Welcome Fruit Owners!

Thank you for sharing your fruit with Fruit Share.  We promise to make good use of your fruit and to respect your property at picking time.  Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect as a fruit owner.

Fruit Registration (A two step process)

Step 1 – Click here to complete our Fruit Registration Form to register your fruit with us.  This gives us general information about the type of fruit that will become available throughout the year.  You can complete this form any time of the year.

Step 2 – When your fruit is almost ripe (about 1 week before picking time), please send us an email or call us to initiate the process of scheduling volunteers to come pick your fruit.

Once you have provided a picking date and time that is convenient for you, we’ll post the information to our volunteers.  Once the volunteers have indicated their availability and interest in picking your fruit, you will get a confirmation notice with the names and emails of the volunteers scheduled to pick your fruit.  If there are any changes or circumstances that arise, you’ll be asked to contact the Fruit Share Coordinator via email or phone ([email protected] or 204-272-8520 or 204-326-3919 in Steinbach).

Note: We  do our best to accommodate all fruit picking requests and will post your fruit picking information a minimum of three times to try to recruit volunteers for your fruit.  Unfortunately, there are times when volunteers are unable to fill a picking request.  In the event that no volunteers sign up for your scheduled pick, please consider some of the other options available to you for sharing your bounty found in Sharing the Harvest: A Guide to Harvesting and Sharing Backyard Fruit.

What Happens At the Pick?

Our volunteers will arrive at your house as agreed to in the confirmation email.   For food safety reasons, our volunteers will begin by removing and composting any dropped fruit that is on the ground when they arrive.  Once the area is cleared, the volunteers will begin harvesting the fruit.  This may take anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours depending on the fruit, the amount of fruit and the number of volunteers.  Once they are finished, the volunteers will clear the area and leave it as neat and tidy as they found it (or better!).  The volunteers will split the fruit as agreed upon in the confirmation email, compost any compostables and deliver 1/3 of the fruit to one of our charity groups.  They will let our office know how much fruit was harvested and where it was donated, which will then be posted on our blog.

Your help in clearing the picking area, providing picking equipment (if available), allowing us use of a compost bin (if available) and making the fruit accessible is greatly appreciated.

Note: We are extremely proud of our volunteers and the care and respect they show fruit owners’ property and fruit.  We also care about them a great deal and instruct them to be safe and avoid taking unnecessary risks.  Please understand that sometimes, this means that parts of a fruit tree may not be able to be picked (e.g. if the fruit hangs over a delicate structure or the fruit is higher than can be safely reached with a ladder, etc.).

What is Fruit Share?
Fruit Share is dedicated to picking, sharing and enjoying fresh fruit growing in backyards throughout  Manitoba. We connect fruit owners with volunteer fruit pickers to make good use of all that delicious, nutritious local fruit. Fruit owners make their fruit available for picking, volunteers pick the fruit and then the fruit is shared – 1/3 to the homeowner, 1/3 to the volunteers and 1/3 to community organizations that can use the fruit (eg. Winnipeg Harvest, Agape Table, etc.). Everyone benefits!

Our Goals
While minimizing food waste is a major goal of the project, Fruit Share is also about fostering a sense of community and being conscientious about sustainable, local food systems.  In short our goals are to:

• minimize food waste
• foster a strong sense of community
• promote local food production
• share resources
• share knowledge of food preservation and preparation
• share knowledge of fruit tree maintenance

Your Role as a Fruit Owner
Your job is easy, simply let us know what fruit you have and when, approximately, it might be ready to harvest.  Then, as long as we have volunteers available, we’ll do the rest!  You don’t even have to be at home if you don’t want to be.

To start the process, complete the Fruit Registration Form and contact us about two weeks before the fruit is ready to be harvested.

Please keep in mind that although we will do our best to find volunteers to harvest your fruit, we cannot guarantee that volunteers will be able to come out. We have fruit trees ready for harvest all over the city, and our organization depends on the ability of our volunteers to have the time and necessary equipment in order to come to pick your tree.

Benefits of Registering with Fruit Share
There are so many benefits of sharing your fruit with Fruit Share!  For example you’ll get…

• fresh fruit with no effort at all
• a cleanly picked fruit tree
• a sense of relief at not wasting food
• a sense of contributing to the community
• a tidy yard
• new friends
• new recipes

Let us do all the picking for you and get 1/3 of the harvest.  Or, call us after you’ve picked whatever you want and we’ll take the remaining fruit.