Winter is the time to plan for spring activities and our schedule has pretty much filled up! I will be leading several NW Fruit Rescue hands-on workshops, and am honored to be invited to lead or participate in workshops and demonstrations sponsored by other local groups. We will continue with more fruit tree pruning for public agencies and private owners. And more about our food bank meals-to-go, below.
WORKSHOPS/DEMONSTRATIONS
If you have an interest in learning about severe pruning of neglected apple/pear trees, or learning to graft fruit trees, please review this list of offerings. Hopefully, you will find one to fit your liking and schedule. NW Fruit Rescue supports these educational events as a path to promote DIY self-sufficiency and resiliency. Even if you don't attend, these papers may be useful to you:
The first activity is a grafting workshop and the second is a grafting demonstration where customers can have custom grafts performed by grafting specialists for a fee.
This is a workshop with hands-on participation by attendees who will leave with their own grafted trees.
See description and course literature, below.
Cost is $30.
Reply directly to NWFruitRescue@gmail.com if you want to be notified of the time and place for this workshop
NW FRUIT RESCUE WILL DO PRUNING AND COACHING FOR A FEE
We've had several inquiries from tree owners wanting to hire us to do severe pruning of their neglected apple/pear trees. We will try this on a trial basis to earn funds supporting NW Fruit Rescue. Please send me an email if you are interested in hiring us for severe pruning. If you'd rather do the pruning yourself and just need some coaching to get you started, we're available for that service, too.
We're continuing our volunteer activities with the City of Bellingham parks and the Port of Bellingham to do severe pruning and follow-up with longer-term maintenance pruning. We will then harvest the fruit from 70-80 trees once they are back in production.
CIDER, APPLESAUCE AND MORE
You may recall that about half of our 17,000 lb. harvest from 2023 went to hunger relief agencies and the other half went to Fruit Rescue | Barmann Cellars for hard cider. Steph Barmann reports that sales are brisk! Additionally, we produced 280lbs of applesauce for the Blaine and Foothills Food Banks at nearby community kitchens on a trial basis. We are considering pressing fresh, pasteurized apple/pear juice in the next harvest season.
The applesauce project was so well received that we are now collaborating with the Foothills Food Bank and adjacent community kitchen of the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center (EWRRC) to prepare hearty stews and casseroles in one-quart "to-go" containers, that will be distributed to Food Bank customers. I'm working on Health Dept approval now and hope to have our first "stew production" soon.
Making stew doesn't actually have anything to do with rescuing apples or fruit, but is in keeping with our goal to "Fight Hunger, Put [Food] to Good Use." This is a pilot project to see if we can take bulk, surplus, and gleaned food and make it into a value-added commodity that can be distributed by the hunger relief agencies to their customers. The agencies are facing reduced budgets, higher demand and our communities are left with increased food insecurity. I think we can take $1 worth of ingredients and produce $3 worth of finished product. We'll know in a few months, and I'll keep you informed.
WANT TO GET INVOLVED?
We'd love to have your support as a volunteer, fruit donor, cash donor, or community-business partner. Volunteer opportunities include winter and summer pruning, as well as fall harvesting. Our volunteers work outside, have fun, meet new friends and give back. Processing to-go meals, and turning apples into applesauce or juice, will require a hearty group of kitchen workers, so maybe that's an area of interest for you, and a friend? See more ideas here on our website.
If you would like to form a small local team of NW Fruit Rescue volunteers, friends and neighbors, I'll work with you with coaching and support to get you launched and stay connected.
We're looking for a community kitchen in Bellingham (church, community group) that will host us to make stew one day per week, so please let me know, or ask them to contact me.
Cheers!
December 12, 2023
Well, the apple harvest is over and we're taking a bit of a breather before starting our orchard pruning schedule and presenting field workshops after the first of the year. About half our 17,000 lbs of the 2023 fruit went to hunger relief agencies and the other half, the #2 fruit, to the cider makers. And, there has been some exciting activity since the last "newsletter."
Applesauce for the Food Banks
One of the goals for NWFR is to process #2 apples into value-added products to "put them to good use": hard cider, apple cider (pasteurized, not filtered), applesauce, apple butter, dried apples, etc. We've had two recent pilot projects and made 280 pounds of skin-on, no sugar added applesauce for the Foothills Food Bank and the Blaine Food Bank, delivered in 16oz containers. We needed data: Is it practical to make value-added products from #2 apples using volunteer labor in a commercial kitchen? What does it cost? How long does it take? What is the level of acceptance from the recipients? The initial response is quite positive, so we're considering what it takes to scale-up to increase efficiency and through-put. Stay tuned! Here is a YouTube Video of our first test, producing 80 pounds. The second production test produced an additional 200 pounds. And here's a shout-out to the Whatcom Co. Health Dept. The staff was very supportive and coached me on the details of doing the work and filling out the applications- thanks!
Here's the applesauce crew
Fruit Rescue Community Cider
I visited the cidery at Barmann Cellars, and learned from owners Steph and Jessie they have over 2,000 bottles of NWFR cider labeled "Fruit Rescue Community Cider" and a bunch of kegs for bars and taprooms, too. This is cider they fermented from the 7,000 pounds of rescued #2 apples that we delivered to them during the harvest season. I'm no cider connoisseur, but I like it! Carbonated, 6.5% alcohol and a nice, light apple taste. We supplied only Whatcom County apples, so buy local!
Here's the label:
Fruit Rescue Community Cider is available at Elizabeth Station- Bellingham, Mt. Baker Ski area, Bottleworks- Seattle, Barmann Cellars tasting room in Maple falls and of course, on the Barmann Cellars website. NW Fruit Rescue gets compensated for the apples and Steph is very excited about promoting the NW Fruit Rescue mission, so ask for it at your local bottle shop or bar!
Classes for pruning and grafting
Another goal for NWFR is to restore and maintain the neglected heritage fruit trees in the County, and to increase the inventory of new fruit trees in public parks and private lands. We can't begin to accomplish this on our own, but we can teach important skills to other community members.
Would you like to learn about severe pruning of neglected apple/pear trees? Or to learn how to graft selected varieties of fruit trees? I'll be leading hands-on workshops in both of these topics on weekends in February/March, so send me a note if you are interested. The cost is $25 per session. If pruning neglected trees is of interest and you want some extended hands-on experience, you can join our pruning volunteers when we do our pruning on public sites, and a few private sites, as well.
Before and after severe pruning:
Get involved
We'd love to have your support as a volunteer, cash donor, fruit donor or community-business partner, as these are the life-blood of our non-profit. If you'd like to be involved, send an email and we'll find a spot in your area of interest. More on the website, here.
If you are a hunger relief agency and want to be included in our apple/pear distribution next year, just let us know.
November 10, 2923
Well, the 2023 tree fruit harvest season is over and NW Fruit Rescue delivered over 17,000 lbs. of rescued fruit, mostly apples. Our pre-season projection was 5,000 lbs. Wow! Fruit was plentiful, lots of owners were glad to have it put to good use, and we averaged about 100 lbs/hour/person—faster than expected. It would not have happened without the help of our enthusiastic volunteers!
About half of the fruit was hand-picked, table-grade fruit that went to the local hunger relief agencies: food banks and meal programs. The other half was #2 grade consisting of ground falls, small and buggy fruit that went to Barmann Cellars for a limited production of hard cider with a "NW Fruit Rescue" label. NWFR will get a nominal cut from the sale of the cider.
And here's my chance to offer a heartfelt "thank you" to all the volunteers and donors that supported our mission and made this first year so successful. From the field pickers, to the legal work, to the website design help, to nonprofit and gleaning mentoring, the cash donors: everything was done with volunteers and community support. Thanks so much!!
Website? Yes, we are now live at NWFruitRescue.org. It's version 1.0, best viewed on a laptop or larger, with revisions and more content to come. Please visit the site and you'll see our primary focus is to fight hunger and put surplus tree fruit to good use. We're encouraging everyone to be aware that surplus fruit on non-commercial trees is valuable and anyone can pick it and deliver it, or use it themselves. Also, check out our vision for moving ahead with classes, and a site to process #2 fruit into "value added" products. I look forward to your comments/questions.
I get questions asking "how can I help?” Here's an overview of areas where we need volunteer skills, with greater detail on the website here. Let us know if you’re interested any of these areas:
Picking fruit, pruning trees - We try for good weather and 3-4 hour work sessions for the field work. NWFR is licensed and insured.
IT help – Refining/maintaining the website, software.
Grant writing, fundraising- Future plans will require significant funding.
Advisor for an artisanal fruit processing facility – Someone with experience in a commercial fruit processing facility.
Graphics, videography, newsletter, community liaison
Would you like to take a NWFR class on Severe Pruning of Neglected Apple and Pear Trees? You'll attend a field workshop and have a few hours of supervised, hands-on severe pruning experience. Or you might like the workshop on Grafting to Propagate New Fruit Trees. Learn to graft a tree or two and take them home. Last year's class reported that most of the student's grafts "took" (were successful). See the links to the written course materials on bottom of this page of the website and let me know if you'd like to take a class. We'll schedule for weekends when most everyone can attend.
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Well, that's all for now. Thanks again to all who helped this year!
August 26, 2023
Well, the apple/pear harvest season is underway! There is absolutely no shortage of table grade fruit, and it is being welcomed with open arms by the local Food Banks and hunger relief agencies. So far, we have delivered ~4,000 lbs, with the table grade going to Food Banks and the #2 grade fruit to a local cidery, Barmann Cellars. Steph Barmann will ferment a limited edition and put a NW Fruit Rescue label on the bottles for sale! There are trees everywhere, loaded with fruit. If you have fruit to be picked, let me know.
The initial NWFR goal for this year was 5,000 lbs and we will far exceed that if we have more volunteer pickers. If you want to come and pick with NWFR, reply via email and I'll send you scheduling notices. We can pick most every weekday in Whatcom County for the next month or more, and weekends if there is interest from volunteers. The typical session lasts 3-4 hours and we supply all the equipment and crates. Harvest locations and schedule are a bit fluid, so I will alert you as to the specific time and place a few days beforehand. I will have a liability waiver for you to sign on the first day of picking.
Or, if you just want to pick some fruit with friends and family and deliver it directly to a hunger-relief group (sets a good example for kids) they are thrilled to receive it. It's easy to pick 50-100 lbs per hour. Here are the guidelines we follow for harvesting apples and pears. Generally, if you would serve the fruit to your family, it is good for the agencies. If there is any question, ask them directly if your fruit is suitable.
- Apples are ready to pick when they taste good, the seeds turn from white to brown, or significant fruit has fallen from the tree, but not necessarily all three.
- Pears are ready when they are still hard and snap off the spur when rotated upward 90+ degrees from vertical. They ripen later.
- All fruit for the relief agencies must be hand-picked directly from the tree- no fruit off the ground for direct human consumption.
- Take care to avoid overly defective or buggy fruit.
Some candidate recipients for your fruit donation:
I hope you can make a difference in some capacity to get surplus apples and pears from tree-to-table! Please reply if you have questions or comments.
ps: if you'd like to "unsubscribe," just let me know---
August 8, 2023
I’m really happy to report that the Washington St. nonprofit corporation, NW Fruit Rescue, made our first delivery of rescued, surplus fruit to the Foothills Food Bank last week! It was quite rewarding. Apple and pear harvest season is upon us and in this first year our goal is 5,000 lbs or more of rescued fruit to benefit Food Banks and other Charities. The table grade fruit goes to those in need and the #2 grade goes to cider processors.
You're getting this note because I've been saving all my contacts who are interested to keep up with NW Fruit Rescue. We are all-volunteer and I welcome you to help out to reduce hunger and wasted fruit. Here are some possibilities:
· If you have a fruit tree, or access to trees, the most efficient way you can make a contribution is to pick the fruit and deliver it directly to your local Food Bank or food pantry. They are all desperately in need of donations to meet the growing need. An individual can usually pick more than 100 lbs in 1 hour. I have a list of recipients if you need it.
o The fruit for direct human consumption should be hand-picked 1-2 weeks before full ripening, and never have been in contact with the ground.
o Shaking from the tree onto a clean tarp is acceptable, but softer fruit is too subject to bruising, so be aware.
o Cull out buggy fruit, damaged, cut or defective fruit and those with scab larger than a 25 cent piece.
· If you have a tree(s) and need for us to pick them and deliver the fruit, reply with a brief description and I will call or visit for introductions.
· If you want to volunteer to join in our fruit picking sessions, they will be scheduled periodically on weekdays from 10AM to 1PM or so, from mid-August into October. Weekends are OK if reqeusted. We will provide ladders, tools and containers. If this is interesting, reply with your general availability and I'll send you a NW Fruit Rescue liability waiver to fill out and return. I'll alert you when harvest sessions are scheduled.
· We will offer classes on fruit tree pruning, including overgrown, neglected trees. Also grafting to propagate new trees. Both disciplines are easy to learn and inexpensive to perform. Our goal is to expand the knowledge base in our region to steward healthy trees and promote more fruit of better quality. Reply if you want to learn these techniques, or if you are qualified/interested to give instructions to students.
· And of course, we are thrilled for cash donations, although we are not yet a 501(c)3 corporation, so a donation is not deductible on your federal taxes or OSAG credit. Send me an email for details.
That's it for now and I hope you spread the word. I'll be sending periodic updates, or if you prefer, send me an email request to "unsubscribe" you.
