In my opening New to Fruit Trees blog, I said I was disappointed not to find a single fruit tree in my yard after moving to Seattle from Washington, DC. Not so fast. Let’s call this my second #fruitfail. Not one, or two, but five — I have five cherry trees in my yard. Seattle is truly an urban orchard. (To be fair, at the time, no cherries were growing!)
For help identifying our trees, I was able to call on one of City Fruit’s many experts. Laila Suidan, a trained arborist, taught me about each type of tree (and plant) in our yard and provided instruction on care and maintenance. Among other things, she taught me that many fruit trees, including cherry trees, have identifying lenticels on their bark.
City Fruit will soon launch a set of residential services, including connection to experts that can help identify and assess your fruit trees and assist in tree care and management. If you’re interested, please email info@cityfruit.org and we’ll send you more information.
I’m looking forward to our first harvest of cherries this week! If you aren’t lucky enough to have cherry trees in your backyard, make sure to sign up for Collins Orchards CSA. Deliveries started June 25th, but you can sign-up at anytime. The first few weeks of the CSA will include Early Robin Rainier cherries.
City Fruit members receive a 10% discount on the CSA! Join City Fruit Today — members may request the discount code by email.
Catherine Morrison is the executive director of City Fruit. Follow her blog series and send your New to Fruit Tree questions to info@cityfruit.org.