Over the past several years, Santa Cruz Fruit Tree Project has been working with the City of Santa Cruz to develop the city's first community orchard. Riverside Community Orchard was launched in early 2015 when more than fifty volunteers came out to plant twelve dwarf apple, pear, and citrus trees along a fence line at Riverside Gardens Park.

On Saturday, February 4, the group will break ground on a major expansion of the orchard, planting upwards of twenty more trees across the street, in an open area adjacent to the skate park and ball courts of Mike Fox Park, by the San Lorenzo River levee. The orchard will be tended by volunteers as a fruit-bearing public resource, and will play host to a variety of educational workshops. Interestingly, much of this neighborhood was once the site of a famous pear orchard, in the flood plain of the pre-levee river, from the late 19th century up to the 1940s.

Read More | Saturday, February 4: Community Orchard Planting Extravaganz