuals and families located in Boulder and Broomfield counties. We also donate fruit to groups like EFAA and local schools, use it at our canning workshops and with our cider press at local events, and even work with business partners like BOCO Cider to make a special Boulder blend hard cider. There is so much we can do to divert this fruit and other food from ending up in landfills (and even in our compost bins), and instead direct it to the people who need it the most. In 2018, it was estimated that 40% of food is wasted while 12.8% of Boulder County residents are food insecure.
Photo © Wild Animal Sanctuary
The slightly damaged fruit with small bruises or squirrel nibbles is even put to good use; this year we’ve donated nearly 2,000 lbs of fruit to the rescued bears at the Wild Animal Sanctuary. We love that our harvests remove a critical attractant from Boulder’s wild black bears, and instead provide it to the Wild Animal Sanctuary bears. Black bear activity has been quite high throughout the state and especially in Boulder this year. By removing attractants like ripe fruit, unsecured trash and compost, bird feeders (hummingbird feeders, too!), and more, we are doing our part to discourage bears from coming into our urban areas and instead staying safe and healthy in their natural habitats. Bears that spend more time in town have higher mortality rates and risk being hit by cars, euthanized due to conflict, or poisoned after eating toxic trash contents. Beginning this year, you’ll see Community Fruit Rescue becoming more active and visible in Boulder neighborhoods that are experiencing higher bear activity. Learn more through our new Wildlife Coexistence program.
So when you’re ready to stock up on fall fruits, be sure to sign up for a Community Fruit Rescue harvest where your actions have a tremendous impact. Our harvest season is beginning to wind down, but there’s still more fruit to be picked! Getting involved is easy: register as a volunteer, sign up for a harvest, and start picking. And if you’re a tree owner in need of harvest assistance, register your fruit tree with us and we’ll work with you to schedule a harvest. Whether you participate as a volunteer picker or a tree owner, know that you’re helping to create a collaborative, healthy, resilient, and just community in which everyone has access to healthy, local food, humans and wildlife coexist, and waste is minimized. We look forward to harvesting with you!
More about Community Fruit Rescue:
Learn about our Fruit Tree Care resources
Learn about our Wildlife Coexistence Program
Get in touch with Community Fruit Rescue
