Community is a big part of Lynette’s mantra and it’s also something that we can do here on the farm. One of the easiest ways is in terms of excess. We have a bountiful excess of grapefruit every year. While cleaning this tree, we’re going to harvest every possible piece of fruit off the tree
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Community
0:56 Cleaning & Harvesting Grapefruit Tree
2:49 Sharing Produce
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
Hi, my name is Lindsey and I’m here at the Urban Farm. Today I wanted to share with you something that’s really important to both me and Lynette and that is sharing. Community is a big part of Lynette’s mantra and it’s also something that we can do here on the farm. One of the easiest ways is in terms of excess. So behind me, this is one of our three grapefruit trees on the property. We have a bountiful excess of grapefruit every year. I just started harvesting this tree. You can see this is almost half a bin full already, just from this one tree.
If you think that the world is headed in a direction that makes you a bit concerned for the future and you’d like to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible, then you’ve come to the right place. My name is Lynette Zang. Now it’s time to go Beyond Gold and Silver.
It’s really important that we clean our trees to make sure that we don’t get pests or rodents that are attracted to the rotting fruit. So while cleaning this tree, we’re gonna harvest every possible piece of fruit off the tree. But of course that leaves a lot of grapefruit that we can’t use. So one of the things that we like to do is donate it. A lot of local food pantries, shelters and just neighborhood community outreach will take fruit and distribute it to where it can go. So this is a great way to get rid of excess produce. This tree and the other two that we have will produce way more grapefruit than we can use on this property. So it’s important to think about what we can do with our excess. These grapefruits are going to be donated to a local woman’s shelter that provides food and clothing and essential things for women and their children. And hopefully these grapefruits will be enjoyable. And it’s just a way to make sure that the food we’re growing can be used. We’ve also donated it to the school that we do the school garden for. In order to send some grapefruit home with the kids and the teachers, just anything we can do to make sure our produce does not go to waste. So if you do have excess like your fruit trees, think about ways and places that it can go that will make a meaningful difference rather than just throwing it away. While throwing it away, make sure that your tree is clean and that it’s not unsightly or gathering or attracting pests. If it can go somewhere where it can be used, that’s even better. So think about local shelters. Food pantries. There are a lot of places in your community that will take fresh food and be able to distribute it.
Grapefruit, oranges, a lot of those fruit trees, you have a ton of excess every year. As well as just offering it to neighbors. I’ve seen a lot of people they post on Facebook or websites like that, neighborhood websites saying, if you want grapefruit, come and pick it up. And that’s just a great way to share and make sure that it doesn’t go to waste. Grapefruit is one of the hardest things to use on this property because the chickens aren’t very fond of it. So even if we give them some of the excess fruit, they’ll kind of, it’s not their favorite. And also we don’t wanna add it to the compost because too much grapefruit can make the compost acidic. And then we have to deal with that when we go to use that compost in our garden beds. So something like grapefruit is a little bit difficult to work around, but the easiest thing to do is just to gather it all up and to give it to people that can enjoy it.
So that’s what we’ll be doing with this tree. And I’m just clipping the ones that are closest. But eventually I will need to use this fruit picker to get the ones that are taller and inside the tree. And if you have fruit trees, I really suggest getting one of these. It’s an incredibly useful tool and it just makes sure that you’re not leaving any fruit that you can’t reach on the tree because even if you can’t reach it, other gross things that like to eat them can, like mice and wraps. So we just wanna make sure that we clean our trees and that we make sure that all our excess produce is going to people that can use it. So I hope this helps inspire you and gives you ideas and just gives you the train of thought to thinking about where any of your excess produce can go.
