Two of Baton Rouge’s BREC parks just got some new amenities: fruit trees ready for picking.
A total of 16 sastuma trees have been planted at BREC’s Highland Road Park and at Expressway Park, the 40-acre tract on South 11th Street near downtown. It’s part of a relatively new project called City Citrus, which aims to plant fruit trees in public and semi-public spaces. By the end of this planting season, City Citrus will have about 80 fruit trees in the ground around Baton Rouge.
“The idea of the project is for the trees to be open for public grazing,” says Robert Seeman, City Citrus program director.
Launched last year by Baton Rouge Green, the nonprofit focused on conserving and planting trees throughout the area, City Citrus mirrors a larger urban gardening trend unfolding around the country. Over the past 20 years, community gardens and farmers markets have grown exponentially, and open-source fruit tree programs are now on the rise. They’re popular because of their lower maintenance—once an orchard is established, it can be much easier to manage than a community garden. New Orleans; Portland, Oregon; and Vancouver are all using fruit trees to build community, increase attractiveness and contribute to the greater good. In many cases, the harvested fruit is being donated to local food banks.
Seeman says a critical component of City Citrus is the volunteers, known as Citrus Shepherds, who take responsibility for planting and caring for the trees.
“We do a site assessment to make sure it’s a good site for trees, and we help get things started, but it’s the Citrus Shepherds who make it work and keep it going,” Seeman says.
Each site is different. One of the largest new sites is on the campus of the Family and Youth Service Center, the former Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired on Government Street. The center helps truant kids get back on track by intervening in the many issues that contribute to a child’s delinquency, including poverty, unstable home life and academic difficulty.
In March, LSU student volunteers helped plant 21 fruit trees on the center’s grounds. When the trees begin yielding sweet satsumas, the many families who use the nonprofit’s services will be able to pick them. More than 5,000 families come through the campus gates annually.
Another City Citrus site is on land owned by Holy Spirit Episcopal Church on South Harrell’s Ferry Road. Seeman says the church recently transitioned their community garden into a fruit orchard with help from City Citrus. As it did with the produce grown in the garden, the church will donate the fruit to food banks.
Seeman says City Citrus has been careful to select high-quality trees that perform well in Baton Rouge’s climate. When selecting sites, he looks for good access to the tree so that when the fruit finally comes in, volunteers or community members can pick it safely and easily.
“We wouldn’t put a tree too close to the street,” he says.
While trees will yield fruit within the first year, Seeman says it usually takes two years for a full yield to emerge and for the fruit to be consistently sweet.
Public/green space sites:
• BREC’s Expressway Park
• BREC’s Highland Park
• Corner of Highland Road and West McKinley Street near LSU
• Corner of Highland Road and South Boulevard downtown
• Corner of North 10th and Main streets downtown
Other sites:
• Family and Youth Services Center
• Jewel J. Newman Community Center
• Miller & Hampton law firm on Government Street
• Our Father’s Garden on South Harrell’s Ferry Road
• Studio C on Government Street
Yep, it’s a thing. While more and more groups work to make fruit-bearing trees a normal part of public green space across the country, some have also been mapping what’s currently available for the picking along city streets.
Sites like fallingfruit.org allow users to add information to an open-source Google map about a location where they’ve found accessible fruit-bearing trees. “Accessible” is the keyword here, because some of the plotted sites are trees on private property that overhang a fence or drop ripened fruit on a public sidewalk. Our advice (as well as the site’s): Ask permission.
Falling Fruit had several entries for Baton Rouge, including information on fig, Japanese plum and loquat trees found around the city.
