It’s a question that has become more and more important for the volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard: Who is allowed to harvest and eat the apples, cherries, plums and apricots from our fruit trees?

We have had some challenges over the past few years. In 2013 our three cherry trees were bearing well and we were just about to organize a harvest day when, overnight, all the cherries from all three trees vanished in the night.

There was no mess. No pits on the ground. But there were also absolutely no cherries. We later discovered that a witness had seen a park visitor come to the park with some shopping bags. She harvested all three trees and walked away with two bags full of ripe, sweet cherries.

All this before the volunteers who care for these trees and the pollinator garden even had an opportunity to taste the fruit.

Another problem we have is park visitors harvesting fruit – especially small apples or apricots – before they are ripe. Maybe they take a bite, discover the fruit is hard, and then they throw it away. Or maybe they pick the fruit to play catch with. We don’t know.

But on a recent stewardship day, a group of volunteers discussed the problem and one of our team, Deb, came up with an answer:

“I think an important part of our job isn’t just to teach people about fruit trees and how they grow, but it’s also to educate people in how to share publicly grown fruit,” Deb said.

It makes a lot of sense.

Right now we need to develop signage for our orchard to explain the policy in our orchard park. We encourage people to taste the fruit if it’s ripe but not to harvest the whole tree. One of the new signs we have developed says:

“If you see something ripe, pick one or two. Please leave the rest for someone else.”

We have another sign that we’ve put on a number of the trees, pictured above, that says:

NOT RIPE: Please do not remove the fruit from this tree. It is not ripe yet.

Our hope is that in the future, there will be lots of fruit to share, both so that our wonderful volunteers can enjoy the fruit of their labours and so that we can share the bounty with park visitors.

But I think we have lots of work ahead of us. One of our goals is to raise some money for a beautiful, permanent sign for our park, explaining what our orchard is all about and what our harvest policy is.

How do you protect your fruit from two-legged fruit-eating bandits? I’d love to hear!

This blog was written by Susan Poizner, one of the founders of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard and the author of the award-winning fruit tree care book “Growing Urban Orchards“. She is also the creator of the fruit tree care training website www.orchardpeople.com.