At 3000' in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains there once were gold mining towns of 2,000-4,000 people scattered throughout the hills. These towns had orchards to feed the people apples, pears, plums, cherries, and figs.

100 years later, the people are gone, few structures remain... But scattered throughout the area, hundreds of these trees remain. Today, Michael Flynn had the good fortune to tour the area with Amigo Bob, a long time leader in the organic movement and a dedicated fruit historian.

What does this have to do with Fruit Tree Tour?

We cut scion from these old trees and Common Vision will be propogating hundreds of trees to plant at schools across northern California. From the oldest trees in the United States of these varieties to the youngest fruit tree planters in the state, Common Vision is honored to be a bridge for this history and sweet fruit.

The 100+ year cherry tree with a rainbow behind is one of these grandma trees we climbed today.

Trouble viewing? Click Here. We are just now finishing up our time here at Isis Oasis, the second stop on Fruit Tree Tour Orientation. On this property there are a number of fruit trees, some of which were originally planted by Luther Burbank, an American botanist, horticulturist and a pioneer in agricultural science who developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55 year career beginning in 1872. Richard Channing, a resident at Isis Oasis offered to help us harvest cuttings from an old white fig tree that Luther Burbank planted on the property nearly 100 years ago. We climbed up in the fig to simultaneously prune the tree and take what was cut for further propagation of white fig trees across California at schools and communities. We will take these cuttings with us to plant at our Roots to Fruits Nursery at the Alpha Center in Santa Barbara where they will be cared for as they root and grow ready to be transplanted next year. We are super grateful for the opportunity to share these amazing strains of Figs with other fruit lovers. Thank you Isis Oasis!

In Castro Valley, just southeast of Oakland, an international humanitarian and spiritual leader Amritananda Mayi has a center on several hundred acres of grassy hillsides. As part of her Green Friends initiative (which plants 100,000 saplings along the coast India each year) she has begun a campaign to plant trees in the United States starting with the center’s grounds. Just after Fruit Tree Tour ended, 5 Common Vision crew members brought the fruit tree grafting skill that they developed on tour to propagate 108 apple and pear trees to support the project. The grafted trees will be used as part of a fund raiser to support the reforestation effort in the Castro Valley hills.

I think I should start my first Common Vision blog by being completely honest: I've had my doubts about grafting at the schools. And it's not because I don't think grafting is cool. Grafting is way cool. I mean, we take a little stick from one tree, slice into another tree, insert our little stick into the slice, wrap it with tape, slap some goop on it, and BAM! if it heals properly we got ourselves a brand new yummy fruit tree. But I've still had my doubts as I've wondered whether or not a group of 4th or 5th graders would really find this little miracle as interesting as me, the over-enthusiastic somewhat quirky long-haired tree-planting stranger.

Well, we've including grafting in the tree planting groups at two schools so far on FTT '08: Vista del Valle Elementary in Claremont and Birney Elementary in San Diego. At both schools I had the opportunity to facilitate three grafting workshops during which we would plant a rootstock tree and then graft the scion of a desired variety onto the rootstock. And I gotta admit I was a bit surprised when the students were really into it! I told them that the green layer inside the bark contains the new cell factory (cambium) and has the tubes (xylem and phloem) that work like the veins in our bodies, moving around all the stuff the tree needs to live. And our goal is to get the thin green layer of the rootstock to link up with the thin green layer of the yummy fruit branch. Even though we don't give the students knifes to slice the scion, they were intent on watching me closely making sure I was doing a good job preparing the graft. Since the students still have a tree planting experience when we plant the rootstock, the grafting is like a fun magic trick that we add on.

So, there's a video at the top of this blog if you haven't noticed it yet. It was taken by crew member Annapurna this past week at Birney Elementary in San Diego. I think it gives a good snapshot of a grafting group, in case any of you out there were wanting a small taste of what a day of Fruit Tree Tour might look like. I'm hoping to get more video uploaded soon with more tree planting, scenes from our green theater performance, drum workshops, creative expression session footage, and, hopefully, some behind the scenes footage of "Life on Tour." So make sure you keep checking back here, ok?

Tomorrow we begin the LA chapter of Fruit Tree Tour '08!

Lots of love from the road,

In the course of an afternoon, the Fruit Tree Tour crew learned how to graft loads of varieties onto one tree from Common Vision's newest super friend Joe Sabol. This video is a load of fun, don't miss it!



This video was created by Brian Flynn, a 3rd year returning volunteer and a crucial part of the project.

For the last 20+ years members of the California Rare Fruit Growers take great care to keep the DNA of many fruit trees alive and growing through their annual Scion Exchanges. Scions are pieces of trees cut to begrafted onto a rootstock, creating a new tree and passing on the DNA.
The Heritage Orchard in Santa Clara contains over 350 varieties of fruit trees used for scion wood. Michael, Blair, Koral and I all attended our first scion cutting party to learn all we could from the devoted fruit tree lovers.

In late December I had the pleasure of meeting with master gardeners John Berchielli and Caroline, caretaker of the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center near Sacramento. Here, master gardeners have been experimenting with strategies for growing fruit in small urban plots. These are the true scientists of what Common Vision refers to as Schoolyard Orchard Culture—the art of planting many trees close together to maximize number of fruit varieties and number of months that fruit is available in the limited space of the schoolyard. Schoolyard Orchard Culture uses maintenance strategies that keep the trees low to the ground for ladder-free student harvesting and easier caretaking.

The good folks at Dave Wilson Nurseries (donors to the Fruit Tree Tour) have pioneered these techniques and here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center they have been testing them for the past decade. I came to talk to the experts on what will work best at schools across California. Here are some of the strategies that Fruit Tree Tour will be employing on this year’s tour:

Multiple Plantings (3-in-a-Hole): By planting three or four trees only feet from each other, we can, in the space of one full-sized tree, can have a peace, a nectarine, a plum, and an apricot. Or we can have three varieties of peach that ripen in May, August, and September, which means more months of students eating peaches for snacks instead of Doritos.

Espalier: Many schools have narrow patches of earth next to fence lines. In fact, for many schools this is the only pieces of dirt on the campus. Espalier is a technique that encourages lengthwise growth with little width. The effect is a fence or wall of fruit.

Cocktail Trees: Another strategy to maximize the schoolyard fruit varieties is the creation of cocktail trees. By grafting (> what is grafting) several varieties on one tree students can feast on apples from July until December on the same tree! One of the trees at Fair Oaks had over 50 varieties on one tree!

Caroline and the other caretakers of the center were excited to see their years of science going out to serve the public school children of California. They graciously invited me to cut scion wood from the trees in their orchard in order to graft cocktail trees at the each of the schools! Some May Apricots and September Pluots will certainly help to inspire the youth to choose nature’s sweetest candy, available every recess, free of charge!

The California Rare Fruit Growers is an inspiring organization that over the past three years has played a pivotal role in the Fruit Tree Tour. The organization is an eclectic group of hobbyists, backyard growers, government and university researchers, nurserymen and commercial growers that focus on growing fruit varieties that are not commonly grown commercially. They have been instrumental in diversifying the fruit varieties that Common Vision plants at the schools and extending the number of months that students can pick fruit from trees in their schoolyard.

This year Common Vision will be working hand-in-hand with several members of the Rare Fruit Growers to make possible the Fruit Tree Tour Nursery Rroject. The goal of the project is to grow 1000 trees a year that will provide schools from San Diego to Sacramento with fruiting trees that have delicious fruit of numerous varieties to harvest in ALL months of the school season. Stay tuned for more as this project develops!


Steven Spangler of the San Diego CRFG chapter and owner of Exotica Nursery has provided Fruit Tree Tour with an incredible mix of banana, tropical cherry, guava, fig, and cherimoya varieties that have been planted at schools throughout LA.

Each year Jerry Price also of the San Diego chapter has provided a workshop each year for the crew on tree care and planting and has been Common Vision’s go-to guy on all of our tree care questions.

Joe Sabol of the Central Coast CRFG chapter has run a High School Grafting Program where every spring he teaches students at 30 schools across the central coast to graft there own apple trees. This program has helped over 10,000 students to graft trees since 1998. This year he will be running a workshop for the Fruit Tree Tour crew to increase the crew’s grafting and teaching capacity for the Roots-to-Fruits Program.

Mark Alpert of the Mendocino CRFG chapter donated over fifty pineapple guava seedlings and hundreds of Jujube (Chinese dates) seeds last year which are growing in Santa Barbara area currently waiting patiently until they are old enough to go to school with the Fruit Tree Tour.


John Valenzuela currently of the Bay Area CRFG Chapter has been a key guide in the development of the Fruit Tree Tour Nursery Project plan. As an elder in the permaculture (sustainable design) movement, John is always suggesting innovative ways to do the least work for the most gain and to make the best use of local resources.

While each seed in an apple core will grow into a fruiting apple tree given the right conditions, only very rarely will the tree produce large and sweet (or even palatable) fruit like the apple from which the seed came. The only way to ensure the quality and character of the fruit is to cut a branch off a tree with the quality of fruit that you desire. This little branch (or scion) has several nodes out of which future branches and buds may grow.

All the little branch needs to grow an entire tree out of one of these little nodes is a steady flow of sap. Grafting is the art of attaching the sap flowing (or cambium) layer of the little branch to the sap flowing (or cambium) layer of a tree with roots. With a few careful cuts and some tape the little branch of the desired fruit variety becomes one tree with its new roots and grows into a full sized tree. Grafting is the method used for the propagation of most common fruit trees.

Common Vision is piloting “Roots to Fruits - School Nurseries to Feed Communities” at 3-4 schools on this year’s Fruit Tree Tour. Common Vision works with the students and teachers to propagate a nursery of 50 – 200 saplings of varieties of fruits that are especially requested and adapted for school plantings in their area. Common Vision educators demonstrate the process of grafting fruit trees (see Grafting 101 below). Students witness and participate in one of the most amazing miracles in nature, the combining of two trees to give both strong roots and delicious fruits. Common Vision gives students the charge to care for the young trees for two years. These trees can then be planted at community centers, neighborhoods in their area and shared with more schools during Fruit Tree Tours to come.

Common Vision’s first “Roots to Fruits” nurseries:

Vista Del Valle Elementary
3 years and 33 fruit trees deep in Fruit Tree Tour participation Vista was honored to be the first Roots to Fruits Nursery. They are caring for 50 grafted apples and 20 rooting fig cuttings.

North Hollywood High School
Under the guidance of soil science teacher Randy Vail, the students in the Naturalist Academy – an environmental track at North Hollywood High, will be hosting the largest Roots to Fruits Nursery. There nursery is holding 50 apples, 100 grape, and 100 fig trees for Fruit Tree Tour. Additionally they gifted Common Vision with 20 4 year old Cherimoya trees. Big thanks for this budding collaboration.