A Home for Your Wayward Apples

Crosspost of my post at Dara&Co:

Do you have an apple tree in your backyard that’s producing more than you can handle? Would you rather share your excess apples than rake them? You and your apples can bring excess fresh produce to Twin Cities residents in need.

Fruits of the City is a program of The Minnesota Project, which is a nonprofit group that works to ensure equitable distribution of energy and food in communities across Minnesota. They want to harvest, or “glean,” fresh fruit that would otherwise go to waste. In 2009, they partnered with Second Harvest Heartland and volunteers to collect more than 15,000 pounds of fruit. In addition to apples, they also collect pears and plums.

Ways to get involved:

* Volunteer to pick fruit at one of their gleaning events
* Donate unwanted fruit from your trees
* Volunteer to transport fruit from front yards to food shelves
* Donate cash

Read more about the program online. To register now as a volunteer gleaner or tree owner, visit their volunteer hub online.

[where: Sustainable Food, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Twin Cities, Minnesota]

Sustainable Food: Earthen Path Organic Farm in Oak Center, MN

Source: Cooking Up a Story

Oak Center, Minnesota. You might say organic farmer Steven Schwen plows a different path through life; one built of a strong connection to the land, without many of the trappings we normally would associate as necessities of modern living.



It was a deliberate choice that he made. Schwen believes that we, as a society, have been lured down the path of consumerism, and profit, at the expense of the environment and of our souls. “I think it’s important for people to understand that we are all connected to land and labor… When I started out, I thought I’m going to change the world. And all of those people who went back to the land who are still doing this, we are going to do something to change this world. And you know, we are helping shape people’s thinking but I think there has been a lot of resistance because of the comfort levels that material security has been providing people. People have been saying, yeah, I want to do that someday. But circumstances are becoming such that people will not have those choices anymore, and people realize that.”

Steven Schwen was not born into farming, and in fact, first went to medical school before realizing it was living a more sustainable existence that he needed to pursue.

…”I guess I grew up in the country, and my family lived a mile and a half out of town. I spent my childhood looking under logs to see what lived there and running around in the woods, and just animals and nature were my life.”

His parents recognized his early love of nature, especially of bugs, and suggested it could lead to a career in science, and so they encouraged him to become a doctor. But Schwen later discovered that the concept of general practitioner that he had growing up, the country doctor that paid house visits, was quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Upon graduating college in the early 1970’s, Schwen developed a vision of a sustainable world based upon the model of an agrarian society: small towns, local economies, and more people on the land. It was the only vision he could imagine that presented a lifestyle without the need for oil. During our interview, Schwen asks, “You know what one family can do with a team of horses, or with their own labor”?

As you can see in this, and the other related videos, Schwen shows us his answer— a lot!

[where: Sustainable Food, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Twin Cities, Minnesota]