Instant Orchard

Among tree-planting peers, no other nonprofit markets quite so aggressively.

by Bruce Schimmel

To make an Instant Orchard, you take a small unused lot, mulch it heavily and cover it liberally with fruit trees, berry bushes, edible shrubs and herbs. Water regularly, wait till it's warm outside and serve.

Paul Glover and Domenic Vitiello were the genial hosts on a damp Saturday morning for a recent planting party at Second and Susquehanna. Last spring, Glover started the Philadelphia Orchard Project [Naked City, "A Peach of a Plan," Sam Tremble, May 16, 2007], and this orchard near Norris Square is POP's fourth.

In one corner presided Glover, a redhead still bubbling with the fervor of the '60s. When he arrived in Philly from Ithaca in 2005, he tried to replicate the health insurance co-op he set up in New York here. But Pennsylvania bureaucrats stonewalled him.

Now reborn as an urban arborist, surrounded by student volunteers wielding shovels, Glover was practicing what he calls "pizza socialism," as he handed out slices to those taking a break from digging.

The other master of ceremonies, Dominic Vitiello, is more owlish: A young local guy recruited by Glover to serve as POP's president, he was deeply engrossed in conversation with the women from POP's community partners, Grupo Motivos.

The women of Grupo Motivos — sponsored by the Norris Square Neighborhood Project — are credited with some of the lusher flower and veggie patches around the Norris Square. This will be their first foray into fruit.

In addition to the women and students (Glover teaches at Temple; Vitiello at Penn), a couple of older neighborhood guys of various hues showed up for some shoveling, along with a smattering of younger Hispanic men.

It was a fine moment of camaraderie, as diggers shrugged off the late-season chill. Even the Saturday morning regulars at Angelo's Bar across the street looked up from their beers. A couple eventually wandered out, and one said he'd help watch the orchard.

So far, things have gone well for POP. The nonprofit's South Philly orchard reportedly started pumping out peaches this summer. If you donate some money to POP this winter, Glover says that trees will be planted as soon as the frost breaks, in a neighborhood that's ripe for an orchard.

Among their tree-planting peers, no other nonprofit markets their wares quite so aggressively. POP's rates are listed right on their Web site: phillyorchards.org. They have a package for every budget. From a single tree for $25, to a three-acre, thousand tree orchard for $3.5 million.

The Grupo Motivos orchard cost about $2,500, which came from an anonymous Chestnut Hill donor. The price also seems right for a holiday donation from a small business.

This orchard got seven apple, four pear, four fig and three plum trees; six blueberry bushes, five raspberries and three serviceberries (yeah, new to me, too); with lingonberries, chives and false indigo to cover the ground. No partridge for the pear trees; but from Glover, don't rule it out.

I want to give an orchard like this for the holidays. (I mean does anyone really need more stuff?) I want to give friends and family a grove in their honor. Invite everyone to a spring planting party: serve food, invite musicians, dance and dig in the dirt. And, with luck, there will be some fruit and berries by summer. (Neighborhood groups who care for the POP orchards decide who gets the bounty: Sometimes it's free harvest, other times it's distributed to low-income families or sold at farmers markets to raise funds for local nonprofits.)

Now, of course, planting fruit trees in an urban environment is somewhat a matter of luck. You can plant an orchard in an instant, but only time will tell how well it will fare. You have to believe that nature and people will somehow cooperate.

So, yeah, planting urban orchards is an act of faith. But, hey, isn't believing in the future what this season is about?

(bruce@schimmel.com)