The first picks of the season!
Jun 18th, 2010 by Laura Reinsborough
The trees are loaded…
The pickers are waiting…
…And they’re off!
Nearly three weeks ahead of schedule, Toronto’s cherries ripened hastily and set us off on an early start to the season. We’re still in the midst of hiring seasonal staff, so our amazing team of specially-trained and super-dedicated volunteers, who we call Supreme Gleaners, set to work leading picks in the meantime.
Supreme Gleaner Dena Warman returned from a pick today:
“It was a great pick – beautiful tree. A lot of fruit was very high and could not be reached, but by the end we found a good way – one person gently pulling down on a branch, one person on the ladder picking and one person on the ground picking – that way we got to much more of the ripe fruit near. There was still a lot of fruit very high… for the birds and squirrels.”
During this one pick, Dena and two volunteers picked a whopping 35 lbs of cherries, 21 of which were donated to the Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre (PARC).
At another site, 107 lbs of cherries were harvested. We are off to a great start, team!
Hello Fruit Friends!
Congratulations on a great start to 2010. We don’t have cherries here in Winnipeg, but we’ve harvested bunches and bunches of rhubarb.
Looking forward to a great summer.
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Winnipeg Fruit Share
Wow!! What a bounty! I’m jealous–to my knowledge, we don’t have fruit trees like that in my part of Alberta :(