City Fruit is committed to the year-round care of Seattle’s urban orchard. We build community in the off season by organizing volunteer events and workshops where we share skills we can all use to care for the trees in our city. Our workshops cover everything from propagating, planting, pruning, and mulching to pest management. These practices ensure access to healthy fruit trees for future generations and–when the harvest rolls around–the highest quality fruit for our communities all across the city.
This year we are expanding our community education programs to share our unique environmental skill set with youth groups. The Urban Fruit Guardians (UFG) program offers students the opportunity to explore and get to know the diverse spectrum of urban agriculture in Seattle. Through environmental science lessons and art projects, the UFG program introduces youth (grades 3-5) to different urban orchards over the course of the summer with the goal of training the environmental stewards our city needs!
We want to make this curriculum open and available for community educators to use with youth groups or for parents to gather activities to do with their children. Each lesson has a recommended local orchard that City Fruit encourages you to go explore! With a grant from School’s Out Washington, we are proud to offer UFG youth workshops for free to our community members, and once finalized, the UFG lesson plans will be available on our website. We encourage groups to use these lessons, visit orchards around the city, and learn how to support our urban food system!
The first lesson of UFG launched on Sunday, March 6th at Beacon Food Forest (BFF). With the leadership of Will from BFF, City Fruit collaborated with a local girl scout troop to plant 3 fruit trees!
The group learned about the different kinds of agriculture practiced at Beacon Food Forest and was able to plant a network of currant bushes as an understory that will grow up in harmony with the trees. Want to learn more about companion planting? Visit our tree care page for tips on how to start a fruit tree guild.
Do you have a youth group excited about environmental stewardship, food justice, local fruit, and urban agriculture? Click here to fill out our UFG Interest Form, or reach out to [email protected] for more information.