edward vielmetti, lead blogger
Apples for Others: U-pick for Food Gatherers at Wasem's Fruit Farm in Milan
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Wasem's Fruit Farm in Milan is running an Apples for Others program this year. They had a tremendous fruit crop, and rather than having it go to waste they have organized special u-pick dates for individuals and groups to come to harvest the extras to donate to Food Gatherers. Bring your own bags.
I was out at the orchard on Saturday with my two boys, and between the three of us we picked about 23 pounds of apples in about 30 minutes. Ask inside for directions to the parts of the orchard that still have apples left on the trees; we picked mostly Ida Reds. Make sure not to pick up any apples from the ground. There are a few ladders in the fields which you can move in place to pick the fruit that's on branches too high up to reach by hand. My hooded sweatshirt ended up being good clothing to pick in, since the hand warmer pocket was useful to store apples temporarily while picking.
When we were finished, we brought the apples back to the office and dumped them carefully into a big bin, which we learned holds 17 to 18 bushels of apples. Food Gatherers has picked up 20 of these bins already.
I spoke with Jan Upston, an Ann Arbor Farmers Market regular and one of the owners of Wasem's Fruit Farm, to ask her about the program. She said that this had been an unusually good crop, with a relatively mild fall leaving lots of edible apples on the trees. Wasem's no longer sells apples wholesale, and they have picked what they expect that they can sell at retail, so rather than having the fruit go to waste they decided to run a special u-pick second harvest.
No trip to an apple orchard is complete without donuts, which are available at the farm store. They also sell unpasteurized cider, fresh apples, pie pumpkins, and donuts (did I mention donuts already? I will mention them again).
I'll have more details about how these apples are put to use after I talk to Food Gatherers.
Edward Vielmetti picks apples with his children for AnnArbor.com, and they assisted with the editing of this article.
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I'd really like to hear more about this, Ed, as some other farmers have wanted to do this kind of thing. I'd be keenly interested in the follow-up of how Food Gatherers got the apples and what they were planning to do with them as far as distribution went.
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Posted Nov 15 2009
donuts, donuts, donuts!!! - and jen - I learned that Food Gatherers tries to have a 24 hour turnaround on their fresh food like that - so I would imagine that the vielmetti family's hard work has already been handed over to their 150 or so partner programs.
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Posted Nov 16 2009
Very cool.
And kind of like gleaning.
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Posted Nov 16 2009
I talked to Eileen at Food Gatherers and she spoke of a state-wide program for gathering agricultural surplus called MASS, which organizes this sort of food donation on a large scale.
http://www.michigan.gov/mda/0,1607,7-125-1570_2468_46166---,00.html
Since 1990, the Michigan Department of Agriculture has funded a unique and effective program known as the Michigan Agricultural Surplus System. This program is designed to provide a means for the collection and distribution of Michigan's surplus agricultural
produce. The recipients of this produce include local pantries, soup kitchens and shelters. This involves an important and eclectic partnership between Michigan food banks, the state's agricultural community.
AnnArbor.com Staff
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Posted Nov 16 2009