Garden Basics 164: How to Pick Fruit. Garden Cleanup. TRANSCRIPT
Feb. 1, 2022
24:00
Farmer Fred 0:00
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.
Farmer Fred 0:32
For many backyard gardeners right now in USDA Zone 9, it’s citrus fruit harvest time. And before you know it, everyone else will be in fruit picking mode come summer. Do you have the right equipment for harvesting fruit? Do you know the best ways to do it to help insure that the fruit will last longer in the kitchen? We talk with a fruit picking expert who has organized a tree fruit gleaning program that collects unwanted fresh fruit from backyard gardens and distributes it to the needy. Also, just because it’s winter, that doesn’t mean all you get to do is sit indoors and sharpen your tools. Although that is a good idea, your yard could use a little winterizing cleanup to thwart this spring and summer’s pest problems. We have those quick tips, on this, the inaugural episode of Season 3. We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s get started!
Farmer Fred 1:40
If you have any fruit trees in your yard, good for you. But do you know how to pick fruit? Do you have the right equipment for picking fruit? It's not as simple as you might think. There's a lot of things you need to consider, not the least of which is: why are you on a ladder picking fruit? Why don't you keep your fruit trees at a size that you can manage from the ground? And you can certainly do that. We've talked about that on this podcast a lot. But let's get back to picking fruit. We're talking with Matthew Ampersand, he is with Community Fruit, which is a division of Find Out farms in the Sacramento area. They do some great work. They actually collect fruit from people's backyards that people don't want and distribute to the needy. It's a wonderful project that he's involved with. Matthew, thanks for talking with us here on Garden Basics. Tell us a little bit about how Find Out Farms and Community Fruit got started?
Matthew Ampersand 2:38
Well, that's great question, thanks for having me on. First of all, Find Out Farm started in 2019. When my partner and I moved to Sacramento from the Bay Area. We both love food, we are people who are passionate about food access and food sovereignty. I have a background in formal science education. And I decided that we would start our own project where people could learn more about food at their own pace, based on their own interests. So Find Out Farms is all about finding out more about what you're eating, and where it's coming from. And Community Fruit was a project that got started because as we walked around our neighborhood here in South Oak Park in Sacramento, we saw fruit rotting on the ground. Here in South Oak Park we are in what is considered a "food desert". People have to walk at least a mile to get to the grocery store. A lot of our neighbors don't have vehicles, so a mile long walk with groceries is pretty hard to do. Meanwhile, there's fruit rotting on the ground. So we connected these two dots, we took the fruit before it went to the waste stream and gave it to our neighbors who are very appreciative of fresh, healthy food. That project grew and grew and now we're harvesting 1000s and 1000s of pounds of fruit on a regular basis and giving it to folks in the community who appreciate it.
Farmer Fred 3:45
And here in the Sacramento area, picking fruit can almost be a year round vocation, simply because even in the wintertime, there's a lot of citrus to harvest. In fact, I bet you would be more of the expert on this: there's probably more unused citrus in people's backyards than there are other fruit trees that develop throughout the year.
Matthew Ampersand 4:07
Absolutely. So Community Fruit is a program that goes year round. We harvest fruit in the community and share your round. That being said, you're totally right. January is a wild time for us. And so is February, its peak citrus season. And there are 1000s of pounds of fruit going to waste in people's backyards. If you have one grapefruit tree, especially if it's an old established grapefruit tree, it can produce sometimes 800 pounds of fruit, which even if you love grapefruit and you eat it every day, several times a day, you're not going to eat 800 pounds of grapefruit.
Farmer Fred 4:39
No, but other people will. So it's one thing to get in there and pick the fruit. Maybe distributing the fruit is a bigger problem? Which is it?
Matthew Ampersand 4:50
Both sides of the equation are interesting and they present their own challenges and benefits. Many folks are really excited to have us come and pick the fruit from their backyards. Otherwise it'd be attractive for squirrels and other kinds of rodents. So they're excited to get the fruit out of the yard before it goes to waste. Getting up into the trees, sometimes it's challenging. Some of these, like I said, some of these great fruit trees, especially, are really tall and haven't necessarily been cared for in ways that make them easy to harvest.
Farmer Fred 5:19
And so you have a lot of volunteers. How many volunteers do you have working with you?
Matthew Ampersand 5:23
Well, we are working to get our volunteer base larger than it is right now. We have just a few dedicated volunteers who go out on regular basis. A lot of folks think they want to go out and harvest fruit and they do it once. And they then realize it is actually a lot of work to climb up a ladder, get into a thorny citrus tree, and then move hundreds of pounds of fruit. It's not for everybody, but those who do it and do it regularly, really do enjoy it.
Farmer Fred 5:46
Find Out Farms has the educational portion as you talked about. And Community Fruit is just a wonderful idea. And I imagine that a lot of the techniques you used, you are also telling the people who work with you picking the fruit about how best to pick fruit. I noticed a picture of you in the Sacramento Bee recently, where you looked totally outfitted for picking fruit. You had the right ladder, you looked like you were wearing the right clothes. Talk a little bit about how you pick fruit.
Matthew Ampersand 6:18
Absolutely. So a lot of these citrus trees especially have pretty significant prickles or thorns. And if you're putting your hands and arms in there, regularly, you're going to get scratched up unless you're wearing durable long sleeves. I recommend that folks wear gloves. If you have snips, a lot of the citrus fruit doesn't want to get yanked off the tree. It wants to be snipped off the tree. You'll notice especially with things like mandarins, for example, if you pull them forcefully off the tree, you'll rip the top of it off, which dramatically shortens the shelf life of the fruit. And if unless you eat it right that second, you really want to be able to have it on your countertop for a few days.
Farmer Fred 6:56
You make a very good point: you want the fruit to last for quite a while. We'll have a link in the show notes as well as in the Garden Basics newsletter that'll come out this week about how to best store fruit. The University of California Davis has a great one-sheet piece of information that you can hang in your kitchen somewhere that will tell you the best places to store the fruit that you're harvesting, be it on the counter, or in the refrigerator, or a combination of both. We'll have that link for you along with links to Find Out Farms and their Community Fruit program. I would imagine your program, of course, needs some equipment.
Matthew Ampersand 7:38
Absolutely. Yeah. So as I mentioned, we are a really small organization right now. We're looking to scale up, because of the fact that there's literally tons of fruit going to waste right now. So we're becoming an official non-profit entity. We're having a little fundraiser to get more infrastructure and equipment. People can learn all about that at findoutfarms.com. If anyone wants to volunteer, we absolutely would love to have more volunteer help, as well as more help supporting our infrastructure and our project. It is a community project because you know, it's community fruit. So we really appreciate community support.
Farmer Fred 8:09
And besides distributing all the fruit you're collecting to various organizations, you, being basically a farmer, you have a food stand.
Matthew Ampersand 8:18
We do. Every last Saturday of the month, we have a free fruit stand where we give out as much fruit as people would like to have, regardless of their background or where they're coming from. If you want free fruit, you can have it every Saturday. And that's every last Saturday of the month. It's in the morning until early afternoon.
Farmer Fred 8:36
And where is the location?
Matthew Ampersand 8:37
we are located in South Oak Park, you can find us at Parker and Howard, the cross streets right there. Look for the yellow sign that says Find Out Farms.
Farmer Fred 8:46
Now for those of you who are listening to us who are outside the Sacramento area, which is most of you, I would like to point out that there is a great website you can go to where you can find the food bank, or food pantry nearest you that not only is handing out food, but maybe taking your donations. And that's what Ampleharvest.org is all about. If you have excess produce and you're not in the Sacramento area, or wherever you may be in the United States, go to ampleharvest.org. And you can find the food bank or food pantry nearest you that is taking donations as well as distributing food. I recommend it highly. They're doing great work. They, too, are a volunteer organization. And of course, Matthew, you're just getting started basically, with community fruit and expanding Find Out Farms. And there are ways for people who want to support you, aren't there?
Matthew Ampersand 9:39
There are. If folks want to support the work that we're doing, we have the Community Fruit project. We're also a community compost hub, and we are striving to have educational programming for the public by the summer of 2022. So if people want to support this work, we would love that help. The best way that people can do that is by supporting our Patreon. So, go to patreon.com backslash findoutfarms. And that little bit of monthly donation really helps us every month to do this work.
Farmer Fred 10:06
Now, I noticed that you're wearing prime farming gear right now. And I don't see how anybody who spends a lot of time gardening or even doing a small farm couldn't wear what you have on right now, andthat's overalls.
Matthew Ampersand 10:20
That's right. Yeah. Good.
Farmer Fred 10:21
They have a lot of pockets!
Matthew Ampersand 10:25
I thought I had my clips right here, but I just have a utility knife. Okay. usually I keep my clips right in my front pocket.
Farmer Fred 10:35
Speaking of equipment that you use for pruning fruit, you mentioned snips. What are they, in particular?
Matthew Ampersand 10:41
So I use snips that are meant for either harvesting apples or for citrus specifically. They're these little, very robust snips, and they don't need to be sharpened nearly as often as regular pruners. If you've ever seen a clipper for dog's toenails, they're sort of like that. And they're fast. They're easy. They're small, they fit in your hand or fit in your front pocket of your overalls.
Farmer Fred 11:05
Okay, so no brand jumps out at you as far as what it is.
Matthew Ampersand 11:11
You can find them from basically anyone who sells any orchard supply equipment. There's an unfortunate brand name, Corona, they have some that are affordable and pretty reliable.
Farmer Fred 11:21
Exactly. Corona. Felco. Sandvick. They all have some excellent small pruners, sort of like needle nose pruners, if you will. So you can really get into those tight spaces and clip the stem, especially on a thorny citrus bush, where you're trying to get in and get the fruit without getting stabbed.
Matthew Ampersand 11:40
Yeah, you don't want a Meyer lemon to bite you.
Farmer Fred 11:42
Yeah, yeah, Meyer lemons are famous for their thorns. I also noticed in that picture that was in the paper of you, you had an orchard ladder. And for people who don't know what an orchard ladder is, talk about why that's so important.
Matthew Ampersand 11:56
If you're climbing a ladder and getting fruit, well, typically a frame ladder, you know, has those four legs. So there's the the side you climb up and then usually the side you don't climb up. Sometimes they are climbable on either side, but they have four legs, which makes getting into the body of the tree really challenging. A harvest ladder or an orchard ladder has basically just a pole on one side and on the side that you climb on, the two legs. That pole can fit in between branches and get closer to the base of the tree. It also sticks itself in the soil pretty well. A lot of the places where we're harvesting are backyards covered in grass and sometimes wet and slippery. And that pole really holds itself nicely in position, gets you closer into the fruit and doesn't move around while you're 14 feet up in there.
Farmer Fred 12:40
Very good. Yeah, for anybody who has a lot of fruit trees that are out of control. If they're over 10 feet tall, you do really want an orchard ladder because of the stability that it provides, especially on uneven surfaces. Yeah, that's right. But of course, if you're just starting your backyard orchard, you can keep your trees, your fruit trees, keep them as bushes. And keep them at six feet or eight feet tall, and you will still have enough food for you and your family. And plenty leftover for people like Matthew Ampersand, and Community Fruit, or whatever organization is in your neighborhood of food pantries or food banks that are taking donations of backyard produce. We will have more information about backyard orchard culture in the show notes and also in the Garden Basics "Beyond Basics" newsletter that'll come out this week as well. We've talked with Matthew about going into people's backyards and picking fruit. And I imagine some of those trees have never been pruned. They could be 20-25 feet tall, especially citrus trees, and many other varieties as well. And sometimes you just can't get in there with a ladder.
Matthew Ampersand 13:50
It's true. Some of these trees are even much taller than 25 feet. I've been in yards where there's a grapefruit tree towering over me around 60 feet, and that fruit just isn't accessible with normal equipment. So if anyone has an extra bucket truck sitting around, I used to operate heavy equipment, and I would love to get up and get all of that from the folks who would really appreciate it.
Farmer Fred 14:13
And of course, all you need then is access to the yard to get there. How far away does that truck have to be for you to be able to raise the bucket to get the fruit?
Matthew Ampersand 14:21
Depends on the size of the truck, you know, the taller the better.
Farmer Fred 14:25
Alright, if you have that extra bucket truck just sitting in the back doing nothing you can contact Matthew by going to which email address?
Matthew Ampersand 14:34
they can reach out to communityfruit916 at gmail.com
Farmer Fred 14:38
Community Fruit 916 which happens to be the area code for Sacramento. So, that's communityfruit916@gmail.com. And of course you can find out more online, at the website, Find Out Farms.com as well where you can find out more about Community Fruit. If you're going to be picking fruit, have the right equipment. Do it right. Store it correctly. Matthew Ampersand, you're doing great work with Community Fruit and Find Out Farms. Matthew, thanks for a few minutes of your time.
Matthew Ampersand 15:06
Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Farmer Fred 15:12
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Farmer Fred 16:13
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Farmer Fred 17:37
Debbie Flower is here. Our favorite retired college horticultural professor, with a quick tip about the importance of winter cleanup in the garden. Who wants to go outside? It's cold and yucky out there.
Debbie Flower 17:50
But once you get out there, it's invigorating.
Farmer Fred 17:54
Yes. You know what's underneath all that junk you left in your garden? Next year's bugs.
Debbie Flower 18:01
Next year's bugs. And in that stuff that has fallen, which is typically leaves, but it can also contain flowers, it can contain old fruit, disease spores or the origins of disease. And so it's really important in winter to get the crap out.
Farmer Fred 18:22
Which is organic.
Debbie Flower 18:23
It's organic matter, right, out of from under the plants, out of your vegetable garden, move it to the hot compost pile, that's definitely fine. It will get attacked there by other organisms that kill the disease or kill the bugs. But get it away from your plants. And if possible, put down a new layer of mulch, particularly under things like roses, fruit trees, and if there are any fruit hanging in the fruit trees that not citrus, citrus is bearing right now. But other fruit trees, cherries, pears, apples, take those off the plant and get rid of them. I would throw them away just because they have such a large load of disease in them. Don't leave them on the plant. They will just allow diseases to proliferate and spread to other parts of the plant.
Farmer Fred 19:14
Bye Bye mummy.
Debbie Flower 19:16
Yes, the fruit. Those are called mummy fruit.
Farmer Fred 19:20
So cleanup is important for a number of reasons. And next year's weed seeds, too, are resting comfortably underneath all that debris.
Debbie Flower 19:29
Yes. And so it can't get rid of all of them. You can't rake out all the seeds. There will be another layer beneath them. Weeds are very good at living for years and years in seed form in the landscape. And they will come up for decades, in some cases, from the seed bank from one year. So a new layer of mulch laid out is a really good idea once you've gotten rid of what you can get rid of.
Farmer Fred 19:53
Can we do something with that old mulch? I mean, I paid good money for that. No, I didn't. I just got it from a tree trimmer. But the fact of the matter is, I don't want to get rid of mulch that maybe it has some peach leaf curl in it. Could I move that to some non-peach area?
Debbie Flower 20:09
You could do that. I would rather put it in the compost pile and then put a layer of leaves, let's say, on top of it and let nature consume the infecting agent.
Farmer Fred 20:22
And by the time it's broken down, your kids can use it.
Debbie Flower 20:28
I don't think it takes quite that long. Depends how hot your compost pile is. But you don't have to remove a lot of mulch, you just have to remove the gunk, and leaves break down fairly quickly. If your mulch is a wood product, it takes much longer to break down and you don't need to remove that. You just need to remove the leaves that are buried in it.
Farmer Fred 20:47
And probably a good idea to have like three or four or five or six dry days between when you think about it, when you actually do it in order to maybe facilitate removing. Especially leaves. Wet leaves are more difficult to remove.
Debbie Flower 21:02
Yeah, so wet leaves are more difficult to remove. My husband likes to use the blower to get rid of the wet leaves. And then the other device, the yard vacuum, which sucks them up and grinds them. And then they break down really fast. If they're just plain leaves that fell off the tree, they don't have disease in them, then we can put them in other parts of the landscape. If they have peach leaf curl or they have powdery mildew or something then they will go into the compost pile.
Farmer Fred 21:31
I always like to wait until the last leaf has fallen before I begin that process, because I only want to do it once.
Debbie Flower 21:37
Yeah, I have mixed feelings about that. Because they pile up and then they hold more moisture. Depends how many you have. You don't have very many big trees in your yard.
Farmer Fred 21:47
I have an oak tree next door. The wind blows in this direction.
Debbie Flower 21:53
I've Platanus trees on both two sides of me that the wind blows in my direction.
Farmer Fred 21:57
That would be sycamore trees for you non-Latin fans out there.
Debbie Flower 22:01
Yeah, we've done it about three times to get it. The piles off the driveway and that sort of thing.
Farmer Fred 22:07
All right, clean up. Very important. Put it on your to-do list, make it a New Year's resolution as well. A clean garden is a happy garden.
Debbie Flower 22:15
And you'll feel good, having gone out and done the work and been in the little bit of sunshine that is available outside.
Farmer Fred 22:21
You might even find a new plant coming up.
Debbie Flower 22:23
Yeah, yeah.
Farmer Fred 22:24
All right. Debbie Flower. Thanks for helping us do some winter cleanup here.
Debbie Flower 22:28
Okay, my pleasure.
Farmer Fred 22:32
Because there are so many demands on your time these days, I like to keep the Garden Basics podcast to under 30 minutes. Still, there is a lot more to tackle on all the garden subjects we bring up on the podcast. So, for that, and a lot more, we’re starting up The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, on Substack. As the newsletter grows, so will the subject matter. So, yes, it will be a good supplement for the Garden Basics podcast, but there will be a lot more garden related material and probably pictures of my dogs and cats, as well. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter on Substack. And best of all, it’s free! There’s a link in today’s show notes. Or, just go to substack.com, and do a search for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. That’s substack.com. The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. Did I tell you it’s free? It’s free.
Farmer Fred 23:35
Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple, Iheart, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, and Pocket Casts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.
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