Native Fruits with Lee Reich, Sept. 19, 2024

Native Fruits
June 20, 2024
7pm
Live and on Zoom
Elmwood Community Center
1106 New Britain Avenue, West Hartford
(Set your GPS to Burgoyne Street, West Hartford. The entrance to the community center is off Burgoyne Street.)
Members will receive the Zoom link the Sunday before the talk.
Free for members; non-members register here.
Most people, when they decide to grow fruits, plant apples or peaches, pears, cherries, and other familiar market fruits that mostly reflect this country’s traditionally European heritage. Consider native American fruits, which often are better adapted to withstand our pest and climate challenges, and look naturally at home in our landscapes. We’ll explore the beauty, the flavor, and the cultivation of American persimmon, pawpaw, beach plum, lingonberry, and a host of other native delectables, as well as blueberry — a relative newcomer to our market shelves.         

Lee Reich, PhD dove into gardening decades ago, initially with one foot in academia, as an agricultural scientist with the USDA and then Cornell University, and one foot in the field, the organic field. He eventually expanded his field to a “farmden” (more than a garden, less than a farm) and left academia to lecture, consult, and write. He is the author of 9 books and was a syndicated garden columnist for Associated Press for almost 30 years. Besides providing a year ‘round supply of fruits and vegetables, his farmden provides a testing ground for innovative techniques in soil care, pruning, and growing fruits and vegetables, and provides an educational site for workshops and training. Science and an appreciation of natural systems underpin his work.