When the 200 fruit trees recently planted throughout San Francisco as part of the City’s Urban Orchards program reach maturity, the fruit they bear and clean air they help create will be enjoyed for years to come by the surrounding communities.
Friends of the Urban Forest recently partnered with the San Francisco Department of the Environment and volunteers from throughout San Francisco to plant 200 fruit trees in a single day as part of the City’s Urban Orchards program. Pictured here, a team at Westbrook Community Garden plants a tree, which will remove a half-ton of carbon from the atmosphere and aid in storm water retention. Photo courtesy of Friends of the Urban Forest
By Bill Picture
Published: March, 2013
When the 200 fruit trees recently planted throughout San Francisco as part of the City’s Urban Orchards program reach maturity, the fruit they bear and clean air they help create will be enjoyed for years to come by the surrounding communities.
Trees don’t get as much credit as humans for improving air quality, but these carbon-eating heroes’ contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is as important as any walking, talking species. Not only does a single tree remove a half-ton of carbon from the atmosphere; its existence in an urban environment also lends a sense of beauty and calm to its surroundings.
"We planted all 200 trees in one day," said Karla Nagy of Friends of the Urban Forest, which partnered with the San Francisco Department of the Environment on the Urban Orchards program. "We had seven trucks go out that day, and each truck visited three sites. I planted 25 trees myself that day. The goal was to create little mini-orchards."
Orchards in San Francisco?
Despite that "coldest winter I ever spent" quote famously attributed to Mark Twain and residents’ cracks about never being able to leave home without an emergency layer even on the sunniest day, the truth is, San Francisco isn’t cold enough for many fruit trees.
"It definitely gets chilly here, just not to the extent needed for many fruit trees," Nagy said. "Different trees need different things, and most fruit trees require a longer winter, which we don’t have in San Francisco. So we had to find trees that have what’s called ‘low chill hours.’" The 200 fruit trees eventually selected included a variety of apples, plums and pears.
The other challenge, Nagy said, was identifying parts of the City where the fruit trees stood the best chance of thriving and producing fruit. "For fruit trees to be the most viable, you want to find the areas that are the warmest, and that have good drainage," she explained.
Sounds easy enough, right? San Francisco’s microclimates make for warm pockets that range from just a few square blocks to an entire neighborhood. The problem is that soil quality varies wildly, and along with it, suitability for any kind of agricultural purpose. "The warmest areas of the City are probably in the Mission," said Nagy. "But the soil there tends to be clay-heavy, which drains very slowly. So there’s a lot that you have to consider when you’re looking at a site."
Twenty-three locations throughout the City made the final cut. These locations include a mix of public land and private land accessible to the public. In order to have a tree planted, the property owner had only to apply, undergo a site inspection to ensure that the site was viable, and pay a $25 planting fee, which includes maintenance for the next five years.
While the $25 helps offset related costs, the Urban Orchards program is primarily funded by the San Francisco Carbon Fund. Since 2009, City departments have paid a 13 percent surcharge for employee air travel, and the money has been used to support public and private efforts to reduce and offset greenhouse gas emissions.
"We put the word out in the urban agriculture network and let everyone in that community know that [the tree planting] was going to be happening," Nagy said. "Most of the sites are community gardens, but there are some private properties that communities can access. For instance, a side yard adjacent to a sidewalk might qualify, because the public would have access to it. That was a requirement—that the land had to be accessible by the public."
Improving air, building community
As if absorbing greenhouse gases weren’t an admirable enough job, the Urban Orchards program’s 200 trees will also aid in storm water retention, easing the strain on San Francisco’s combined sewer system during heavy rains. And what’s more, the day they were planted, the trees saw neighborhoods come together in the name of sustainability, livability and community.
The San Francisco Department of the Environment provided a small army of volunteers to assist the Friends of the Urban Forest team with the daunting task of planting 200 fruit trees in a single day. But each of the sites receiving trees was also asked to recruit its own crew of volunteers. "And the turnout was good," Nagy said. "Each place we went to there were people from the neighborhood, and everyone was really excited. It was really cool, and it felt really good."
"Every time San Franciscans plant trees, they make the City a more sustainable, livable and beautiful place," said Friends of the Urban Forest Executive Director Dan Flanagan. "And when the trees also serve as a community food source, we really win big."
For more information on the Urban Orchards program, visit www.sfenvironment.org/orchards.
