Baltimore Orchard Project celebrates a new mural and apple harvest

October 19, 2023October 26, 2023gotofarms Leave a comment

*Artist Teresa Hammann at work on the mural she created for the Baltimore Orchard Project*

by Jonathan Simpson

Guest writer

The Baltimore Orchard Project (BOP) celebrate a unique new mural that was painted on the road near the BOP orchard in the city’s Druid Hill Park. The artist is Teresa Hammann, a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, who painted the scene this summer. The mural features sunflowers, trees with pears and other fruits, a Baltimore oriole and a block tagged with Baltimore Orchard Project.

While Hammann is the main artist, she took suggestions from bystanders on what to include in the mural itself. So it feels like not only her work but the work of the community as well. “As people were walking by, they would say, “you should add this’, or ‘you should add that,’” Hammann recalled.

So, it isn’t just Hammann’s creation, but it is also the community that was involved in a way. On Sunday, October 22, Hammann opened the mural up to let the community will “help finish the work”, by adding more flowers and details using stencils, said Forest Fleischer, co-president of the Baltimore Orchard Project.

The mural at Druid Hill Park, on Red Road near the soccer field and adjoining the community garden, was celebrated There were tool sharpening classes, apples, cider-making in addition to the mural work.

The event is one of many BOP projects to find and promote sources of healthy food in the city. Healthy food is a necessity for all, the project states, but not everyone gets to access it, especially people in poor communities where food deserts are common, and the people there don’t always have the knowledge or resources to grow their own food. The Baltimore Orchard Project, which began in 2012, is doing its part to help change the food disparities in Baltimore City, with a group of members dedicated to education and finding economical sources of food to share. In September members harvested 709 pounds of apples from an orchard located on the grounds of Baltimore Country Club to share with those in need.

“We educate people of the existing fruit trees and orchards in the city. We also look to expand on those fruit trees. So, if people already have an orchard, they want to add more or maybe they want to establish one on their own on their own, and we’ll help them do that,” said Fleischer.

Fleischer, who grew up on a farm in Carroll County, found BOP offered her the opportunity “to experience more nature and the outdoors part of Baltimore, and that’s really helped me to get involved here,” she added. “We are in this green space and even though our focus is fruit trees, it is still important to add to the green spaces in Baltimore.”

It helps that the project is located in Druid Hill Park, the 745-acre park developed by Frederick Olmstead, the creator of Central Park. In a grassy plain, the group holds meetings and events ranging from how to take better care of garden tools to tree planting.

The orchard features beautiful fruit trees, which the group planted two years ago. The trees are beginning to bear fruit, including apples, berries, and pears.

A view of the fruit trees at Druid Hill *(photo by Jonathan Simpson)*

Fenced off near those trees is a flourishing community garden where urban dwellers can plant fruit and vegetables. It’s quite a sight to see and if you keep on walking around the campus there are various fields for soccer, baseball, and tennis with a tennis court right across from the park headquarters building. It’s a great place to take a walk, sit and walk by the fruit trees or play sports nearby.

Note: I’m honored to have been named a board member for Baltimore Orchard Project recently. I think it’s a great cause; I’m really into more trees and more nature, especially in areas that haven’t been served in the city.

I’ll be helping with the apple cider press Sunday for the “InCider” event which reminds me of cool fall days growing up when we gathered all the apples that had fallen on the ground in baskets. We’d wash them in a big tin tub, then throw a mix of red and green apples into the mill, along with a few yellow jackets, to produce this amazing aromatic golden drink.

It’ll be fun and delicious at the park so come Sunday if you are anywhere nearby.

Lavinia

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Cole Brothers: from fish to blackberries

August 14, 2023August 16, 2023gotofarms Leave a comment

They have raised bumper crops of blackberries, but this year might be their last

The Cole boys had been out at sea, living and fishing for a living on their boats, when they decided to cast their fate back home in the red clay of Halifax County in a blackberry patch–a huge, cultivated blackberry patch with berries the size of golf balls. Their father was getting ready to retire from his apple orchard business. “He told us he heard from the grocery stores that blackberries could bring a pretty high dollar,” say Jeff Cole, taking a brief break from bringing berries in from the fields, established now for over 30 years.

*Jeff and Joey Cole with Bailey, taking a brief break in the middle of blackberry harvest*

“We could see the fishing industry was getting crowded. Instead of buying boats, we took the proceeds and invested it in berries. We had lived on the boats. We didn’t have homes. . . And now we were home,” Jeff explains.

They began in 1986 with an acre of blackberries and an acre of raspberries in the farming community of Vernon Hill. Demand for fresh local produce was growing. They struck deals with grocery giants, Richfood and Ukrops, bringing in the berries as they ripened. Local. Local. was their calling card. Dealing with some other chain grocery stores posed some problems because they could not always predict when the berries would ripen. “They want to know way in advance, and we couldn’t always make that call,” says Jeff.

The fresh berries sold themselves: Three times as big as the little wild ones, and twice as sweet, without the occasional hard bits. Pretty soon the Cole brothers one acre grew to 15 acres, mostly blackberries.

From our house in Halifax, we would drive up three miles to their farm, a simple white building where they kept produce refrigerated until they could deliver it to a market, at a cool 31 to 34 degrees. My mother made blackberry dumplings, which remains my favorite dessert. Bunched and baked in a packet of dough, the juices would bubble out in sweet little rivulets running in the cracks and cervices of the pastry (See my mother’s recipe at the bottom.) Or you could just mush them up in cream, which turned the most beautiful deep blue purple. Or you could eat them fresh from the basket.

Pretty soon, as the word spread of these luscious giant berries, the Cole brothers were growing trillions of blackberries on 15 acres and selling them to grocery stores and farmers markets directly and through a middleman.

As the Cole brothers moved from fish to berries, they confronted a plethora of issues. They fought all varieties of insects, recruited pickers in a region that is losing population, and coped with devastating weather. In 2016, the temperature in April dropped to 25-26 degrees. They lost the whole crop, $300,000 without insurance to cushion the blow. And now they are thinking they are ready to retire.

The brothers pride themselves on their service, carrying the berries to market on the same day that they are picked and keeping them at a cool 32 degrees. They are transported from the field to the refrigerated house where workers sort and put them in plastic containers until Joey moves them. Some go to a Richmond marketer who delivers them to five different farmers markets in Virginia. Most end up in Jessup or Northern Virginia.

“We are trying to provide our customers with a service. Say they order 750 count. We can get the order through that day. That’s a service. That California can’t do,” explains Joey. Competing with Mexico prices adds to the competition. “When they aren’t there, the market is red hot.”

The pests are a worry at every stage. Going without any pesticide at all would result in massive rotting or failure, Jeff says. The fruit fly, for example, hatches in the berry. Gray mold infects the blossom, June bugs and Japanese beetles add to the enemy list, not to mention gray rust and leaf rust.

They use a modified shift trellis system for support that keeps the berries off the ground and allows them to ripen layer by layer for more precise picking and avoid pests that devour the ripe berries.

*The berries ripen in stages on the trellis system.*

The brothers have figured out pest control but seasonal labor is more unpredictable. They have some faithful skilled pickers like Vanessa Venable, who has worked at the Cole Brothers for 32 years. But half the labor pool they relied on has died and the younger generation which relied on farming has moved away. The brothers would like to use migrant labor, but they do not have housing.

The crew of pickers today will work from 6:30-11:30 a.m. They will receive from $12 an hour or $5 a flat. Once a girl picked 54 flats in one day, which netted her over $200 for a morning’s work. The average is 30 trays or $150. Vanessa gently tugs the berry which drops into her palm and then into a flat. Without a nod to the heat, she glides from bush to bush, selecting the black berries and leaving the red to ripen.

*Vanessa has the knack of berry picking*

“You’ve got to go fast without damaging the fruit,” explains Jeff.

It has become more difficult to deliver the freshest and best quality to the markets. Joey will return from an overnight run to Richmond for farmers markets, while Jeff tends to the fields. Up since 4 a.m., he has rounded up about 20 pickers who will pull the berries in the morning. About 80 percent show up. The unpredictability of the workers, coupled with the decrease in laborers, makes for stress.

“We’re too small to be big and too big to be small,” says Joey.

They have scaled back from 15 acres down to four and say this is their last harvest. They are ready to sell the farm.

The price of berries fails to keep up with the increases in inflation. “We can’t continue to do at the highest level.We’re burning the candle at both ends,” explains Jeff. “I tell you, the world is pushing the small guy out.

“I’m grateful for what’s taken place,” he says. It’s a good life being self-employed, We’d like a few more dollars per flat. . . But our season’s over.”

*Bailey greets drive-up customers who make up a small fraction of the business*

RECIPE for Blackberry Dumplings (makes 6)

From my mother Vin Edmunds (Lavinia)

For the pastry:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter or lard (1 stick)

4 TB water

1 TB sugar

1/2 cup blackberries per dumpling

(Shortcut–use Pepperidge Farms puff pastry for the dough)

Mix flour, sugar, salt, butter, then add water gradually. Make pastry. Gather dough into one ball. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. Divide into about six sections. In the middle of each section, add 1/2 to 3/4 cup berries, 1/2 pat butter, 3/4 TB sugar. Gather the dough at the top and twist together at the top. Place in greased cookie sheet or pan. Bake at 450 for ten minutes. Reduce heat and bake another 30 minutes until brown. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Searching for an old-fashioned diner

July 27, 2023July 28, 2023gotofarms 3 Comments

*Old 360 Diner attracts the sheriffs department, EMT workers and locals for lunch.*

Roaming around my home-country in Halifax County, Virginia, this summer, I have been looking for a good old-fashioned diner that serves good- old-fashioned food. I only had to drive about a mile and half to the Old 360 Mountain Road Diner, on the curvy two-lane Route 360 to Danville. There is no MacDonalds or Burger King on this road–only a deserted gas station on the left just before the parking lot, full of trucks, ambulances, jeeps and sedans.

Two sheriff’s cars were parked right in front. In Baltimore, this might have been a sign to quickly move to the next Burger King, but here the sheriff, police, Blacks and Whites, and workers are regulars, creating a friendly buzz of conversation. I settled at the counter beside Joy, an emergency worker, and assessed the menu. Meat loaf was the first choice but it already had sold out. So I settled on chicken fingers plate with two sides–green beans and macaroni–and sweet tea ($10.99).

By the time I received my plate,heaping with food, Joy and I were friends. She had told me her life story. She’s from Ringgold, up the road, and is on the emergency team that eats here regularly. I learned about her job, her children, her divorce and the calls for emergency around the area. Diabetes and heart attack predominate as the major calls for help. No joke, given the rich food I’m about to eat. I’m indulging but you can also eat your fill of vegetables, from okra to butter beans.

But who wants to skimp when you get these amazing chicken fingers?

Each of the four chicken fingers was as big as a drumstick. They were succulent, hot and full of chicken flavor, compared to fast food chicken fingers that taste like paper.

*The chicken fingers plate with sides, iced tea, homemade ranch dressing and corn muffin was good for two meals.* *Just what I was looking for: great local fresh food and friendly conversation. And the price, $10.99, was right*.

Barry, the owner, from behind the counter, told me he makes his own breadcrumbs. The genial host, with a broad face and grin, and sunburned complexion, won’t tell me what’s in the crusty skin, but I suspect it comes from the delicious cornbread muffins. He soaks the chicken breasts in buttermilk before he rolls them in bread crumbs and drops them in crackling hot oil.

*Barry, owner, manager and cook at Old 360 Mountain Road diner*

How do you prepare catfish? I asked Barry.

He uses pliers to peel away the tough skin and volunteered he could cook a fish for me if I put my catch on ice and bring it up to the restaurant within two days. I bragged about my catch from two days ago: a big black catfish that was a thrill to reel in.

But it didn’t look that appetizing. Its gills pulsating, on the ground, I could see part of its mouth was missing, probably from an earlier catch. We threw it back in the pond.

How many restaurants would cook your fish? BYOF.

I stored this info in my head as inspiration to try again to land one of the more savory catfish. Like many who live out in the country in these parts, Barry has a pond at his home and prefers crappie and blue gill and bass. You’ve got to fish the little ones out or they will take up space from the big ones, he advised.

About 2 p.m., closing time. No dinner is served here but it’s not necessary with the huge lunch I just ate. I asked for a breakfast menu that includes pancakes, sausage, country ham, bacon, eggs, and fresh buttermilk biscuits.

“Umm, that looks good,” I said. This could get to be a habit. My cousin James eats breakfast here everyday.

“You’ll be back tomorrow,” Barry replied.

Driving back from the Cole brothers berry farm (the next post coming up) the next morning, I stopped by for a biscuit. $1 grilled with butter and so good. I may be returning for lunch. I noticed the day’s desserts feature chocolate meringue pie, brown sugar pie and coconut pie ($3 a slice).

Lavender: calming at Star Bright Farm

June 27, 2023June 28, 2023gotofarms 1 Comment

*Farmer Peter Elmore in lavender fields, Star Bright Farm, White Hall, Maryland*

On picturesque property in north Baltimore County, farmer/entrepreneur Peter Elmore has found his calling–in lavender. At Star Bright Farm, Elmore grows, distills, packages, and sells this crop with almost as many variations as a tomato. Here you can drink it (in lemonade), spray it (in hyrdrosols), eat it (in cookies and cakes), put it in potpourri or bouquets, walk through lavender rows and destress, and best of all, snip and smell its astringent, sweet perfume.

With a degree in ecological agriculture and certification in permaculture from University of Vermont, the 31-year-old farmer is using the best regenerative techniques on the land to grow this stunning plant. (To really get a sense of the farm, see the video with audio by Peter’s brother Patrick by clicking here. Scroll down and click on the arrow. )

Blueberries and Lavender

When his parents bought the 130-acre farm across from his uncle and aunt’s farm in White Hall, they came up with a complementary plan. His mother, Photographer Helen Norman, was entranced with the lavender fields in France. Peter wanted to grow blueberries. So the blueberries and purple lavender have merged in a riot of aromas and taste. And they have added some 23 varieties of flowers and herbs—all organic. It’s distinctive because everything is done on site, from seed to packaging lavender skin and health products.

Elmore is the epitome of a new breed of farmer–young, creative, super-conscientious about the environment and food and how his farming can positively affect climate change.

He describes himself as a small farmer who will be able to take a greater share in profits than small farmers of the past, as consumers, concerned about health and taste, demand more quality and no pesticides—and they are willing to pay the price. “We don’t need huge access to land and capital. Large scale farming is designed around planting and spraying. I’d rather focus on diversity of what we are growing and find the technology to go with it.”

(Read more on this website about regenerative farming by clicking here .)

Most everything is done by hand. That’s a lot when you consider each row of lavender requires about 12 hours of pruning and cutting for 26 rows. Elmore spends more time per plant, which produces more value, and in the long run, will be more profitable, he says. After a while, he says, you get the knack of snipping. He hires some harvesters in season.

*The red barn offers space for music, picnics and crafts*

As the mission statement for Bright Star says, our goal is to “foster a durable ecosystem that generates human wellbeing and regenerates environmental health.”

On a recent busy day, Elmore strode to the barn, under a magnificent roof redone by Amish builders to show off the copper still, used to distill lavender and other herbs for the products Bright Star is selling online and in the Barn Shop downstairs. A model of the modern enterprising farmer, he’s energetic, in red crocs and a North Face cap—and a serious practitioner of regenerative agriculture.(Read more about regenerative farming here.) ”The idea is to plant flowers and perennials around and establish perennial cropping—landscape diversity,” Elmore says.

*Elmore distils bunches of lavender, roses or blends of other herbs to make hydrosols, in this vesse*l

The herbs have become the jumping off point for a business in herbal skin care and healing sprays and ointments. Elmore and an assistant distill bunches of dried herbs in a 20-liter copper still that looks like a big cappuccino machine.

The herbs, roses or a blend are in effect distilled in water in clear glass with spray tops. They make hydrosols which contain the essence of chamomile, lemon balm, thyme, peppermint and of course, lavender –all organic to the end.

Learning from One Straw

Elmore learned to admire the taste and healthy aspects of organic vegetables from his uncle and aunt, Joan and Drew Norman, the owners of One Straw Farm, (featured here in an earlier post on Farm-Finds) which adjoins Star Bright. The Normans got into organic farming when most people associated it with hippies growing marijuna. Today chefs and savvy consumers look to One Straw for the most desirable fresh vegetables in restaurants, CSAs and local farmers’ markets.

“A bunch of us kids would ride in the back of the truck. Then I started doing more work around the farm. I learned to drive tractors,” recalls Elmore. The experience fed his passion for organic food and to the study of food systems, permaculture and ecology. After college, he moved to Oregon and worked for a local food aggregator, which acted as a liaison to set up farmers to sell their produce to restaurants and markets.

It takes a lot more work to maintain the organic approach than in an non-organic farm. For now, Elmore is the primary worker, along with one full time helper. To gain the organic certification , he must plow through a lot of red tape and prove first that no chemicals have been used on the property for the last three years. For the products he sells, he fills out a daily sheet documenting the process of production and verifying that no pesticides have been added.

To avoid pesticides, he plants dense cover crops, such as white clover, that will enrich the soil. He covers the roots of all the plants with plastic to keep out weeds. And he uses on-farm composting as well as organic fertilizers.

High end marketing

Star Bright offers an array of products–all organic, made by hand– in a store in the basement of the barn. On the website, the featured hydrosols and lavendar products look like a spread in a home and garden magazine. No surprise because Helen Norman is a lifestyle and garden photographer with credits in national magazines, and her husband Mark has a background in marketing. They sell fine tools, such as the $90 Japanese pruners, arranged artfully on a rustic farm table, French country baskets, a $22 leather fly swatter, as wells as creams and organic “buzz-off” bug spray. The high-end marketing buoys the difficult farm days when drought or bugs can affect the harvest.

Most sales are online or in farmers’markets.

In the future, Elmore would like to add more fruit trees and more acres to develop a self-sufficient, diverse farmstead. “I’d like to supply people with fruit, my uncle’s farm grows vegetables; we have skincare, herbal medicine, and we can get into produce,” he says.

The lavender continues to be a big draw: for brides and models who want their pictures taken in the scenic setting, for people seeking solace, for crafters making lavender wreaths and a plethora of events from country rock performances to an open house for dogs.

Lavender for dogs

Lavender allegedly has a calming influence. I had a chance recently to test its effects on my super-active dog Jojo, an Australian cattle dog with energy to burn. I asked my friend Connie with her rescue dog, Kona, who had been a good companion when we walked in the park, to come with me to Star Bright Farm for a benefit for BARCs, Baltimore’s largest pet adoption agency.

Star Bright opened up its lavender fields to the dogs for the event.

Driving out the 36 miles from Baltimore through the beautiful north Baltimore County countryside, the dogs were not getting along. Jojo, safely contained in her crate, was snarling and barking at Kona, who was curled up under the back seat with anxiety.

Maybe the dogs were relieved by simply getting out of the car, but by the time we led them out to roam (on the leash) down the curved rows filled with thick cushions of lavender, they were in dog heaven.

*Connie (left) and me (right) with happy dogs Kona and Jojo in foreground.*

Jojo and Kona were nearly drunk on the smell and the fields were alive with the happy sniffs and arfs of over twenty assorted dogs. Kona just lay down and chilled.

Mulberry Alert

June 13, 2023June 13, 2023gotofarms 1 Comment

Mulberry Alert: It’s mulberry season– the time of year you can find berries splat on the street and cars–and best, smack in your mouth.

I’ve been checking out mulberries in my neighborhood in keeping with Mulberry Madness, an annual event sponsored by the Baltimore Orchard Project (BOP) to boost mulberries as an urban food source.

Since I’ve been investigating, I see the trees everywhere in the city, especially in Wyman Park and the 170-year-old Stone Hill neighborhood. If you don’t know where they are, look for the tell-tale signs deep purple and red splotches on the street, or on the cars. But don’t let the stains put you off. They are the source of some transformative childhood memories and nutrition rivalling blueberries.

*Passing up a natural harvest of mulberries on the street in Stone Hill neighborhood*

Mulberry memories

Nina Cardin, founder of the Baltimore Orchard Project (BOP) described how she harvested mulberries recently with two of her grandchildren. First, she gathers the materials: the sheets (to catch the mulberries), the tins (to put them in), the picker (to shake and gently beat the tree with).

They go to the tree, she writes poetically in an email, “and lay the sheets under the most promising branches, as if setting a table or arranging a bed. Then approaching the tree and in a way, asking permission to harvest, we shake the branches! the little one grabs the lower branches and shakes; the bigger one takes this special shaking stick that someone from the BOP made for me! And then the real fun begins – the berries drop like rain, all around us. They love the power they have, the connection with the tree, the bounty that falls at their feet. It is pure joy.”

Food writer Rob Kasper recalls a childhood encounter with mulberries on the way to the ball field with his rag tag baseball team. “As a boy of 10 I would climb a trio of mulberry trees that stood in a park near a baseball field. En route to a loosely organized pickup game, we ballplayers—a collection of brothers, cousins and neighborhood kids—would toss down our gloves and bats and scale the trees.

“We quickly learned to hunt for the darkest berries, discarding the tart white and red ones, fingering the dark mealy orbs and popping them into our mouths.

“Later in life I would discover deeper pleasures—the piercingly delightful taste of raspberries, low-bush blueberries and Oregon huckleberries. But as a kid, perched in a tree, shaded from the summer sun and feasting on found fruit, the mulberries seemed like treasure.”

Growing up, we feasted on a mulberry tree in the driveway of my friend Paula’s house. We dined on mulberries for a treat before going out to explore the neighborhood.

(Send your mulberry memories to the comment section below)

My friend Joyce is not so romantic about the fruit: when she first moved to Baltimore, she planted a tree in the fall to enhance the backyard. By spring, the tree was thriving. She set up a sandpile under the shade of the tree for her toddler daughter, who she dressed up to play in some pretty white pants with a new little t-shirt. When her daughter came in from playing, the pants were stained from cuff to waist in bright purple. That was how Joyce discovered she had planted a mulberry tree.

Admittedly, the mulberry has gotten a bad rap, sometimes deserving. It stains clothes, patios, cars and whatever it falls upon. Deb Howard, one of BOPs advocates, promotes the mulberry and service berries as little known, even disrespected, fruit that deserves a second bite. She eats mulberries in waffles. “It’s great to mix in yoghurt. My whole family loves mulberries.”

According to Healthline, the mulberry is an antioxidant and a great source of Vitamin C and iron, plus K & E, and other vitamins. The mulberry tree gained prominence in China for its leaves, which were the only food the silkworm would eat.

Mulberry Madness

This month volunteers are foraging for the berries from the streets and parks of Baltimore, bringing in this ignored fruit into the everyday diet of Baltimore citizens.

*Volunteers from Gertrude’s restaurant harvest mulberries in Druid Hill park and around the city. Gertrude’s is making a delectable lemon ricotta pancake to be sold at Waverly Market .*

They will collect a total of about 40-50 pounds. These are distributed to vendors as raw material for whatever delectable food they can make. Atwater’s makes mulberry jam. and Gertrude’s will create lemon ricotta pancakes with mulberries, which will be available for sale at the Waverly Farmers’ Market in Baltimore Saturday, June 17 for culmination of Mulberry Madness. There will also be mulberry soap and mulberry muffins.

Baltimore Orchard Project: increasing trees and fruit in the city

Besides promoting mulberries, the Baltimore Orchard Project has planted over 2,000 fruit trees since 2013 with the help of volunteers and the expertise and resources of the Baltimore Tree project. Cardin came up with the idea of planting fruit trees in neighborhoods that lacked access to fresh food, while she was in Boston when her husband was on sabbatical at Harvard in 2013.

” I kept reading about food deserts, community dissolution and the need to craft community cohesiveness. What can connect all this? It all pointed to fruit trees. I decided to start an organization to plant and harvest fruit trees in food deserts and vacant lots in Baltimore,” Cardin says.

The project has been doing its share to increase the tree canopy in the city, which has as its goal to increase the tree canopy by 40 percent by 2037. At the same time, the fruit trees provide a source of fresh fruit in food deserts. According to BOP, one in four Baltimore City residents live in a food desert, with limited access to fresh food.

Rather than planting a large orchard, the Baltimore Orchard Project is working on a small scale to offer individual homeowners a kind of tree kit, the Home Orchard Project (conveniently acronymed HOP), which includes a fruit tree, two blueberry bushes and perennials. HOP will plant in pre-approved neighborhoods.

Two years ago, next to the community garden in Druid Hill park, the group created an orchard of 20 fruit trees to use as a model for pruning and other kinds of workshop to demonstrate to urban tree growers how to care for their fruit trees. Volunteers worked with Tree Baltimore, which provided the trees: fig, persimmon, apple and pear. On a recent visit with Deb Howard, former president of BOP, the 2-year-old trees looked healthy, fresh and green. Wire fences surrounding each tree keep the deer out, native wildflowers are planted to keep the weeds and a device Deb calls “tree diapers,” plastic covering the roots under the mulch, keeps the moisture in.

*Deb Howard shows one of the healthy fruit trees in the orchard at Druid Hill*

“We planted this orchard to host pruning events so people could come and take the skills back,” says Deb.

Back on a walk from the park, through Stone Hill, my feet are squishing hundreds of mulberries. The berries are covering the SUVs and the street with deep purple dots. Maybe, some say, urban blight. I say it is urban delight. I savor the ripest one, nearly black, sweet and free.