Caring for Fruit Trees Together

A guest post from our friends at Orchard People

Fruit trees are a wonderful addition to our urban and rural landscapes. But unlike native and ornamental trees they are quite vulnerable to pest and disease problems. How do you care for fruit trees properly to keep them healthy and productive? A group of urban and community orchardists from across North America are working to share fruit tree care resources in a new radio show and podcast covering fruit trees, food forests, permaculture and more.

The group is called The Community Orchard Network and the founders include The Baltimore Orchard Project, The Philadelphia Orchard Project, The PortlandFruit Tree Project, Orchard People Fruit Tree Care, Arbor Day Foundation and ACTrees. We started off by creating free fruit tree care webinars and we quickly built a Google Group including 200 other orchardists who were interested in learning with us.

The webinars then turned into The Urban Forestry Radio Show, a monthly live radio show and podcast that I host from a studio outside Toronto.  My guests are fruit tree care experts, urban orchardists, pomologists and others from across North America who can give us insights as to how to create a sustainable orchard and how to care for our fruiting trees and shrubs. The topics we’ve covered so far include:

• How beneficial insects can help protect your fruit tree from pests
• How to grow fig trees in colder climates
• How knowing a tree's botanical name will help you care for your tree

The show is broadcast live on internet-based RealityRadio101 on the last Tuesday of every month at 1pm EST and we have lots of fantastic shows planned for the coming months. Find out more about us at www.orchardpeople.com/network. Sign up for our iTunes podcast feed to listen to archived episodes. And feel free to join our Community Orchard Network Google Group to be updated on our activities.

Why reinvent the wheel each time one of us plants a fruit tree? Let’s join together and share our knowledge and experiences. We look forward to learning with you!