Blogs

So you came home from a harvest with a lot of beautiful red crabapples.  Now what?  Well, there are lots of great things that can be done with crabapples.  First, you should be aware that there are several types of crabapples.  The smaller ones, like in the picture at the top of this page, are called Dolgo crabs.  They are fantastic for making jelly because they produce a really great colour.  My jelly recipe is handed down from my mother and is pretty simple.  Throw the crabapples in a pot with an inch or so of water.  Cook them, stirring often, unti

Calgary Harvest was featured in a short segment on Global TV last weekend.  Since then, over 150 homeowners have registered their trees!  We now have 700 homes registered, and many of them have multiple trees.  The Calgary Urban Harvest Project is run entirely by volunteers.  We have 18 amazing coordinators who have taken on the job of coordinating the harvest in their areas of the city.  Our coordinators rely on volunteers who actually pick the fruit.  Currently, we do not have enough volunteers to keep up with the demand.  If you know someone who might b

Three different addresses to pick Sept 10 or 11th. Crabapple and Apple with a look at a PEAR tree...yes PEAR but it won't be ready until later in Sept. But good chance to have a look while picking apples. Lets hope the weather remains good for the weekend! Any ladders/bins/bags will be appreciated. More details to come later in the week. Friends and kids all welcome! More later.

Lorne (Sept 4)

Turns out in Calgary you can find some big apples....

And some sweet apples...

But who thought you could find both in one?! 

What a gorgeous day to spend outside harvesting apples. You would think as a long-time Calgarian, that this weather would be what stood out most about today, but I am so excited about the Lee Valley Fruit Picker that we were able to try out today.Thanks Stacey for sending it with us. I think it will be the highlight of all apple harvests this season! What a weird looking contraption, but does it ever get the job done. I feel like I have to say that small things amuse small minds, but you just wait, you will all be joining me in praise of this tool.

The coordinators got together today for the first harvest of the 2011 season.  The season is just starting, so it is mostly cherries at this point, with a few early apples.  There was a lot of conversation and also a few pained exclamations from amidst the thorny gooseberry bushes!  We had a great time and are looking forward to working together this harvest season. 

Calgary Harvest’s first full season was a huge success! About 50 volunteers picked fruit from over 100 registered fruit trees. The fruit was distributed to a wide variety of people: homeowners, volunteers, food bank and homeless shelter clients, and farmer’s market customers. Essentially, this project grew way faster than expected, and we quickly became swamped! While we did manage to get to just over 100 trees last season, there were almost 400 registered when the harvest season was over! 

We are looking for coordinators who will be responsible for directing the local harvest in their own neighbourhood. We would love to find coordinators for each community in Calgary! Calgary Harvest is much more than a local fruit distribution network. It brings people together, forming new friendships and building and strengthening communities. This is your chance to be a part of that community building!

We had such a successful season this year, and we cannot thank everyone who helped out enough! New friendships were made, so many fresh and tasty fruit was picked, and so many homeowners met the volunteers and had a delightful experience. Next year, watch out! This project is going to triple in size! Check this out: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Fruit+rescue/3810960/story.html   

If you are adept at MS Excel (including writing macros in VBScript) and/or knowledgeable in PHP code, and wish to donate a small amount of your time to a good cause, WE NEED YOU! The Calgary Urban Harvest Project is growing extremely quickly, and with so many registered trees and volunteers, we need put put our computer to work matching up volunteers with trees and all that. As we have no funding, I am doing it manually and its resulting in full time unpaid work (I love doing it, but I have put my day job on hold as a result).