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City Slicker Farms
1625 16th Street
Oakland, CA 94607
Backyard Gardeners Build Pruning Skills
This winter, in an effort to keep Backyard Gardeners’ fruit trees healthy and share pruning skills, City Slicker Farms’ staff and mentors are embarking on a first-ever fruit tree pruning project, heading out into backyards across West Oakland. Although CSF has traditionally offered some winter assistance to Backyard Gardeners, such as pruning and dormant spraying, Backyard Garden Program Coordinator, Alison Fischman, found that it was not meeting Backyard Gardeners’ needs.
When mentor Maggie Philipsborn reached out to Alison about starting a fruit tree mapping project, they decided it could be an opportunity to help Backyard Gardeners develop pruning skills while also gathering information to build their map. Alison offered the service to Backyard Gardeners, and so far has gotten a great response, with 23 gardeners signing up. Alison and Maggie, along with City Slicker Farm’s Mentor Joseph Davis, will visit Backyard Gardeners to show them correct pruning techniques and to survey each fruit tree. Survey information will be compiled into a map and City Slicker Farms will assess how best to use the data based on Backyard Gardeners’ needs.
We want to thank Maggie for all of her planning support and technical assistance in this process. We look forward seeing a map of our neighborhood’s fruit tree bounties!