Summertime & the living is easy

Cherries have always been one of my all-time favourites. When moving to our current rental, we were overjoyed to learn we would be the caretakers of not only 4 cherry trees, but also a summer apple, winter apple, macintosh, crab apple, italian plums, red plums, green plums and say about 15 apricot trees on this beautiful 2 acre lot. We aren’t the only ones with fruit trees either, many residences and public areas have both domesticated and wild fruit trees. So there really is no limit to the amount of food you can put away here, it all depends on how much time you have to pick.

Meanwhile, there are some folks who for various reasons are unable to pick their fruit and need assistance. Here in Lillooet I volunteer to coordinate the (1) Lillooets' - Gleaning for Life Group | Facebook where folx with fruit trees can connect with people looking to pick fruit. We also harvest extra for those who would like fruit but are unable to pick. While this is a local initiative, there are many similar groups that offer gleaning services in a variety of towns and cities, I recommend finding your local gleaning group to get in on the action.

Alternatively, you really don’t need an organization to find fruit that needs to be rescued. An easy way to gain access to fruit is to simply knock on peoples doors who are not harvesting their trees and volunteer to help in exchage for a share of the harvest, more than likely they will let you take whatever you pick as they weren’t harvesting in the first place.

Once you get all that delicious goodness its up to you how you want to put it away. I enjoy canning fruits whole, making spreads, juices, jams, freezing & drying my fruit depending on each fruit I have my preferred way of preserving, which is also determined by the abundance of each fruit each year.