By Melissa Lanyon
Have you ever wished for a kitchen filled with the scent of fresh-sliced apples ready to be baked into a homemade pie, or simmered into applesauce to enjoy on a crisp winter morning, only to find the grocery store price tag puts a damper on your plans?
The perfect solution might be right in your own neighbourhood.
The Campbell River Fruit Tree Project, run through Greenways Land Trust, offers a community synergy of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Homeowners who have fruit trees but lack the time, mobility, or equipment to harvest them can register their trees with the program.
A team of volunteers does the picking, splitting the yield three ways: up to 25 per cent goes to the homeowner, up to 25 per cent goes home with the volunteer pickers, and at least 50 per cent is distributed directly into the community to bolster local food security. Any damaged or fallen fruit is diverted to local farms for livestock feed.
To learn more about how this year’s harvest is unfolding, the Strathcona Standard reached out to Jeff Groat, outreach and food security coordinator for Greenways Land Trust. When asked to describe this season in three words, Groat didn’t hesitate: “very bountiful, early, and strange.”
Currently, about 68 homeowners have registered their trees, supported by a roster of roughly 100 active volunteers across Campbell River. While backyard branches are overflowing, getting that fresh harvest distributed brings its own logistical hurdles.
“Food insecurity keeps rising while our community capacity is slowly decreasing,” Groat explained. “The food bank has seen usage increase substantially in the past several years, while their physical storage and distribution is way beyond capacity. By and large, there is not nearly enough storage, processing, and distribution capacity in the city for community use.”
Beyond food security, the project plays an essential role in neighbourhood wildlife safety. According to BC Conservation Officer Service statistics, 178 black bears had to be shot across the province last year due to human-wildlife conflicts and public safety concerns, often driven by accessible backyard food sources.
“There are so many things that humans can do to reduce animal attractants, and Campbell River does not have an animal attractant bylaw,” Groat explained. “Rotting fruit poses a substantial attractant in urban yards, drawing in animals from nearby green spaces. Our program does not have near enough resources to get to every registered tree, and we routinely have to turn people away during peak season.”
Beyond harvesting backyard fruit, wildlife experts encourage residents to secure garbage bins indoors until collection morning, take down bird feeders during peak foraging season, and keep barbecue grease traps and outdoor pet food dishes clean.
Despite the logistical hurdles and heavy demand, the spirit among picking crews remains high, especially as late August ushers in a beloved harvest milestone.
“I think the highlight of the year is when we get to Italian prune plum season in late-August and September,” Groat shared. “We pick so many apples throughout the season that we all get a little tired of them! Prune plum trees make so much delicious fruit and we all love to snack while we’re harvesting!”
Whether you are dreaming of baking fresh pies, keeping neighbourhood bears safe, or lending a hand with a ladder and basket, more information on registering trees or volunteering is available at greenwaystrust.ca
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